Sincerely, Saskia

Another day, another classic being resurrected for absolutely no reason. 

Are filmmakers on some unspoken mission to desecrate their most iconic characters by bringing them back to life in a society that has so obviously evolved past what they stood for? Can nobody accept things for what they were and simply create something new and inspiring instead of keeping once loved characters alive long enough for them to become the enemy?

ICYMI, Bridget Jones’s Diary is getting a fourth instalment and it’s safe to say that people are over it before it’s even begun – like seriously, nobody asked for this?

Classics are classics for a reason, and Bridget Jones’s Diary will always hold a special place in the genre. However, it’s 2024: attitudes are different, and people don’t want to be reminded of a time where accepting sexual harassment as affection was a thing. 

I can understand the temptation to bring back an icon to compete with the crazy amount of content we have at our fingertips, but peddling a character that some would deem partly responsible for a whole generation of fatphobia and internalised misogyny is probably not the one to go with. 

It didn’t start with Bridget, and it certainly didn’t end with her, but the fact that she’s looking to make another comeback has put her right in the firing line. 

Personally, I love a bit of Bridget. I’m a sucker for Mark Darcy and share the collective view that Daniel Clever — and any man like him — should be swiftly voted off the island. 

When you watch the first Bridget Jones’s Diary, you can’t help but feel delulu in your longing for noughties nostalgia; where central London living was deemed affordable, everyone had dream jobs that demanded very little from them and you never missed drinks down the pub with your friends. Although Bridget may have glamorised chain smoking and ugly sweaters, she also represented things a whole generation of women are trying to move on from — and quite frankly, don’t want to be reminded of. I am, of course, talking about normalising fatphobia, aspiring to toxic relationships and perpetuating that being single was a fate worse than death.  

I for one was never triggered by Bridget Jones. As a fat woman, it was laughable that she was supposed to be representative of the fat experience. As a Black woman, there were some fundamentals in her experience that I simply couldn’t relate to, and as someone with one iota of common sense, I never understood the moments pause when deciding between Daniel Cleaver and Mark Darcy. Absolute lunacy.

That being said, I’m not blind to the fact that Bridget Jones has no place in 2024, amongst the more progressive projects working overtime trying to undo all the bad habits we picked up from noughties rom coms. It didn’t start with Bridget, and it certainly didn’t end with her, but the fact that she’s looking to make another comeback has put her right in the firing line. 

I mean, ‘come the fuck on Bridget’ (iykyk), we didn’t even need Bridget Jones’s Diary Edge of Reason — yes, I said it — let alone a fourth which undoubtedly sees her arguing with her child about TikTok and excessive screen time, single again and making shallow estimations about life on dating apps. 

Did we learn nothing from Bridget Jones’s Baby? 

With a new one on the horizon, they’re putting the original at risk.

Released 12 years after the shambles that was Edge of Reason, Bridget Jones’s Baby already showed us that the bunny costume wearing, blue soup making Londoner should have been well and truly left in 2001. 

Yes, it had its funny moments, and it was nice to see glimpses of a Bridget that we all know and love, but it’s not like anyone was basing their happiness off whether or not Bridget impressed the millennials at work who were telling her she’s too old to produce the news. 

And let’s face it, it didn’t exactly give us any special insight into life as an older woman or any real trials and tribulations that women face the older they get. All I learnt from Bridget Jones’s Baby is that it’s apparently acceptable for doctors to call a pregnant woman in her 40s ‘geriatric’ — and that’s a lesson I probably could have done without. 

It’s not that a film as surface level as Bridget Jones should even be a beacon for insightful and thought-provoking social commentary, but if you’re going to come out of retirement 12 years down the line, you better have something new to say, and Bridget didn’t. And, she probably won’t have anything new to say this time around either. 

At the moment, we have collectively decided the film was of its time, and although it may not be a shining example of feminism, it’s a good movie not to be taken seriously as we all now know better.

But with a new one on the horizon, they’re putting the original at risk. Of course, I’m going to have to watch it when it comes out. If for no other reason than to see if the memory of our beloved Bridget, who we like ‘just the way she is’, remains in one piece or whether the incessant need to revive films that don’t need reviving ruins this British classic.

Image credit: IMDB