Bridget Jones

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This article is about the fictional character. For the real-life actor and writer, see Bridget Jones (actor).

Bridget Jones is a fictional character created by English writer Helen Fielding.

In the mid-nineties, Charles Leadbeater, at the time the features editor of the English newspaper The Independent, offered Helen Fielding, then a journalist on The Independent on Sunday, a weekly column about urban life in London designed to appeal to young professional women. Fielding accepted and Bridget Jones was born on 28 February 1995.[1] The instantaneous popularity of the columns led to publication of the first book, Bridget Jones's Diary, in 1996.

They chronicled the life of Bridget Jones, a thirtysomething single woman living in London, surrounded by a surrogate "urban family" of friends as she tries to make sense of life and love in the 1990s. The column lampooned the obsession of women with women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan and wider societal trends in Britain at the time.

The column appeared regularly every Wednesday on the pages of The Independent for almost three years: the last one was published on 10 September 1997. A couple of months later, on 15 November 1997, Helen Fielding resumed her weekly diary on the The Daily Telegraph[2]. The second book, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, was published on 1998, and Fielding ceased to work for The Daily Telegraph on 19 December 1998.

The feature began again in The Independent on August 4, 2005. A book containing all of the original columns was given away with the paper the following Saturday. This relaunch of the column is also printed in the Irish Independent.

Contents

[edit] Bridget Jones's Diary

These columns were made into a novel in 1996, Bridget Jones's Diary, and turned into a movie of the same name in 2001, directed by Sharon Maguire. The plot is loosely based on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (and the sequel would be based on the plot of another of Austen's novels, Persuasion). There are many differences between the books and the movies.

[edit] Plot

Bridget Jones is a single, thirty three year old woman who has a monotonous life. She has some bad habits - smoking and drinking too much - but she annually writes her New Year’s resolutions in her diary, determined to stop smoking, drink no more than fourteen alcohol units a week, and eat more pulses.

The film opens at her parents’ Christmas party where Bridget is cajoled by her mother to be re-introduced to Mark Darcy, a handsome up-and-coming barrister with whom she played as a child. Both of them are dressed by their mothers and after a rather short, uncomfortable conversation, take an instant dislike to each other.

Bridget’s parents' marriage takes a turn for the worse. Her mother, bored with her life as a housewife in the country, runs off with Julio, a Portuguese man of shady character. In the movie Bridget's mum runs off with a home-shopping network celebrity. Another difference from the book is that in the movie Bridget's mother moves out, but in the book she kicks her husband out. Daniel Cleaver, Bridget’s boss, starts flirting with her, and after some antics end up together. However, Daniel proves to be a "fuckwit" who leaves Bridget for an American "stick insect". Mark Darcy keeps popping into Bridget's life, being extremely awkward, and sometimes coming off a bit rude. In the end Bridget and Mark reach an understanding of each other and find a sort of happiness.

The movie starred Renée Zellweger as Bridget. Before the film was released, a considerable amount of controversy surrounded the casting of the American Texan Zellweger as what some saw as a quintessentially British heroine: however, her performance is widely considered to be of a high standard, and garnered Zellweger an Academy Award nomination.

The character of Shazzer was reportedly based on the director of the film, Sharon Maguire, who is a friend of Helen Fielding.

[edit] Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

A sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.

Plot:(book) The story opens with the relationship of Bridget and Mark. Bridget seems happy - she has cut down on her cigarettes and has gained some self-esteem. In this book there is a major focus on all the self-help books that Bridget reads, and how they affect her life. Another recurring character is Rebecca, a "jellyfisher" who is very keen on Mark, and eventually splits the couple up, with the help of several misunderstandings.

Bridget, now a TV reporter, gets the opportunity to interview Colin Firth (Mark Darcy in the movie, a character based on Mr. Darcy in Pride & Prejudice).

Daniel Cleaver comes in to the story again, and there is Gary the builder, who threatens Bridge's life near the end of the book, which has the end result of bringing Mark and Bridget back together. Bridget also spends time in jail in Thailand, and Mark comes again to her rescue.

A movie with the same title was released in 2004.

[edit] Return to The Independent

The new Independent column is set in the present day (2005, with references being made to events such as Hurricane Katrina), and has dropped some of the motifs of the original diary, particularly the alcohol unit and calorie counts. Despite the time advance, Cleaver and Darcy are still the two men in Jones' life ("I'm not sleeping with them both at once," she explains later to her friend Shaz. "I accidentally slept with each of them separately."[3], and the plotline has launched into a pregnancy. As author Helen Fielding said, "she's heading in a different direction."[4]

The protagonist has now given birth to a baby boy, fathered by Daniel. However, Mark Darcy is not entirely out of the picture, as he previously suggested that he would like to adopt the child. However, the story ends with Bridget staying with Daniel Cleaver.

The International Herald Tribune reviewed the new column rather favourably, commenting that Fielding's satire was in good form[5]. The Daily Mail reviewed it less favourably, saying it lacked the genuinity of the first two novels [6].

[edit] References

  1. ^ Independent Columns 1995
  2. ^ Telegraph Columns 1997
  3. ^ Bridget suffers through a new serial - International Herald Tribune
  4. ^ BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | Bridget Jones back in new diary
  5. ^ Bridget suffers through a new serial - International Herald Tribune
  6. ^ Is Helen Fielding about to bump off Bridget Jones? | the Daily Mail

[edit] External links