The original Bridget Jones movie was on the teev Friday night, possibly because this is the tenth anniversary of Helen Fielding’s literary creation:
At the end of the Nineties, Bridget seemed to epitomise the condition of the single, early thirties-ish urban female. A lot of people got cross about that – Jones was never a blazing force on the female empowerment scene. However, an awful lot of other people related to Bridget; if not wholesale, then at least in degrees. She put a voice, the shadowy outline of a face and a dose of wit to some previously voiceless, faceless and un-funny concerns. As one single friend said at the time: ‘She makes you feel it’s OK to feel like that. It defuses it all, laughing at it, reading about someone who is more neurotic even than you, but who’s also rather lovable.’
But things have changed; 2005, officially at least, is the era of the power single. It belongs to the women (and men) who have embraced the single state as a lifestyle choice, revelling in its opportunities and lack of limitations. Forty-eight per cent of British adults are currently single, and that’s a figure that’s set to increase. Ultimately, singles will be an important, affluent majority, as opposed to, say, a stigmatised, pitied bunch of freaks. Next week is National Singles Week, and a survey commissioned to coincide with the event suggests that overwhelmingly, the single experience is now viewed as a positive, life-enhancing affair – 82 per cent of the people questioned for the report said that their single state ‘gave them the opportunity to try new experiences’, which is nice. So does Bridget Jones’s voice resonate with anyone any more?
Smug singles? I think not.
Single is good. No nagging female telling you what to do, no legal time bomb waiting for when she decides to leave and take your house with you, no children to enslave you for the next twenty years.
EP just proved my point better than a lifetime of Dr. Phil.
Find a partner, people: don’t let yourself become another bitter & twisted EP.
Don’t listen to Fyodor’s propaganda, people. The couple thing is just a trick to enslave men.
There’s a reason it’s so heavily promoted by government and the media, and it ain’t for your benefit.
Single is good, as Evil Pundit says. But secretly, deep down, I bet all singles really want to be in a relationship of some kind.
82 per cent of the people questioned for the report said that their single state ‘gave them the opportunity to try new experiences
Talk about faint praise. So does sudden unemployment, say, or being trapped in the Andes after a plane crash.
I don’t know enough about BJ’s schtick but I recall it involves Hugh Grant and so it probably doesn’t resonate, no.
Haven’t read it for a while, but as I remember it, this is a pretty fair summary of Friedrich Engels’ critique of bourgeois marriage. Any other surprises, EP?
LP Rule #314: If EP’s against it, it’s prolly a GOOD THING.
Case closed.
Last time I wasn’t single, I kept getting told – “you’re not acting like a couple”.
Was it because you kept referring to your partner as “the person I’m not being single with”? ‘Cos if you did, it just might have put the kibosh on the whole reloship thang.
LP Rule #314: If EPÄôs against it, itÄôs prolly a GOOD THING.
Seriously, would you take advice from a man with a haircut like that?
Look who’s talking, furball.
Admit it. You’re a marriage counsellor in real life, aren’t you?
“Seriously, would you take advice from a man with a haircut like that?”
Certainly real estate advice.
Legal; high-stress metals and probably nutritional advice as well.
Admit it. YouÄôre a marriage counsellor in real life, arenÄôt you?
You’ve just given me an idea for a career.
I could become an anti-marriage counsellor, guiding vulnerable people away from the brink of matrimony. There’s a big, unserviced market out there.
Yes, you’ve got an ex-Marxist’s view for a market opportunity, too. People are always queuing up to be told not to do stuff. Maybe you should try it out as a hobby before setting up shop – think of it as non-market research.
Sometimes I long for the single days. It was so easy then, before I had to spend all my time scheming and plotting how to trick my man into impregnating me.
Frankly, the only thing that resonated about Bridget Jones with me was that she was sexy and not thin. (Renee Zellwegger is so not fat in the movie, but she’s not skinny either). This, I liked.
Yeah, singledom’s all fine and dandy till you get the ‘flu.
Speaking of which: *Groan*.
Night….
PS Mark, I have blurry recollection of drunken, bad poetry being issued late Friday night. I must have been delirious.
Either that, or its fallen under foul of new laws – qua, poetry so bad it might incite reasonable persons to violent acts.
The single lifestyle becomes ok, even glamorous. But what’s happening with children brought up by single parent families? We have both families where one partner wants no involvement, and the family where the mother doesn’t want the father involved. Child as accessory?
I have a friend who has got a fling pregnant. He has no pressure from his friends or family to get married or to help set her up. He’s therefore decided that he really has nothing in common with her and is not going to take part, apart from the financial side as required by law.
Sure, you can raise children in a well adjusted manner with just one parent, but it’s harder to get by, to do your things, enjoy yourself, work and look after them by yourself.
I liked Briget One, and hated Briget Two. Whether she’d changed or I had, I don’t know.
Nicholas, I liked Bridget 1 too, and didn’t see Bridget 2 since the word was that it was so bad.
But watching it the other night, I’ve moved on from old Bridge like a lot of women quoted in the guardian article.
Carol, your friend with a fling will have financial observations, as EP no doubt will point out. I see no reason why getting hitched because you have a kid and for no better reason (or staying hitched for that reason if your feelings for each other changes) benefits children in any way whatsoever.
Having watched the second half of that movie the other night and after discovering its meant to be an updated Pride and Prejudice according to Sophie Masson at Troppo last time it was on. I now understand the correlation but I must say the interpretation of Mr Darcy is wrong.
Then again its through Bridget’s/Elizabeth’s eyes so that could explain it all away.
Well that was a bit of a ramble.
I sometimes think fondly of the single life, then I remember how often I was bored and lonely and wishing I had someone to do something, anything with. Being part of a couple and a parent is hard at times, but thinking of the alternatives, I’m much happier were I am now. Some people are made for the single life, but not me.