film – Katie Fustich

Bridget Jones’s Body

Despite my profound passion for the film genre that can only be described as “early 2000’s romantic comedy with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 37%” I had never, until recently, seen Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001). Then, within the span of a week, I had seen all four.

Though I had never seen the series, I was familiar with the films. More specifically, I was familiar with the dialogue surrounding Bridget Jones’ — and therefore Renée Zellweger’s — weight. When an actor gains or loses a significant amount of weight for a role, people practically mythologize the experience. I wasn’t even ten years old when the first Bridget Jones movie debuted, yet I remember well the public scrutiny typically-slender Zellweger faced for her transformation into the curvy Bridget Jones. It was essentially imprinted upon me that a woman weighing 136 pounds was shockingly and disgustingly fat to the point of no return. Cue the lifelong body dysmorphia experienced by millennial women the world around…

And yet, actually watching Bridget Jones’s Diary, I was surprised to find my impression of the film’s discussion around body image in stark contrast to what was portrayed. Yes, Bridget Jones is fixated on her weight. She records the numbers on the scale in her diary, forces her body into uncomfortable shapewear, and withstands the belittling comments of her family and friends. Are these not universal experiences?

More importantly, Bridget Jones is actually portrayed as sexy and lovable. Despite her mother’s attempts to stuff her into the matronly and shapeless sacks that haunt the plus size section, Bridget Jones wears miniskirts and gauzy tops to the office. She confidently shows up to a garden party in a Playboy Bunny ensemble (weird this movie came out four months before Legally Blonde) And of course, she wins the hearts of both Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, with the latter proclaiming he loves Bridget “just the way she is.”

This refreshing tone continued in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), with Bridget continuing to navigate many of the self-doubts and societal pressures that plagued her in the original. Imagine my shock when I pressed play on my pirated copy of Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016) only to find the titular character a wisp of her former self. As a slender Bridget struts confidently across London’s Tower Bridge, her internal monologue reveals she has finally reached her “ideal weight.” I am sure my neighbors heard me yelp “WHAT?!” at the TV. I braced, awaiting some further explanation, and received none. In a single line, the series resolved one of the main character’s most enduring anxieties.

As one does, I took to the World Wide Web for further explanation. My first guess was that Zellweger was hesitant to go through another round of bodily transformation for the character — understandable given that many actors say the process is very hard on the body. But no, this wasn’t it. In fact, Zellweger was eager to retake Bridget’s signature shape but was shot down by production.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Bridget Jones’s Baby director Sharon Maguire explained the change: “We all really loved the notion that Bridget, 15 years on, had finally reached her ideal weight … somewhere between a UK size 10 or 12 [US 6 or 8] … but still hadn’t solved any of her issues about love and loneliness.”

Well, hm. I suppose it’s technically true that skinny people can have problems, too (so I’ve heard). Yet I can’t help but bristle that the director’s desire to represent that there’s more to life than obsessing over weight is achieved via thinness. Why not have the character decide to embrace herself — to quote Colin Firth — just the way she is? I found this decision even stranger considering the third film centers on Bridget’s journey through pregnancy and into motherhood. It’s documented that many who struggle with body dysmorphia and self-image face new challenges as the body changes during pregnancy. The director’s attempt to wipe the story clean of any negative body talk ultimately achieves the opposite of the stated intention — thinness wins.

The most recent installment of the series, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025) finds our heroine widowed, raising two children, and struggling to (please forgive me for this horrible cliche) get her groove back. As with the third film, Mad About the Boy is mum on the subject of body image. Zellweger explained: “There’s going to be an obvious evolution, because [Bridget has] moved on in her life and she has a lot of responsibilities. She doesn’t have the luxury of obsessing about certain things that she might have in the past.”

Of course after Bridget’s “miraculous” transformation in movie #3, I didn’t suddenly expect them to reintroduce the calorie-counting angle (And certainly Zellweger’s perspective is more well-reasoned than the director’s “skinny people can be lonely too :(” take. ((And this is all to say nothing of the fact that Mad About the Boy feels like it takes place in an entirely different universe than the first three films)). But given that Mad About the Boy is to be the final installment in the Bridget Jones franchise, and many are reflecting on the series’ 25-year legacy, body image is inevitably a recurring theme.

In many ways, it seems that the films are destined to be chalked up to “that series about the British lady who thinks she’s morbidly obese but isn’t even fat and therefore gave all women under 40 lifelong eating disorders.” There are certainly critiques to be made. But I think there is also a great deal of irony in the way that we internalize the film’s messages — the same way that Wolf of Wall Street inspired legions of manchildren who think that the point of the film is to depict what is Good and what You Should Want to Be.

Bridget Jones, as a character, is an uncomfortably realistic portrayal of what it is to be a woman existing in a culture where thinness = beauty. No, it is not good that she uses the adjective “lard” in relation to herself on a regular basis, but it is refreshing in its honesty. Bridget isn’t even “fat” but she thinks she is fat because of the same pressures that give way to the voices in our heads distorting our self-perception.

Am I overthinking this? Ever so slightly. Maybe what this really comes down to is that I would rather watch a romantic comedy in which the woman wallowing while eating ice cream actually eats ice cream.

Apr 7, 2025

movies

body image, bridget jones, bridget jones’s diary, british, film, movies

. . .
Norma Rae (1979)

I am sorry to say I am growing old and sentimental. The other day, I alerted my therapist that I was running late by sending an otherwise blank email with my message in the subject line. I thanked my kindly Instacart Shopper by, wholeheartedly, telling them to have a “blessed day.” Last night, I watched the 1979 film Norma Rae, and one of my primary takeaways was the idea that “they don’t make movies like that anymore.”

Norma Rae stars Sally Field as the titular 31-year-old single mother of two. She spends her days grinding in the heat of the O.P. Textile Mill — as generations of her family have done before her.

One afternoon, a man named Reuben Warshowsky appears at the mill. He’s a union organizer from the TWUA, and has been tasked with spearheading a union campaign at the O.P. Textile Mill. Norma Rae begins working closely with Reuben and helps build support for the union throughout her community. She works to balance her family obligations with her deep convictions, landing her in management’s crosshairs.

The basic contours of the plot are enough to fan the passions of any red-blooded leftist, but each of the 118 minutes of film bring such unique and unexpected joys.

Norma Rae’s character isn’t necessarily unique — that is to say, it’s not unheard of that a story or film depicts a blue-collar single mother whose boldness often lands her in trouble. What is unique is the way that her character is allowed to exist without a shred of apology.

At the start of the film, Norma Rae has two children. The first was fathered by her high school sweetheart who, several years earlier, was killed in a drunken bar fight. The second child was the product of a one night stand with a man, Norma explains, she “didn’t bother to marry.” When the film begins, she’s in the midst of an affair with a married man, who beats her when she attempts to break things off.

Early in the film, Norma Rae actually does marry — to a recently-divorced and recently-fired millworker with a daughter of his own. The parties involved are clear from the get-go that it’s a marriage of convenience, but they manage to build tenderness and understanding.

As Norma Rae becomes more deeply entrenched in the union, her sexuality is weaponized against her. One night, Norma Rae stays late at Reuben’s motel to assist with letter-writing. The motel is unexpectedly intruded upon by representatives from the TWUA headquarters, who are there to share concerns for the union campaign — including pornographic rumors about Norma Rae. Rather than be deterred, Norma Rae hurries home and wakes up her three sleeping children. Sitting them all down on the sofa, she first tells them that she loves them. Then, she tells them that they may hear rumors about her and that she wanted them to hear it from her first.

Throughout the film, an ever-present question is whether Norma Rae and Reuben will get together. They have passionate conversations about politics and poetry, he sees her at her worst, throwing up in bushes along a country highway, and yet still looks at her with magic in his eyes. And yet, the very final scene of the film is the closest the two ever come to kissing. As they part (Reuben is road-bound for his next campaign), there is something heavy and unspoken in the air; something that the two seem to acknowledge, and to acknowledge can never come to pass.

Norma Rae is based on the real-life story of North Carolina union organizer Crystal Lee Sutton. I have yet to read the 1975 account of her organizing work, Crystal Lee: A Woman of Inheritance, and so I am left to wonder how much of these characterizations are rooted in reality, or are crafted for the purposes of selling a Hollywood narrative. But to some extent, it doesn’t entirely matter. It does not take away from the fact that Norma Rae simultaneously tells the stories of a woman, a movement, and a community — all portrayed as equal in significance.

Towards the end of the film, as tensions between the mill management and budding union are close to exploding, Norma Rae is fired. Management attempts to sow discord between Black and white workers by posting a racist bulletin, which Norma Rae then tries to record.

She races through the mill, being chased by management and the local sheriff. Climbing up onto a worktable, Norma Rae grabs a piece of charcoal, a loose piece of cardboard, and scrawls the word “UNION.” She hoists the sign high, in both proclamation and plea. One by one, her co-workers shut down their machines, and the roar of the weavers gradually becomes an eerie silence. It’s the first and only time in the film that the factory is not overwhelmed by sound.

There is so much else to be said about this film. I think entire essays could be crafted on Norma Rae’s treatment of race and religion. I think there could be lengthy analysis dedicated to why there has not been another movie like this since — at least not one that is half as sincere and half as profound. For today, my only goal in writing is to process the unexpected ache and vulnerability I felt after watching this movie.

May 20, 2024

movies

1970s, film, movie, movies, norma rae, review, unions

. . .

Katie Fustich

Bridget Jones’s Body

Norma Rae (1979)

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