\n<\/p>\n
Normally, we only spend about 90 minutes with the heroine of a rom-com. We watch as she meets the man (or, rarely, woman) of her dreams and falls in love, out of love and in again. Then we say goodbye, never to know what fate will befall her after that final kiss.<\/p>\n
Not Bridget Jones.<\/p>\n
Since first appearing in \u201cBridget Jones\u2019s Diary<\/a>\u201d in 2001, as the deliriously chaotic Londoner, Ren\u00e9e Zellweger has persisted. We\u2019ve cringed (but also secretly cheered) as she ended up in bed with the devilishly handsome cad Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). We\u2019ve watched her humiliate herself in front of Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), then find herself smitten with him, realizing he\u2019s her one great love, even though he\u2019s an insufferable snob. We\u2019ve observed as Bridget and Mark have broken up and gotten back together many times over. She\u2019s landed better jobs and given birth. And now, in the latest installment, \u201cBridget Jones: Mad About the Boy<\/a>\u201d (premiering Feb. 13 on Peacock), she\u2019s a widow with two young children, trying to start again in her 50s.<\/p>\n The perseverance of Bridget Jones in popular culture undermines the idea that when the credits roll on a rom-com, the characters\u2019 lives turn out perfectly, and while the sequels have varied in quality, that sense of real life is in itself refreshing. (Although, chances are it works out for Bridget at the end of every movie anyway.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At the same time, having Bridget Jones in our lives all these years reveals a surprising amount about the way we talk about women. The character and specifically Zellweger\u2019s performance have led directly to uncomfortable but sometimes revealing, conversations about body image and aging in the public eye. Bridget has been, unintentionally, a bellwether.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The beauty of Bridget Jones \u2014 a creation of the novelist Helen Fielding, who had a hand in all of the screenplays \u2014 has always been her messiness. Think of her in comparison with, say, Meg Ryan\u2019s Sally, in \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally\u2026,\u201d perhaps the Platonic ideal of a rom-com heroine. While Sally can be a tad overbearing and unlucky in love, she is exacting and neat, almost to a fault. She always looks perfect. She alphabetizes her videotapes. Bridget, on the other hand, is unruly. She drinks too much and smokes like a chimney. (The number of cigarettes she puffs in the early movies is downright shocking in 2025.) Her apartment is a disaster, clothes strewn about. And, yes, she weighs too much \u2014 or at least she thinks she does.<\/p>\n To talk about Bridget Jones in the zeitgeist is to talk about her weight. In both \u201cBridget Jones\u2019s Diary\u201d and \u201cBridget Jones: The Edge of Reason<\/a>\u201d (2004), she is not tiny, although calling her overweight would be an overstatement even though plenty do. At the outset of \u201cDiary\u201d she resolves to lose 20 pounds<\/a>, despite weighing in at only 136. In \u201cEdge of Reason,\u201d she hides from her new boyfriend, Mark, after they have made things official, changing under a sheet, concerned about how he might react to her in the light. He tells her he loves her \u201cwobbly bits.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Zellweger famously gained weight to play Bridget, a fact that was more discussed than her mastery of a British accent. Though she never revealed exactly how much, the news media spiraled over the idea that this American movie star would deign to eat pizza to bulk up. When interviewers harped on how she put on the pounds, Zellweger would deflect. Speaking with The Guardian, she said<\/a>, \u201cI understand the intrigue. It sounds like it would be such a liberating experience, but I hope that that won\u2019t be what becomes most important.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A year after the film\u2019s release, Kate Betts, the former editor of Harper\u2019s Bazaar, issued a mea culpa. Writing in The New York Times<\/a>, she explained that she had pulled a cover of Zellweger tied to \u201cBridget Jones\u2019s Diary\u201d because the actress looked \u201ctoo fat.\u201d Betts admitted that \u201cfashion\u2019s antifat bias and obsession with thinness, so ingrained among those who make careers in the business, is looking increasingly like a blind spot.\u201d And yet the damage had been done.<\/p>\n Since 2001, society has gone through innumerable cycles of quasi-invasive conversations about how women, famous and otherwise, should look. Whereas \u201cbody positivity\u201d might have been the buzzword 10 years ago, today slimmed-down celebrities face questions about whether they have used Ozempic or a similar drug.<\/p>\n It makes rewatching the early Bridget Jones movies a strange experience. Seeing her body onscreen is still almost revolutionary given how thinness remains the norm in Hollywood. But she\u2019s brutally self-critical, even though handsome men find her sexy enough to get into fistfights over her. It hurts to watch her self-loathing, but there\u2019s also an honesty to it: How often are we our own worst enemies? The frothiness of the plots means this question isn\u2019t examined, but it nags at you.<\/p>\n When Bridget returned for \u201cBridget Jones\u2019s Baby<\/a>\u201d in 2016, more than a decade after \u201cThe Edge of Reason,\u201d the fracas was not over her size; that was also sidelined as an issue for the character. Instead, it was over her face. Upon the release of the trailer, Variety published a column<\/a> speculating on whether Zellweger had \u201cwork\u201d done, and charging that she \u201cdoesn\u2019t look like Bridget Jones.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n