It is 29 years since the book Bridget Jones’s Diary was published, but the column itself, which ran in the Independent (without a byline for Helen Fielding, although everyone knew it was her) and the Daily Telegraph, is 30 years old this year. That’s two years younger than our heroine when she first appears, a patchwork wreck of singleton-anxiety, professional disaster, chardonnay, Silk Cut and weighing scales. And maybe being old enough to remember with clarity anything from 30 years ago predisposes you to think of it affectionately. But, actually, no: some things were better for women, better for young people, better for everyone, in 1995. And some things were worse. To coincide with the fourth film, out on Valentine’s Day, here’s the audit.
The startling thing about the comic creation was how completely she lacked any kind of self-discipline – always drinking more than she meant to, always weighing more than she intended, always determined not to smoke yet somehow also smoking. At the time, this had long been a staple for male self-fashioning: lad-mag culture was focused (ironically) on birds, but fuelled by benders. If you woke up somewhere and couldn’t remember how you got there, that was social nirvana, the ultimate night out. Ladette culture was in many ways built as a mirror to that, though a distorted one, in the sense that you had to be off your head but you couldn’t look sloppy or ill-kempt. You were meant to drink like Johnny Vegas but look like Kate Moss.
Part of the comedy and originality of Bridget Jones was her honest break with that impossibilism. She was not carefree; she worried about everything, all the time. Although she played hard, she did not work hard. She spoke the language of female emancipation, but it wasn’t her mother tongue: she fretted constantly about men, in the romantic sense (why wouldn’t they call her?) and the cultural (what is a body image problem, if not the harsh criticism of the patriarchy, turned in on oneself?).
It wasn’t so much radical as refreshing, in the way truthfulness always is. But, looking back, Bridget Jones was an optimistic and almost comforting creation, in a way that subsequent, similar characters – Fleabag, Charli xcx’s Brat – were not. And that was economic: you were always pretty confident that Bridget was going to land on her feet, not just romantically, but also professionally. If she messed up at work, they’d either forgive her or someone would give her a new job. She could always make rent. This was slightly before the era of Cool Britannia and Things Can Only Get Better as the anthem of politics, but there was already that confidence that everything was going to be OK. (In hindsight, it was built on debt and end-of-history fantasies.)
When I look at the clean living and self-care for which gen Z is known, and compare that with the hedonism and recklessness of Bridget, I can’t help but think it’s not that they are more risk averse; it’s just that the risks are greater. If they fall off the carousel, professionally, there’s a chance they might not get back on. Plus, even on the carousel, things are quite tough.
The body image stuff, though, sheesh – Bridget Jones, in the column and the book, gave herself hell. This is your wild and precious life, you want to yell at her, and you’re wasting it on the difference between 9 st 10 and 9 st 12. But when Renée Zellweger was cast to play her in the film (the first one was released in 2001), the commentariat uproar validated every moment of anxiety Bridget had ever had: the scrutiny of Zellweger’s body was remarkable. Could she ever be tubby enough to play not just Bridget Jones, but any British woman at all? What on earth would she have to eat, to embody this lovable doughball? Would she ever get her figure back? Was the price too high? On this, society has changed for the better. Few actors in 2025 would take this kind of public policing.
Those aren’t reasonable trade-offs, are they? You can be whatever shape you like, but you also have to treat your body like a temple, and get used to being precarious. On balance – in shock news from a 51-year-old – 30 years ago, things were better.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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