Bridget joness diary and.., p.27
Bridget Jones's Diary (And Other Writing), page 27
BJ Do you mean it’s a really obvious question?
CF No. I mean no one’s ever asked me that.
BJ Do people ask you that all the time?
CF No, no. I can assure you . . .
BJ So it’s a . . .
CF It’s a totally brand-new, new-born question, yes.
BJ Oh Goody.
CF Shall we get on now?
BJ Yes.
CF Mr Darcy’s not an Arsenal supporter.
BJ No.
CF He’s not a schoolteacher.
BJ No.
CF He lived nearly 200 years ago.
BJ Yes.
CF Paul in Fever Pitch loves being in a football crowd.
BJ Yes.
CF Whereas Mr Darcy can’t even tolerate a country dance.
BJ No.
CF Paul doesn’t smoulder.
BJ Oh he did, though. That bit with the coffee cups. It’s fantastic where that woman Miss Hughes is just standing there and Mr Darcy just masterfully takes the cups away and then, like, snogs her.
CF I think that might be a similarity, then.
BJ I’m not putting words into your mouth or anything.
CF No, no. Now. Can we talk about something which isn’t to do with Mr Darcy?
BJ Yes. (PAUSE, RUSTLING PAPERS) If you had to play another character in a historical novel – apart from Nostradamus – who would you choose? (PAUSE)
CF Apart from Nostradamus?
BJ Yes.
CF You see, Nostradamus is a historical character. Nostromo, however, isn’t.
BJ What?
CF Nostromo is a fictional character invented by Joseph Conrad and I didn’t actually play him. I played someone else in the story called Charles Gould but, um, he’s not historical either. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually played a historical character.
BJ (SHOCKED) Apart from Mr Darcy.
CF Apart from Mr Darcy, yes. He’s the only actual true-life real-existing historical character I’ve actually played.
BJ What did you have to wear when you were Nostromo?
CF Well, I wore jodhpurs and a tweed jacket and . . . boots and things.
BJ Leather boots?
CF They were leather, yes.
BJ Quite high ones?
CF They were up to the knee.
BJ Tight?
CF Fairly tight. I mean I was able to get them on and off. But, um, they were tight enough. They were for riding and um, and, er . . . and that’s about it, really. They . . . it was, er . . . Yes. That’s about it.
BJ You know the dance you just mentioned in Pride and Prejudice?
CF (SIGHS) Yes.
BJ Was it quite, you know . . . sexy . . . in real life?
CF Well. It’s actually quite difficult to do acting and dancing at the same time and I think one, er, stress factor of making sure that you’ve reached the right place to say your next line is that, the eroticism isn’t the first thing in your mind necessarily.
BJ Do you think it was quite an erotic series?
CF Well, some people have found it to be so. I think it’s a very erotic book.
BJ Do you think the word erotic is quite an erotic word?
CF Quite an erotic word, yes.
BJ Mmm.
CF Yes. So. Now where were we?
BJ Are you still going out with your girlfriend?
CF Yes.
BJ Oh.
(LONG PAUSE)
CF Is everything all right?
BJ (ALMOST INAUDIBLE) Do you think small British movies are the way forward?
CF I can’t hear.
BJ (MISERABLY) Do you think small British movies are the way forward?
CF The way forward to . . . (ENCOURAGINGLY) – to what?
BJ (VERY LONG THOUGHTFUL PAUSE) The future.
CF Right. They seem to be getting us along step by step, I think. I quite like small movies but I do also like big movies and it would be nice if we made more of those as well.
BJ But don’t you find it a problem her being Italian and everything?
CF No.
(VERY LONG SILENCE)
BJ (SULKILY) Do you think that Mr Darcy has a political dimension?
CF I did speculate on what his politics might be, if he had any. And I don’t think that they would be very appealing to a reader of the Independent. It’s that pre-Victorian or Victorian idea of being the rich social benefactor, which would be very Thatcherite probably. I mean, the thought of socialism obviously hadn’t entered the . . .
BJ No.
CF . . . entered his sphere. And it is clearly stated by way of showing what a nice chap he is that he is very nice towards his tenants. But I think that he’d be closer to a sort of Nietzschian figure, a . . .
BJ What is neacher?
CF You know, the idea of the, er, human being as superman.
BJ Superman?
CF Not Superman himself, no. No. (SLIGHT GROANING NOISE) I don’t think he wore his underpants over his breeches, no. Look, I’d really like to get off this subject now.
BJ What will be your next project?
CF It’s called The World of Moss.
BJ Is it a nature programme?
CF No. No, no. No. It’s um, it’s er, about an eccentric family in the Thirties the father of which owns a moss factory.
BJ Doesn’t moss grow naturally?
CF Well, no, he makes something called Sphagnum moss which was used to dress World War I wounds and er, it’s er, quite a light, er, comic . . .
BJ (VERY UNCONVINCINGLY) It sounds very good.
CF I very much hope it will be.
BJ Could I just check something about the shirt?
CF Yes.
BJ How many times altogether exactly did you have to take it off and put it on again?
CF Precisely . . . I don’t know. Um. Let me see . . . there was the bit where I was walking towards Pemberley. That was shot once. One take. Then there was the bit where I give my horse to somebody . . . I think there was a change.
BJ (BRIGHTENING) There was a change?
CF (STRICTLY) There was. One change.
BJ So it was mainly just the one wet shirt, though?
CF The one wet shirt which they kept respraying, yes. All right?
BJ Yes. What is your favourite colour?
CF We’ve had that.
BJ Um. (PAPER RUSTLING)
BJ Do you think the film Fever Pitch was in reality all about emotional fuckwittage?
CF Emotional what?
BJ Fuckwittage. You know: men being mad, alcoholic, commitment phobics and just being interested in football all the time.
CF No, I don’t really. I think in some ways Paul is much more at ease with his emotions and has much more liberty with them than his girlfriend. I think that, in fact, in the final analysis, is what’s so appealing about what Nick Hornby’s trying to say on his behalf: that, in a rather mundane, everyday world, he has found something where you have access to emotional experiences, which . . .
BJ Excuse me.
CF (SIGHS) Yes?
BJ Is your girlfriend coming to the premiere of Fever Pitch.
CF Yes.
BJ But won’t she have trouble understanding it, being foreign?
CF Well she speaks very good English.
BJ But don’t you think you’d be better off with someone who was English and more your own age?
CF We seem to be doing alright.
BJ Humph. (DARKLY) So far. Do you ever prefer doing the theatre?
CF Um. I don’t subscribe to the view that the theatre’s where the real acting is, that film’s not really acting. But I find I do prefer the theatre when I’m doing it, yes.
BJ But don’t you think the theatre’s a bit unrealistic and embarrassing and, also, you have to sit through the acting for hours before you have anything to eat and you can’t talk or . . .
CF Unrealistic? Embarrassing and unrealistic?
BJ Yes.
CF Do you mean unrealistic in the sense that it . . .?
BJ . . . you can tell it isn’t real.
CF . . . that sort of unrealistic, yes. (SLIGHT MOANING SOUND) Um. I think it shouldn’t be if it’s good. It’s much more . . . it feels more artificial to make a film.
BJ Does it? I suppose it doesn’t go all the way through, does it?
CF Well no it doesn’t. No. Yes. A film doesn’t go all the way through. It’s shot in little bits and pieces. (LOUDER GROANING NOISE) Little bits and pieces.
BJ Has it been detrimental to your career being called Colin?
CF (LAUGHS) Well, I did ask my mother why she plumped for that particular name and she said, “Well, we couldn’t call you Andrew because of your cousin.”
BJ Oh. Do you think Mr Darcy would have slept with Elizabeth Bennet before the wedding?
CF Yes, I do think he might have.
BJ Do you?
CF Yes. I think it’s entirely possible. Yes.
BJ (BREATHLESSLY) Really?
CF I think it’s possible. Yes.
BJ How would it be possible?
CF Don’t know if Jane Austen would agree with me on this, but . . .
BJ We can’t know because she’s dead.
CF No, we can’t . . . but I think Andrew Davies’s Mr Darcy would have done.
BJ Why do you think that, though? Why? Why?
CF Because I think it was very important to Andrew Davies that Mr Darcy had the most enormous sex drive.
BJ (GASPS)
CF And, um . . .
BJ I think that came across, really, really well with the acting. I really think it did.
CF Thank you. At one point, Andrew even wrote as a stage direction: “Imagine that Darcy has an erection”.
(V. LARGE CRASHING NOISE)
BJ Which bit was that?
CF It’s when she’s been walking across the country and bumps into him in the grounds in the early stages.
BJ The bit where she’s all muddy?
CF . . . and dishevelled
BJ . . . and sweaty?
CF Exactly.
BJ Was that a difficult bit to act?
CF You mean the erection?
BJ (AWED WHISPER) Yes.
CF Um, well, Andrew also wrote that I don’t propose that we should focus on it, and, therefore, no acting required in that department at least.
BJ Mmm.
(LONG PAUSE)
CF Yes.
(MORE PAUSE)
BJ Mmm.
CF Is that it, then?
BJ No. What was it like with your friends when you started being Mr Darcy?
CF There were a lot of jokes about it: growling “Mr Darcy” over breakfast and so on. There was a brief period when they had to work quite hard to hide their knowledge of who I really was and . . .
BJ Hide it from who?
CF Well, from anyone who suspected that perhaps I was like Mr Darcy.
BJ But do you think you’re not like Mr Darcy?
CF I do think I’m not like Mr Darcy, yes.
BJ I think you’re exactly like Mr Darcy.
CF In what way?
BJ You talk the same way as him.
CF Oh do I?
BJ You look exactly like him, and I, oh, oh . . .
PROTRACTED CRASHING NOISES FOLLOWED BY SOUNDS OF STRUGGLE
Editor’s note: Bridget Jones has been sacked.
The growing interest in Bridget and the ensuing change in my life created a mixture of awed gratitude and confusion in me. I myself became an object of interest to the British press which was surreal since I was part of the British press, which is how it had all started in the first place.
On one occasion, returning to my flat in Notting Hill I spied a paparazzi on a motorbike waiting for me outside. ‘Honestly,’ I huffed, tossing my hair indignantly. ‘Why can’t they just LEAVE ME ALONE?’ As I got closer, though, I realized it was the delivery guy from Domino’s Pizza and was really disappointed.
For a struggling freelance journalist, to manage to get a book in print at all is a great privilege, let alone to have your character become part of the culture, and to have her lexicon absorbed into the language. I got a huge thrill from these Pile ’Em High cartoons by Kipper Williams, and the Mirror front page. I always wanted to hang them in the guest toilet to impress but found it too creepy.
William Hague’s head on Renée Zellweger’s body was downright disturbing . . .
. . . but it was still a source of pride to be on the front page.
In spite of its ageing-ness with regards to me, I’m deeply grateful that Bridget Jones is still being read and discussed after twenty-five years. The thought that it might be read by generations in the future is something that I would never previously have presumed to fantasize about, but now I dream that maybe one day someone will be stealing my plot, without realizing it’s actually Jane Austen’s.
Bridget in the 21st Century
I tend not to read my own books (once I’ve written them, obviously) or re-watch the movies, but a couple of years ago I took my children, Dash and Romy, to see a screening of the Bridget Jones’s Diary movie as it was being shown with a live orchestra. I was shocked at the casual sexism in every scene, which an unenlightened Bridget just put up with as part and parcel of having a job. Honestly, in this day and age all of Bridget’s bosses would have been fired and shamed on the spot. Solemn Feminists could get angry about what Bridget put up with, but the fact is, I didn’t write the diary as a sociological treatise. It became widely read because there was recognition. It was reflecting a reality, not creating it. When my goddaughter, Scarlett Curtis, was putting together this edgy collection of essays about Feminism, I was pleased to be part of it, and wrote this entry in Bridget’s voice.
Monday 16 April 2018
9st 2. Alcohol units: 3. Instagram followers: 167.
“That was the most sexist, horrifying, disgusting movie I’ve ever seen,” ranted Shazzer. “If John Travolta made that now, he’d never fucking work again.”
We had just got to the end of a 40th anniversary screening of Saturday Night Live. It was an invitation from Jude’s investment bank in a sedate screening room with drinkies and canapés.
“NONE of them would ever FUCKING work again!” Shazzer bellowed, as the credits rolled, and people made to leave their seats. “Did I actually hear the word ‘cunt’ seven times??”
“Shazzer. Shut urrp,” hissed Jude. People were staring. Tom, meanwhile, was smiling at them as if to say, “Everything’s lovely! She’s our patient,” ignoring the fact that he was wearing a tight white three-piece suit and high heels.
“John Travolta sat in the front seat of the car while they gang-raped his ex-girlfriend whose only crime was to have some sort of sexual desire and admit to it!” Shazzer continued to yell. “And what does he do when he actually wins the Goddess Virgin Anti-Whore-girl of his dreams? He fucking tries to rape her! Princess Diana danced with John Travolta, for fuck’s sakes! At the White House! And not the fucking Trumpian White House, either!”
“Let’s get her out of here,” said Jude.
It was all very unnerving, I thought. We clattered down the stairs. Saturday Night Fever was a cult classic, surely, like Grease. We’d gone to have a laugh and sing along to the Bee Gees in very high voices, not to have our youthful sense of right, wrong and gender understanding turned upside on its head, leaving us feeling like duped idiots.
“But wasn’t this the uncut version?” said Jude. “And wasn’t Saturday Night Fever known for being a deliberately provocative piece, exploring the dark side of youth culture. And the whole ‘cunt’ . . . Oh hello!” Our host and Jude’s CEO, Johnny Carruthers, was coming up the stairs.
“No, it fucking wasn’t!” yelled Shazzer, barging past him. “Saturday Night Fucking Fever was known for everyone thinking John Travolta was hot, the Bee Gees were cool, and it was a charming teenage dance frenzy. But ACTUALLY, that movie was a celebration of the worst kind of profound, misogynist sexism when women are treated with utter contempt and casual violation.”
By this time we were weaving through cars and rain across the Soho street and pushing our way into the warmth and crowded coziness of Kettner’s.
“AND WE FUCKING DIDN’T FUCKING NOTICE because we are an OPPRESSED RACE!” finished Shazzer, as we got through the door.
“Shhhh,” I said, suddenly flashing back to shushing Shazzer in exactly the same manner and bar, twenty years ago, when she went into a feminist rant in front of someone Jude fancied and I said “Shhhh! There is nothing so unattractive to a man as strident feminism.” This, I insisted and still maintain, was a multi-layered ironic joke.
“We women are only being treated like shit because we are a pioneer generation, daring to rely on our own economic power,” Shazzer had yelled that night. “In twenty years’ time, men won’t even dare start with fuckwittage because we will just laugh in their faces and they will all just be kept in kennels as pets.”
It is twenty years later now. Men are not, generally, being kept in kennels as pets, but everything has both changed and not changed.
“Shall we get ourselves a bol of Chardonnay?” said Tom.
11.30pm Back home. Children are asleep. Just having a little nightcap and looking back. The strident feminist thing was a multi-layered ironic joke! At that time, I felt like “a Feminist” was another intimidating thing you were supposed to be: along with thin, in a relationship, a mother, running your own business and gliding smoothly from person to person at parties like Tina Brown. Solemn Feminists like Camille Paglia and Germaine Greer seemed to be always telling us off, for being less Feminist than them, and for trying to combine some sort of economic independence with the reality of finding men attractive and wanting to love and be loved, keep a job, pay the rent and just sort of manage without pissing everybody off too much to continue.
But it was also the era of Susan Faludi’s marvellous treatise, Backlash, where (even though I never actually read it but – epic Feminist fail! – Mark Darcy did), Susan Faludi flagged up that our faltering steps towards gender equality were being stamped upon by movies like Fatal Attraction, and that hideous quote from Time magazine saying a woman over the age of 40 was statistically more likely to be killed by a terrorist than find a husband. And look at my mother’s dreaded Turkey Curry Buffet! Uncle Geoffrey and even Smug Married couples my own age were still saying, “Why aren’t you married?” and “Tick-tock-tock tick-tock!” when I was only 32. It was as if I was some freakish Miss Havisham figure who was going to end up dying alone and being found three weeks later half eaten by an Alsatian, so much so that I felt moved to say, “It’s because actually underneath my clothes my entire body is covered with scales,” because that’s what they actually suspected, or made me feel like.
CF No. I mean no one’s ever asked me that.
BJ Do people ask you that all the time?
CF No, no. I can assure you . . .
BJ So it’s a . . .
CF It’s a totally brand-new, new-born question, yes.
BJ Oh Goody.
CF Shall we get on now?
BJ Yes.
CF Mr Darcy’s not an Arsenal supporter.
BJ No.
CF He’s not a schoolteacher.
BJ No.
CF He lived nearly 200 years ago.
BJ Yes.
CF Paul in Fever Pitch loves being in a football crowd.
BJ Yes.
CF Whereas Mr Darcy can’t even tolerate a country dance.
BJ No.
CF Paul doesn’t smoulder.
BJ Oh he did, though. That bit with the coffee cups. It’s fantastic where that woman Miss Hughes is just standing there and Mr Darcy just masterfully takes the cups away and then, like, snogs her.
CF I think that might be a similarity, then.
BJ I’m not putting words into your mouth or anything.
CF No, no. Now. Can we talk about something which isn’t to do with Mr Darcy?
BJ Yes. (PAUSE, RUSTLING PAPERS) If you had to play another character in a historical novel – apart from Nostradamus – who would you choose? (PAUSE)
CF Apart from Nostradamus?
BJ Yes.
CF You see, Nostradamus is a historical character. Nostromo, however, isn’t.
BJ What?
CF Nostromo is a fictional character invented by Joseph Conrad and I didn’t actually play him. I played someone else in the story called Charles Gould but, um, he’s not historical either. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually played a historical character.
BJ (SHOCKED) Apart from Mr Darcy.
CF Apart from Mr Darcy, yes. He’s the only actual true-life real-existing historical character I’ve actually played.
BJ What did you have to wear when you were Nostromo?
CF Well, I wore jodhpurs and a tweed jacket and . . . boots and things.
BJ Leather boots?
CF They were leather, yes.
BJ Quite high ones?
CF They were up to the knee.
BJ Tight?
CF Fairly tight. I mean I was able to get them on and off. But, um, they were tight enough. They were for riding and um, and, er . . . and that’s about it, really. They . . . it was, er . . . Yes. That’s about it.
BJ You know the dance you just mentioned in Pride and Prejudice?
CF (SIGHS) Yes.
BJ Was it quite, you know . . . sexy . . . in real life?
CF Well. It’s actually quite difficult to do acting and dancing at the same time and I think one, er, stress factor of making sure that you’ve reached the right place to say your next line is that, the eroticism isn’t the first thing in your mind necessarily.
BJ Do you think it was quite an erotic series?
CF Well, some people have found it to be so. I think it’s a very erotic book.
BJ Do you think the word erotic is quite an erotic word?
CF Quite an erotic word, yes.
BJ Mmm.
CF Yes. So. Now where were we?
BJ Are you still going out with your girlfriend?
CF Yes.
BJ Oh.
(LONG PAUSE)
CF Is everything all right?
BJ (ALMOST INAUDIBLE) Do you think small British movies are the way forward?
CF I can’t hear.
BJ (MISERABLY) Do you think small British movies are the way forward?
CF The way forward to . . . (ENCOURAGINGLY) – to what?
BJ (VERY LONG THOUGHTFUL PAUSE) The future.
CF Right. They seem to be getting us along step by step, I think. I quite like small movies but I do also like big movies and it would be nice if we made more of those as well.
BJ But don’t you find it a problem her being Italian and everything?
CF No.
(VERY LONG SILENCE)
BJ (SULKILY) Do you think that Mr Darcy has a political dimension?
CF I did speculate on what his politics might be, if he had any. And I don’t think that they would be very appealing to a reader of the Independent. It’s that pre-Victorian or Victorian idea of being the rich social benefactor, which would be very Thatcherite probably. I mean, the thought of socialism obviously hadn’t entered the . . .
BJ No.
CF . . . entered his sphere. And it is clearly stated by way of showing what a nice chap he is that he is very nice towards his tenants. But I think that he’d be closer to a sort of Nietzschian figure, a . . .
BJ What is neacher?
CF You know, the idea of the, er, human being as superman.
BJ Superman?
CF Not Superman himself, no. No. (SLIGHT GROANING NOISE) I don’t think he wore his underpants over his breeches, no. Look, I’d really like to get off this subject now.
BJ What will be your next project?
CF It’s called The World of Moss.
BJ Is it a nature programme?
CF No. No, no. No. It’s um, it’s er, about an eccentric family in the Thirties the father of which owns a moss factory.
BJ Doesn’t moss grow naturally?
CF Well, no, he makes something called Sphagnum moss which was used to dress World War I wounds and er, it’s er, quite a light, er, comic . . .
BJ (VERY UNCONVINCINGLY) It sounds very good.
CF I very much hope it will be.
BJ Could I just check something about the shirt?
CF Yes.
BJ How many times altogether exactly did you have to take it off and put it on again?
CF Precisely . . . I don’t know. Um. Let me see . . . there was the bit where I was walking towards Pemberley. That was shot once. One take. Then there was the bit where I give my horse to somebody . . . I think there was a change.
BJ (BRIGHTENING) There was a change?
CF (STRICTLY) There was. One change.
BJ So it was mainly just the one wet shirt, though?
CF The one wet shirt which they kept respraying, yes. All right?
BJ Yes. What is your favourite colour?
CF We’ve had that.
BJ Um. (PAPER RUSTLING)
BJ Do you think the film Fever Pitch was in reality all about emotional fuckwittage?
CF Emotional what?
BJ Fuckwittage. You know: men being mad, alcoholic, commitment phobics and just being interested in football all the time.
CF No, I don’t really. I think in some ways Paul is much more at ease with his emotions and has much more liberty with them than his girlfriend. I think that, in fact, in the final analysis, is what’s so appealing about what Nick Hornby’s trying to say on his behalf: that, in a rather mundane, everyday world, he has found something where you have access to emotional experiences, which . . .
BJ Excuse me.
CF (SIGHS) Yes?
BJ Is your girlfriend coming to the premiere of Fever Pitch.
CF Yes.
BJ But won’t she have trouble understanding it, being foreign?
CF Well she speaks very good English.
BJ But don’t you think you’d be better off with someone who was English and more your own age?
CF We seem to be doing alright.
BJ Humph. (DARKLY) So far. Do you ever prefer doing the theatre?
CF Um. I don’t subscribe to the view that the theatre’s where the real acting is, that film’s not really acting. But I find I do prefer the theatre when I’m doing it, yes.
BJ But don’t you think the theatre’s a bit unrealistic and embarrassing and, also, you have to sit through the acting for hours before you have anything to eat and you can’t talk or . . .
CF Unrealistic? Embarrassing and unrealistic?
BJ Yes.
CF Do you mean unrealistic in the sense that it . . .?
BJ . . . you can tell it isn’t real.
CF . . . that sort of unrealistic, yes. (SLIGHT MOANING SOUND) Um. I think it shouldn’t be if it’s good. It’s much more . . . it feels more artificial to make a film.
BJ Does it? I suppose it doesn’t go all the way through, does it?
CF Well no it doesn’t. No. Yes. A film doesn’t go all the way through. It’s shot in little bits and pieces. (LOUDER GROANING NOISE) Little bits and pieces.
BJ Has it been detrimental to your career being called Colin?
CF (LAUGHS) Well, I did ask my mother why she plumped for that particular name and she said, “Well, we couldn’t call you Andrew because of your cousin.”
BJ Oh. Do you think Mr Darcy would have slept with Elizabeth Bennet before the wedding?
CF Yes, I do think he might have.
BJ Do you?
CF Yes. I think it’s entirely possible. Yes.
BJ (BREATHLESSLY) Really?
CF I think it’s possible. Yes.
BJ How would it be possible?
CF Don’t know if Jane Austen would agree with me on this, but . . .
BJ We can’t know because she’s dead.
CF No, we can’t . . . but I think Andrew Davies’s Mr Darcy would have done.
BJ Why do you think that, though? Why? Why?
CF Because I think it was very important to Andrew Davies that Mr Darcy had the most enormous sex drive.
BJ (GASPS)
CF And, um . . .
BJ I think that came across, really, really well with the acting. I really think it did.
CF Thank you. At one point, Andrew even wrote as a stage direction: “Imagine that Darcy has an erection”.
(V. LARGE CRASHING NOISE)
BJ Which bit was that?
CF It’s when she’s been walking across the country and bumps into him in the grounds in the early stages.
BJ The bit where she’s all muddy?
CF . . . and dishevelled
BJ . . . and sweaty?
CF Exactly.
BJ Was that a difficult bit to act?
CF You mean the erection?
BJ (AWED WHISPER) Yes.
CF Um, well, Andrew also wrote that I don’t propose that we should focus on it, and, therefore, no acting required in that department at least.
BJ Mmm.
(LONG PAUSE)
CF Yes.
(MORE PAUSE)
BJ Mmm.
CF Is that it, then?
BJ No. What was it like with your friends when you started being Mr Darcy?
CF There were a lot of jokes about it: growling “Mr Darcy” over breakfast and so on. There was a brief period when they had to work quite hard to hide their knowledge of who I really was and . . .
BJ Hide it from who?
CF Well, from anyone who suspected that perhaps I was like Mr Darcy.
BJ But do you think you’re not like Mr Darcy?
CF I do think I’m not like Mr Darcy, yes.
BJ I think you’re exactly like Mr Darcy.
CF In what way?
BJ You talk the same way as him.
CF Oh do I?
BJ You look exactly like him, and I, oh, oh . . .
PROTRACTED CRASHING NOISES FOLLOWED BY SOUNDS OF STRUGGLE
Editor’s note: Bridget Jones has been sacked.
The growing interest in Bridget and the ensuing change in my life created a mixture of awed gratitude and confusion in me. I myself became an object of interest to the British press which was surreal since I was part of the British press, which is how it had all started in the first place.
On one occasion, returning to my flat in Notting Hill I spied a paparazzi on a motorbike waiting for me outside. ‘Honestly,’ I huffed, tossing my hair indignantly. ‘Why can’t they just LEAVE ME ALONE?’ As I got closer, though, I realized it was the delivery guy from Domino’s Pizza and was really disappointed.
For a struggling freelance journalist, to manage to get a book in print at all is a great privilege, let alone to have your character become part of the culture, and to have her lexicon absorbed into the language. I got a huge thrill from these Pile ’Em High cartoons by Kipper Williams, and the Mirror front page. I always wanted to hang them in the guest toilet to impress but found it too creepy.
William Hague’s head on Renée Zellweger’s body was downright disturbing . . .
. . . but it was still a source of pride to be on the front page.
In spite of its ageing-ness with regards to me, I’m deeply grateful that Bridget Jones is still being read and discussed after twenty-five years. The thought that it might be read by generations in the future is something that I would never previously have presumed to fantasize about, but now I dream that maybe one day someone will be stealing my plot, without realizing it’s actually Jane Austen’s.
Bridget in the 21st Century
I tend not to read my own books (once I’ve written them, obviously) or re-watch the movies, but a couple of years ago I took my children, Dash and Romy, to see a screening of the Bridget Jones’s Diary movie as it was being shown with a live orchestra. I was shocked at the casual sexism in every scene, which an unenlightened Bridget just put up with as part and parcel of having a job. Honestly, in this day and age all of Bridget’s bosses would have been fired and shamed on the spot. Solemn Feminists could get angry about what Bridget put up with, but the fact is, I didn’t write the diary as a sociological treatise. It became widely read because there was recognition. It was reflecting a reality, not creating it. When my goddaughter, Scarlett Curtis, was putting together this edgy collection of essays about Feminism, I was pleased to be part of it, and wrote this entry in Bridget’s voice.
Monday 16 April 2018
9st 2. Alcohol units: 3. Instagram followers: 167.
“That was the most sexist, horrifying, disgusting movie I’ve ever seen,” ranted Shazzer. “If John Travolta made that now, he’d never fucking work again.”
We had just got to the end of a 40th anniversary screening of Saturday Night Live. It was an invitation from Jude’s investment bank in a sedate screening room with drinkies and canapés.
“NONE of them would ever FUCKING work again!” Shazzer bellowed, as the credits rolled, and people made to leave their seats. “Did I actually hear the word ‘cunt’ seven times??”
“Shazzer. Shut urrp,” hissed Jude. People were staring. Tom, meanwhile, was smiling at them as if to say, “Everything’s lovely! She’s our patient,” ignoring the fact that he was wearing a tight white three-piece suit and high heels.
“John Travolta sat in the front seat of the car while they gang-raped his ex-girlfriend whose only crime was to have some sort of sexual desire and admit to it!” Shazzer continued to yell. “And what does he do when he actually wins the Goddess Virgin Anti-Whore-girl of his dreams? He fucking tries to rape her! Princess Diana danced with John Travolta, for fuck’s sakes! At the White House! And not the fucking Trumpian White House, either!”
“Let’s get her out of here,” said Jude.
It was all very unnerving, I thought. We clattered down the stairs. Saturday Night Fever was a cult classic, surely, like Grease. We’d gone to have a laugh and sing along to the Bee Gees in very high voices, not to have our youthful sense of right, wrong and gender understanding turned upside on its head, leaving us feeling like duped idiots.
“But wasn’t this the uncut version?” said Jude. “And wasn’t Saturday Night Fever known for being a deliberately provocative piece, exploring the dark side of youth culture. And the whole ‘cunt’ . . . Oh hello!” Our host and Jude’s CEO, Johnny Carruthers, was coming up the stairs.
“No, it fucking wasn’t!” yelled Shazzer, barging past him. “Saturday Night Fucking Fever was known for everyone thinking John Travolta was hot, the Bee Gees were cool, and it was a charming teenage dance frenzy. But ACTUALLY, that movie was a celebration of the worst kind of profound, misogynist sexism when women are treated with utter contempt and casual violation.”
By this time we were weaving through cars and rain across the Soho street and pushing our way into the warmth and crowded coziness of Kettner’s.
“AND WE FUCKING DIDN’T FUCKING NOTICE because we are an OPPRESSED RACE!” finished Shazzer, as we got through the door.
“Shhhh,” I said, suddenly flashing back to shushing Shazzer in exactly the same manner and bar, twenty years ago, when she went into a feminist rant in front of someone Jude fancied and I said “Shhhh! There is nothing so unattractive to a man as strident feminism.” This, I insisted and still maintain, was a multi-layered ironic joke.
“We women are only being treated like shit because we are a pioneer generation, daring to rely on our own economic power,” Shazzer had yelled that night. “In twenty years’ time, men won’t even dare start with fuckwittage because we will just laugh in their faces and they will all just be kept in kennels as pets.”
It is twenty years later now. Men are not, generally, being kept in kennels as pets, but everything has both changed and not changed.
“Shall we get ourselves a bol of Chardonnay?” said Tom.
11.30pm Back home. Children are asleep. Just having a little nightcap and looking back. The strident feminist thing was a multi-layered ironic joke! At that time, I felt like “a Feminist” was another intimidating thing you were supposed to be: along with thin, in a relationship, a mother, running your own business and gliding smoothly from person to person at parties like Tina Brown. Solemn Feminists like Camille Paglia and Germaine Greer seemed to be always telling us off, for being less Feminist than them, and for trying to combine some sort of economic independence with the reality of finding men attractive and wanting to love and be loved, keep a job, pay the rent and just sort of manage without pissing everybody off too much to continue.
But it was also the era of Susan Faludi’s marvellous treatise, Backlash, where (even though I never actually read it but – epic Feminist fail! – Mark Darcy did), Susan Faludi flagged up that our faltering steps towards gender equality were being stamped upon by movies like Fatal Attraction, and that hideous quote from Time magazine saying a woman over the age of 40 was statistically more likely to be killed by a terrorist than find a husband. And look at my mother’s dreaded Turkey Curry Buffet! Uncle Geoffrey and even Smug Married couples my own age were still saying, “Why aren’t you married?” and “Tick-tock-tock tick-tock!” when I was only 32. It was as if I was some freakish Miss Havisham figure who was going to end up dying alone and being found three weeks later half eaten by an Alsatian, so much so that I felt moved to say, “It’s because actually underneath my clothes my entire body is covered with scales,” because that’s what they actually suspected, or made me feel like.
