And Your Point Is ?

Compare and contrast the representation of men and women in romantic comedy

Robert Murphy wrote that the protagonist in Bridget Jones’s Diary hardly suffers at all and blunders undeservedly into happiness, and the film is seemingly analogous (The British Cinema Book, 1997: 292). I am comparing and contrasting the representation of men and women in romantic comedy which is Bridget Jones’s Diary.

 The romantic comedy Bridget Jones’s Diary is hilarious, it points out the many differences between the female and male gender and even similarities.

   It is based on a book written by Helen Fielding about Bridget Jones, a thirty something year old London girl who on New Year’s Day is hung over, and still single, decides to get a grip on her life by starting a diary which culminates into her finding her soul mate and partner (Bridget Jones’s Diary, Sharon Maguire, 2001). The romantic comedy is resounding for people that are single and are looking to get into a committed relationship or and marriage. In the romantic comedy, Bridget Jones is seen as incapable of finding her Mr Right. That is why she started a diary in the first place to enable her make sense of her supposed blighted situation in life. Her encounter with her mother and Mark Darcy at her annual curry turkey party puts all her doubts to rest as to who she is in terms of her single status or her predicted spinsterhood for life.

Bridget Jones is represented as emotional. One who sees herself as endangered specie, a

female whose identity is intertwined in her choice of men, making her question her identity and self esteem by deciding to have a ‘romantic’ relationship with her boss Daniel Cleaver?

Daniel Cleaver is represented as unemotional, chauvinistic, patriarchal, not knowing how to treat to women nor understands the woman’s psyche. In a particular scene where after Bridget Jones decides to give him the short notice of her finding another job and will leave her current employment with Daniel Cleaver in less than six weeks which is the ideal ‘quit working’ notice.

 

Daniel Cleaver sounded patronising to Bridget Jones when he said, “Bridge, you cannot leave

because of the incident, we have a good working relationship and besides you did not give the office a six week notice.”

 Bridget Jones then asserted her authority as female and having had a soul searching in regards to her choice of men in relations to her single status and age, saying, “I would rather wipe Saddam Hussein’s arse than working with you,” which erupted cheers and comments from her work colleagues showing that Daniel Cleaver’s asserted masculinity or rather lack of it by his chauvinism was not welcomed by his employees and colleagues, most especially his employees.

  The distinct part of the scene was when Bridget Jones made her assertion about rather wiping Saddam Hussein’s arse than working for Daniel Cleaver, the music‘respect’ sung by Aretha Franklin came on telling the viewers about Bridget Jones new found‘freedom’.