Mulvey Reading/Essay

Bridget Jone's Diary:

“Bridget Jones’s Diary” is a romantic comedy with a twist as the protagonist in the film is represented as an overweight, clumsy and chain smokes, making her not only real but also easily a lovable and funny character played by (Renee Zellweger) as Bridget Jones. The portrayal of Bridget Jones is far from the ideal or ‘perfect’ women a man is looking for as she is shown to be at her lowest point in life and needs a man because she feels lonely, so she goes on a hunt for Mr Right.

Her character can often reflect on how women seem to be living their lives in this day and age as the older they get the less likely it is for them to find love or Mr Right. As a result this can give out a negative representation of women because not all women are clumsy, chain smoker and overweight but in fact they are classy, independent and very successful in life and with love, I can’t say the same for a comedy character like Bridget.

During her man hunting she stumbles across two men but two men who are completely opposite, first guy is called Daniel (Hugh Grant) and the other Mark (Colin Forth), as she is seen to be trying to please both men as she can’t believe her luck however she struggles to keep up with men. The representations of both men are very different as Daniel is portrayed as the wild, cheeky hunk who is her boss and the person she defines as her ‘fantasy’. Whereas the representation of Mark is that he is respectable, well-mannered and very sweet, he loves her just the way she is, not for getting that Mark is also a childhood friends.

The stages she goes through in order to find her Mr right will determine whether she has chosen the right man as she finds her self-caught between ‘a men who’s too good to be true’ and another men who ‘is so wrong, that he could be RIGHT’, but who will she pick?

The character of Bridget Jones challenges the ’male gaze’ and stereotypical representation of women in contemporary society today. She is not sexually objectified by the male audience or the men in the film as she is shown to be careless about her appearance and the way she acts around men, as this reinforces that fact that she is getting old when she is shown to put her granny pants on in a sense that she needs to finally take control of her life, yet she is not fetishized, as the audience are aware that she has confidence issue ‘’I shall bit be paranoid with weight’’ and that she is not a man’s ideal fantasy. Although her character may not appeal to the male gaze, women can identify with the issues surrounding her weight issues, appearance and not finding Mr right.

This fact reinforces the ideologies of women and how some women can be too into the way they look and how they should appeal to men by achieving a certain image for example, blonde hair and big boobs which can be seen as narcissist and give a negative representation of women as they are being sexually objectified by the male audience. However the image of Bridget Jones appeal to women who struggle with confined tissues and reassures them that it does not matter what we look like, we should use Bridget Jones as an inspiration to all women.

There are aspect of the film or a certain scene which appeal to the male audience such as the scene where she is dressed as a bunny revealing her legs and breasts which appeal to the male gaze, as it for fills the male fantasy, as this factor reinforces the idea of sexual exploration and the need of pleasing the male audience which only identify that we still do live in a patriarchal society, where women need to meet the demands and expectation of men by degrading themselves as the camera angel emphasise on the feature of Bridget’s body to appeal to the male gaze and the gratification of men. On the other hand Daniel also plays up on the expectation of himself (men) to appeal to the female audience, the scene of him in the lift and the scene of him in bed with Bridget, as this allows women to also gain voyeuristic pleasure from looking at the men in the film but the fact that the main focus is on Bridget and Daniel is in the background this signifies the importance of male gaze more than the female gaze.

The film appeals to the male and female audience as it meets the expectation of both genders; however it signifies that the male gaze is important, yet the female audience can gain personal identification about how women are represented through the eyes on men and identify with the issues raised in the film regarding weight, appearance, life and love.

The male gaze: this is a term used by Laura Mulvey, which demonstrates the ‘visual pleasures and narrative cinema’ to describe what is seen through a male’s point of view and a male audience such as a women’s body and how its viewed as a sexual object for the gratification of men.

The female gaze: this term is used when women are shown to view sexual pleasure and they also gain voyeuristic pleasure from looking at a subject or a man, as film techniques such as camera movement can sometimes be used to position the female audience and allow them to do so.