Stephanie Bunbury observes that, recently, there is a bunch of single career girls across the spread of media. On television, Ally McBeal, Sex and the City, Friends, and This Life, 「all reflect the syrupy feminisation of fiction where all of life is consumed by the minutiae of the Relationship[1].」 Bunbury notices that the British book trade also manifests such trend:
In the past couple of years, a whole new category has sprung up in the lists of new releases and best-sellers. Alongside 『Adventure,』 『Romance』 and 『Biography』 there is a new category: 『City Girl.』 In the beginning, of course, was Bridget Jones…[and with its followers, there is] a crowd of dieting-『n』-desperate heroines so numerous that they』ve become that most modern of success stories, a marketing definition.
As the pioneer of City Girl novels, Helen Fielding』s Bridget Jones』s Diary, beginning as an autobiographical column in the Independent, was 「a huge hit when it was published in Britain, in 1996, eventually selling more than a million copies,」 and rose to 「No. 3 on the best-seller list」 (Merkin 70). Fielding』s novel is a collection of diary entries from one-year』s life of Bridget, a thirty something career singleton (in Fielding』s term, i.e., an unmarried person) who is obsessed with her matelessness, appearance, and who often seeks tips from self-help articles and books. With its popularity, the diary has stirred up such brisk discussions that readers are 「either for it or against it」 (Merkin 70).
In a way, the debate over Bridget Jones』s Diary reflects upon the state of contemporary feminism. Ginia Bellafonte』s critique, 「Is Feminism Dead?」 in Time, deemed to be 「the best example of anti-Bridget backlash」 (Merkin 71), implicates
Fielding』s heroine in the ongoing failure of the women』s movement to live up to the glorious war-dance days of the sixties and seventies. [Bellafonte』s essay] replay[s] a familiar and murky argument: that the rigorous, socially conscious agenda of Old Guard feminists, like Betty Friedan, Steinem, and Kate Millett, has given way to the flighty, self-involved 「Duh Feminism」 of the nineties. (Merkin 71)
While Bellafonte hints that Bridget』s success indicates the wane of women movement, Aminatta Forna bemoans the problematic single female phenomenon. Forna rebukes:
Women』s issues are reduced to relationships, the laments of single women, body image, holistic medicine and therapy. Feminism is thus bled of its radical social or political agenda. We [feminists] have laughed over Bridget Jones, but millions of women bought Fielding』s satirical tale because they identified with the professional, educated women who wept over boyfriends who picked her up and dumped her[2].
Bellafonte and Forna both stress the deviation of female issues in the 1990s, and interpret Bridget』s angst about calories and boyfriendlessness as deterioration.
It』s a pity for Bellafonte and Forna to define the deeds of Fielding』s protagonist as the retrogression of feminism. Both of them overlook that Bridget Jones』s Diary does not weaken women』s issues, but reflects the reality with which female career singletons in the nineties are constantly confronted[3]. Instead of degradation, nevertheless, Bridget』s concerns about her singleton, body image and her actualization of rules from girl guides are actually vital to her self-representation. This paper will argue, that Bridget, in fact, demonstrates a certain subjectivity and autonomy as she adjusts herself to the desolate, vision-oriented consumer culture. Her individualization is expressed through her managing the condition of being single and her relationship network as she reconstructs herself externally as well as internally.
About Bridget』s Diary, what is bothering people is that ?
it signals the return of what is referred to in English-lit classes as the Marriage Plot [which people were supposed to have fast-forwarded past]….Or at least [the theme of marriage is] supposed to have receded discreetly, while [people] were focussing on more enlightened variations—the Career Plot or the Looking for a Self Plot. (Merkin 71)
Can modern people, however, successfully deal with their marriage, and move on without any doubt of it? Or does Fielding detect that modern individuals are more entangled with the marital topic? Talking about the path of modernity in Risk Society, Beck proposes that the form of the single person is 「the archetype of the fully developed labor market society」 (123). With the development of labor market, people are removed from traditional life contexts to lead their life individually, and 「the more impersonal life around [them] seems, the more attractive love becomes」 (Beck, 1995: 178). Beck suggests that alongside loneliness, the side effects of individualization, single people are more attracted to family and marriage, the shrine of love. Therefore, as a professional woman living alone in her apartment in London in the nineties, Bridget is uneasy about her loneliness, and desires to have a stable relationship. She 「wishes to hook Mr. Right because she fears the alternative: 『dying alone and being found three weeks later half-eaten by an Alsatian』」 (Merkin 72). Bridget craves to become one of the 「Smug Marrieds」 not because 「she is insufficiently evolved or because she has an unreal notion of what marriage entails」 (Merkin 71). It is the threat of isolation, accompanying individualization, that motivates Bridget to search for a mate and to get married.
Although preoccupied with her state of being alone, Fielding』s heroine does not thus have crushes on men rashly. Bridget resolves to 「form relationships based on mature assessment of character」 (2). And fortunately, she has around her three close friends, all of whom are also unmarried, to cushion the celibate life. For Bridget, it seems that an 「intensification of the friendship network remains indispensable, and it is also the pleasure offered by the single life」 (Beck, 1996:122). Whenever she is depressed, especially when she is having problems with her boyfriend, she shares her feelings with them in Cafe Rogue or over the phone. Her friends then offer her timely company, consolation, and suggestions to defuse her emotional crises. . Gathering together, Bridget and her companions, four singletons, are not lonely. They believe that they set up 「extended families in the form of networks of friends connected by telephone」 (245).
Fielding looks like to point out that instead of receding, the marriage theme haunts modern single women farther because of loneliness. It is noteworthy that not merely pursuing a partner, Bridget actively maintains her friendship to vitalize her lonely urban life. More than the relationship and the laments of her condition of having no partner, Fielding』s heroine is bitterly attacked on her paranoiac anxiety for the body image. She is on a diet and puts in her list of new year』s resolutions an item: reducing the 「circumference of thighs by three inches (i.e. one and a half inches each), [and] using anti-cellulite diet」 (3). Charting her caloric, nicotine, as well as alcoholic intake almost every day, Bridget claims: 「I am a child of Cosmopolitan culture, have been traumatized by supermodels and too many quizzes and know that neither my personality nor my body is up to it if left to its own devices」 (59). About Bridget』s obsession with her weight, Shalit remarks that
the neurotic equation of appearance and identity, is understandable in adolescents, a large measure of whose world is defined by how others see them. It is more troubling in grown women, who are supposed to be able to look beyond the physical to more essential matters. But Bridget Jones』s interior monologue is the monologue of an overgrown teenager. (39)
Shlit criticizes that Fielding』s protagonist is an adult yet with a teenaged viewpoint to shallowly mistake her physical image as the identity. Being the archetypal object of the makeover culture, Bridget is 「constantly interrogating and experimenting with her looks, using beauty tips and best-dressed lists to implement full-scale changes of identity….Her response to her various setbacks and mortifications is not to look within but to change her packaging」 (Shalit 38).
Whether or not Bridget reacts to her setbacks and mortifications simply by modifying her outside, but not inside, it waits for detailed discussions later in the paper, in the part about her nipping self-help tips. It is worthy to stop here and wonder, is Bridget』s identification with the physical image so immature? Does the mass-production cosmetic culture autocratically direct consumers』 values of their appearance without their own agreement? Mike Featherstone disputes that the connection between one』s inner body and the outer one is the current trend: ?
Within the consumer culture the inner body should be seen as conjoined to the outer body, appearance….The achievement of fitness then is not just to work on tuning the body as the vehicle for maximizing pleasurable sensations, but also to enhance physical appearance: to achieve a slimmer, firmer, healthier, more active, energetic and sexy-looking body….In a world of strangers the look of the body becomes an important passport to participate in the symbolic exchange and market of free emotions. (7-8)
Featherstone recounts that under the development of consumer culture, people tend to identify themselves as well as others with their appearance since the inside body is now supposed to be combined with the outside one. And being atomized, modern individuals are demanded, within a blink of time, to make efficient acquaintances most by people』s appearance. Thus, equating the looks with one』s identity is not the relic of puberty, as despised by Shalit; on the contrary, it is a token of modern society.
Bridget herself realizes modern culture is 「too obsessed with outward appearance」 (82), and if she does not 「do something about [her] appearance [she will] never get a new job, never mind another boyfriend」 (192). Though Bridget tries hard to shape her figure, she does not, thus, blindly accept the values of cosmetic beauty. Conversely, she is aware of the price consumers pay for the Cosmopolitan culture. She sighs that ?
Being a woman is worse than being a farmer—there is so much harvesting and crop spraying to be done: legs to be waxed, underarms shaved, eyebrows plucked, feet pumiced, skin exfoliated and moisturized, spots cleansed, roots dyed, eyelashes tinted, nails filed, cellulite massaged, stomach muscles exercised. (30)
Rather than being an unconscious victim of manufactured ideal images, Fielding』s heroine perceives the prevalence of body image and considers reflexively the influence of the makeover fashion.
Besides oscillating with docility and criticism under the domination of beauty rules, Bridget pays attention to the improvement of her inner body, and refers to self-help books. She seems to take Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus as her compass to realize the differences between males and females. Every time as there is an emergency in her relationship with men, she consoles not only her close friends, but guide articles or books as well. Following the guidelines, Bridget』s attitude toward Daniel, her ex-boyfriend, is transformed from being 「complete in oneself as a woman of substance」 (31), an 「aloof, unavailable ice-queen」 (73), finally to being like Kathleen Tynan, who has 『inner poise』 and who would never allow Daniel 「to sleep with her whenever he felt like it but not be her boyfriend」 (89). Moreover, Bridget arranges other life matters by the instruction of manuals. She finds tips for the social skills needed for attending parties. She skims the Ultimate Sex Guide to prepare for her date, and studies recipe books to hold a dinner party in her apartment.
Disagreeing with Bridget』s guidelines-following, Merkin mentions that 「some readers have regarded Bridget』s magpie-like nibbling at glossy magazines—with their service pieces on reducing your pores and refashioning your personality—as a sorry symptom of the makeover culture rather than a sly subversion of it」 (74). Merkin seems to suppose that Bridget submits herself to the girl guides without her own reflexivity.
While Merkin believes Bridget is subjecting herself to the advice pieces, Anthony Giddens may approve of Bridget』s behavior and regard it as her reflexive reconstruction. While describing the emergence of life politics, Giddens explicates that the body is now invaded by abstract systems, and is changed into?
a site of interaction, appropriation and reappropriation, linking reflexively organised processes and systematically ordered expert knowledge. The body itself….the body has become fully available to be 『worked upon』 by the influences of high modernity. As a result of these processes, its boundaries have altered. It has…a thoroughly permeable 『outer layer』 through which the reflexive project of the self and externally formed abstract systems routinely enter. In the conceptual space between these…[people] find more and more guide books and practical manuals to do with health, diet, appearance, exercise, lovemaking and many other things. (1991:218)
In Gidden』s opinion, the body is no longer taken as a fixed that is given inherently; contrarily, it turns into the arena upon which both the self as well as the expert knowledge, ordered externally and systematically, can act cooperatively. Since people are able to alter their physical image, there comes a host of advice books for frame improvement. For Bridget, she is not resignedly dictated by the girl guides, but just actively chooses the guidelines. She uses advice books to reshape her body image and help herself manage various social conditions.
Even though her nibbling magazines for tips, if exaggeratedly, is magpie, it can further help her to identify herself. For Giddens, addiction 「signals a particular mode of control over parts of one』s day-to-day life—and also over the self」 (1993:74). Because the pre-existing patterns and habits cannot constrain people』s life, individuals have to choose their own life forms. Such life-style choices are not 「just 『external』 or marginal aspects of the individual』s attitudes, but define who the individual 『is』」 (Giddens, 1993:75). It follows that Bridget』s favor of instruction manuals is constitutive of her reflexive subjectivity. Since it is her, not the guidebooks, that decides the tips most suitable for her, to question whether she subverts the makeover culture or not will be superfluous.
Fielding graphically depicts the single life of a professional woman in London of the nineties. Underlying Bridget』s obsession with men is her fear of loneliness, which becomes unbearable with the progression of individualization. Although she is haunted by her isolation, she wishes to establish solid relationships on the foundation of mature character, instead of having crush on men rashly. Her close friends also alleviate her predicament of being alone, and see her through many dejected moments. Following the steps of modernity, not only the traditional family structure is disentangled, but the previous patterns are collapsed as well. The body can now be modified and is taken as constructive to people』s identity. Together with her consciously adapting guidelines, Bridget』s chronicling her weight, units of cigarettes, and drinking, is the record of her self reconstruction both physically and psychologically. Surrounded by the flood of beauty ideals and advice pieces, she reflects upon these phenomena while, at the same time, takes advantage of them to define her self-presentation. Bridget』s endeavor to moderate her loneliness, and to cultivate her subjectivity may account for her popularity among female career singletons, who similarly struggle for their existence in modern society. It may be predictable that the genre of City Girl will still remain hot as there are more and more women living on their own. And, of course, these women will reflexively choose and devour works of the City Girl.
Work Cited
Beck, Ulrich. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Trans. Mark Ritter. London: Sage, 1996.
---. and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim. The Normal Chaos of Love. Trans. Mark Ritter and Jane Wiebel. Oxford: Polity P, 1995.
Bunbury, Stephanie. 「Rock Bottom in Fat City.」 Aug. 28, 2000. The Age. Online. Jun. 15, 2001.
Featherstone, Mike. Introduction. Love and Eroticism. Ed. Mike Featherstone. London: Sage, 1999. 1-18.
Fielding, Helen. Bridget Jones』s Diary. London: Picador, 1996.
Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. California: Standford UP, 1991.
---. The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies. Cambridge: Polity P, 1993.
Gleick, Elizabeth. 「A V. Fine Mess: Out British Heroine Craves Love but Will Settle for a Clean Pair of Hose.」 Rev. of Bridget Jones』s Diary, by Helen Fielding. New York Times Book Review. May. 31, 1998: 31.
Merkin, Daphne. 「The Marriage Mystique: The Singleton Angst of Bridget Jones vs. the Joys of Postfeminist Solitude.」 New Yorker 74.22 (1998): 70-4.
Oppelt, Phylicia. 「Authors of their days.」 Feb. 6, 2000. Sunday Times. Online. Jun. 22, 2001.
Shalit, Ruth. 「Inside, Outside.」 Rev. of Bridget Jones』s Diary, by Helen Fielding, and The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, by Joan Jacobs Brumberg. New Republic. Sept. 7, 1998: 36-41.
[3] In her review, Elizateth Gleick presumes that 「People will be passing around copies of Bridget Jones』s Diary for a reason: it captures neatly the way modern women teeter between 『I am [a] woman』 independence and a pathetic girlie desire to be all things to all men」 According to Gleick』s review, Fielding』s work represents the real condition of single females today
