S’pose I should say something about the election in the United States.
I suppose I should, but I’m not going to.
If I had spent last night watching news and current affairs, and, heaven forbid, reading broadsheets I probably would opine away, as will surely be the style on blogs today.
However, in anticipation of the forthcoming release of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, I thought watching the first instalment of Ms Jones’s life would be more rewarding than trying to figure out the American electoral system.
I banished any doubts about my choice (“It’s, like, sort of, like, important to know about voting”) with the acknowledgment that when in competition with George Bush and John Kerry, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth win every time.
At any rate, although Bridget Jones’s Diary is fiction, its comedic take on the semi-disaster that is its protagonist’s existence rings truer than any political spin.
It’s easier to accept that a thirty-two year old “singleton” would find herself getting asked tactless questions about her love-life, as well as debating whether to wear little knickers or big figure flattening ones, than it is to believe John Howard can do much about interest rates.
For those wanting honesty in politics, Bridget is your gal.
Although she outdoes most of us by getting her heart broken by the dishy Grant, that feeling we all get when we’ve made a fool of ourselves is etched on her face as she walks home in a bunny costume after discovering a beautiful woman in her beau’s apartment.
“I thought you said she was thin”, said woman says to Grant, or more correctly his character Daniel Cleaver, and females worldwide simultaneously stuff themselves with chocolate and mutter darkly, while still managing to find Cleaver a spunk in a “what a bastard” way.
Given Diary’s mostly interested in Bridget’s romantic travails, her associations with women get scant attention, or are represented as negative and only existing because of a connection with a male.
As much I’d like to present a feminist theory of why it isn’t the case, everyone knows having a relationship with a woman who is having a relationship with someone you’re having a relationship with is no picnic at Taronga Zoo.
I understand Bridget shares a Sapphic smooch in The Edge of Reason, thus making it more likely to get the nod as a date movie with a fellow you fancy (without wanting to sound like The Rules – make sure he does the asking), and more real to most modern women than someone who is 100% straight.
Forming the female part of Bridget’s “urban family”, as opposed to her flaky mum and dad, are an investment banker who cries heaps and a journalist who swears more than Mark Latham probably did on October 10.
Rather than offer sound advice, these women, along with a requisite gay male, support Bridget’s folly, which is what friends who don’t watch Dr Phil are supposed to do.
“Your whole future happiness now depends on how you behave on this one social occasion”, slurs one of them over too many drinks.
In the extras that come with the DVD, Renée Zellweger, who plays the eponymous heroine, remarks that “She’s an everywoman”; a status which makes her more fun, and easier to relate to, than boys in suits who want to rule the world.
Bush may have won the election, but it’s Bridget who triumphs in my world.
***Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason starts in Brisbane on November 11. If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere exciting, check your local newspaper.
Darlene can be contacted at darlene@onlineopinion.com.au or go to http://darlenetaylor.blogspot.com