Bridget Jones’ Genius Is What Happens *After* Happily Ever After (+ The New Movie)

Bridget Jones has been an iconic romcom heroine for over two decades a hilarious and uplifting Champion for those of us who just can't quite seemed to get our lives together her imperfections were always what made her so relatable but what makes her story particularly unique is that it continues on we get to see what happens after her happily ever after nice voice don't kiss like that and what Bridget finds isn't the perfect world she had always dreamed of but more real life her own Hang-Ups and issues are still there and didn't just disappear after the credits rolled the first time no can't go back and keep making same mistakes must keep moving forward and make new ones now a fourth installment of the series has been announced which means we'll get to see Bridget taking on a whole new stage of life in a way that only Bridget can I decided to take control of my life so let's take a deeper look at the reasons why Bridget is still so relatable even all of these years later and how getting to see her continue living her life after multiple happily ever Afters provides such an important lesson for all of us plus we'll unpack what we can expect from the new film and why one very important person won't be in it most rumcom heroins especially in the 9s and early 2000s era were aspirational they were beautiful put together if ever so slightly Hollywood frazzled and were the kind of woman you could dream about wanting to be Bridget didn't totally break this mold she is played by a beautiful Hollywood actress after all but she did feel fresh for how totally chaotic she was her missteps weren't just quirky little oopsies but major flubs that invited secondhand embarrassment but this was what made her so relatable While most of us don't wake up looking like we're in a shampoo commercial we definitely have slipped up and said something silly in an important conversation or totally misread the dress code on a party invite oh holy Jesus she was an externalization of all of the things we try to hide about ourselves our bad habits bad choices bad self-image but no matter how down she got she was never going to give up on getting what she wanted just as soon as she figured out what exactly that was in this way she helped us learn to accept our own failures and see them as powerful opportunities for growth which we discussed at length in this video which will link to in the comments for you to watch after this one okay because Society has changed so much since the first Bridget Jones movie dropped in 2001 it can be easy to think that her story would feel outdated and some parts of it do feel very of its time like the constant treatment of her perfectly average weight and if anything thin body as if she's the size of an actual whale I'd finally die fat and alone and be found 3 weeks later half eaten by alci but if we look around we'll find that things haven't actually changed quite as much as we might have hoped certainly we've seen a wonderful wave of body positivity especially in the past 10 years but it hasn't necessarily led to the kind of universal acceptance of bodies of all sizes that we might have hoped for scary stomach holding in pants very popular granny is the world over huh tricky very tricky as Michelle Santiago Cortez wrote for the cut this was a result of it being co-opted by Brands eager to capitalize on it but unwilling to meaningfully expand their sizing the case of mumu's mini skirt is a perfect example while Paloma elessar wore it on the cover of ID the brand does not actually offer the skirt in her size and had to make one custom for the shoot ads are still filled with incredibly thin models and now we also have multiple social media feeds at our fingertips feeding us these kinds of images 24/7 and The Fad diets of Bridget's era have been replaced with new so-called fast fixes like ozempic while the way we talk about it might have changed the the societal standards Bridget struggled with haven't really gone away resolution number one obviously we'll lose 20b in addition to the external pressures that have unfortunately stuck around most of Bridget's internal stressors also continue to be intimately relatable one of Bridget's biggest problems is that she often blocks her own success due to her insecurity something we can all connect to on some level it's the problem it's she often looks for quick fixes instead of taking time to figure out the deeper root of her issues and come up with a solution and will launch myself into frenzy keep fit regime and allowing four weeks to reduce thy circumference in order to squeeze lardy ass into teenage skinny jeans she hyper focuses on whatever new thing catches her attention that she thinks will finally be the thing to fix her new men random imperfection she needs to erase or hide away a new skill she thinks will make her more interesting for Bridget these ideas came in the form of self-help books instead of a Tik Tok feed from small things like aiming more for the aesthetic of being a cook instead of actually being a good cook to Bridget who cannot cook but who we love just as she is to larger issues like running head first into situationships that aren't good for her not continue to form romantic attachments to any of the following alcoholics Workaholics commitment phobics peeping Toms megalomaniacs emotionals or PE it's clear that many of the problems Bridget faced haven't gone away but instead have just updated themselves for our modern era and this is why Bridget's story not stopping on that first happy ending and instead continuing on in the way our lives actually do is so important # let's do this no matter how many obstacles she faces or how much push back she seems to get from the world Bridget never truly lets her spirit get crushed tiny makeup mistake but but I always have wit and conversation to fall back on and this is particularly important for her and us because her story extends beyond the happily ever Afters that usually close out the arcs of her favorite heroins so what happened after he climbed up the tower and rescued her she rescues him right back normally getting the guy in the Hollywood romantic kiss is the end for good we don't get to see what happens after because that would be more real life and real life gets messy because the reality is finding the one isn't a cure all for life's problems at last life is on track Bridget joon's F wife mother Bridget of course finds this out the hard way she had completely bought into the Romantic idea of true love pedal by films where you find the right guy and TAA your life is perfect now have never been happier in entire life however must not obsess or fantasize but love was never Bridget's real problem she had friends and family who loved her and plenty of guys who were interested her biggest problem was her lack of love for herself someone else loving us and telling us we're perfect won't mend our internalized issues no matter how many movies try to tell us it will Bridget Jones has caught things up for the very last time Bridget gained self-confidence through realizing that she doesn't need to change to be loved that's not a good enough offer for me I'm not willing to gamble my whole life on someone I'm not quite sure but old habits die hard in every film it's almost like she's starting back at the bottom of the hill having to relearn yet again that she is in fact very worthy of love and happiness just the way she is it would be great if life was like a movie and after you had your one Epiphany moment you could just completely get your life together and change your mindset and right off into the sunset no I like you very much just as you are but reality is often a lot more like what Bridget goes through having to learn the same lesson a few times for it to really stick but while also picking up important new self- knowledge along the way I may have been another year older and still single but I could always take consolation in my job as top news producer the continuation of Bridget's story after all of those happy endings is also important because it lets us get a more realistic look at the so-called perfect guy while Mark Darcy is Dashing and handsome and literally sweeps Bridget off of her feet as their story continues we see that he's got his own problems too and I suppose you agree with them that poor people deserve to be poor don't be ridiculous so now I'm ridiculous true love didn't fix him either he's still distant and uncommunicative more focused on work than anything else romcoms especially a Bridget's era often featured a leading man with a hard outer shell that the heroin had to crack to find the real sweet guy underneath and it was always implied that he just stayed that open and loving forever but with Mark we see how that's likely not the case in the same way Bridget fell back into many of her own destructive patterns so too did Mark and so they both have to work on themselves and their willingness to be open to love through their struggles we get to see a shred of truth about about real love it takes work and commitment it isn't just something that happens after a single spark Bridget Rose Joe's and Mark Fitz William D I Now Pronounce You finally husband and wife but as it turns out there's still more after that happily ever after too Bridget Jones mad about the boy the third book in the Bridget Jones series and on which the upcoming film will be based was released back in 2013 and featured a Twist that shocked fans spoilers ahead for the book and the upcoming film use the chapter to skip ahead if you want to avoid them at the end of Bridget Jones's baby it seemed like Bridget finally had pretty much everything she had ever wanted sure she had to quit her job which she was very good at but it was for a good reason and I suppose it's become unfashionable to care about wanting to make something worthwhile so I would rather be oldfashioned and unemployed than part of a show that celebrates the inan she got the baby and the w heading and Mark Darcy so imagine fans surprise when they picked up the next book in the series to find out that Mark had died in the time between the second and third book killed by a landmine while working in Sudan so instead of the story of Bridget and Mark finally getting their happily ever after it is instead the story of Bridget figuring out how to navigate the world as a single mother and Widow at first one might think how can they have a romcom without that romance we spent three whole movies waiting for them to truly be together and now we'll never get it Bridget's story was never really about her romance with Mark Darcy even when they were together the story was more about her functioning in his absence we could both come up with a hundred reasons why we didn't make it but in the end I always felt that you were never there and I was mostly alone every film was about Bridget going out into the world and learning new things about herself and learning to love herself more as their relationship waxed and way sometimes it feels scary still being on my own at 43 but you and I have been here once before so a story that follows how Bridget deals with this the greatest most permanent absence of a loved one is actually very much in line with the heart of the series and as the timeline is several years after his death it isn't just about her sadness but also about her finding joy and love again Bridget's life never goes exactly how she imagined it this is not how I thought this moment would be always imagined myself in Okay magazine with the man of my dreams but watching her march on into the future anyways is what makes her story so uplifting neither life nor Bridget will ever be perfect and we wouldn't want it any other way it will be interesting to see Bridget in yet another new phase of Life learning new things about herself and finding new avenues for Joy love and success no matter how challenging life gets Bridget always finds a way to carry on after a bit of wallowing I'm enjoying a relationship with two men simultaneously the first called Ben the other Jerry the most important takeaway of her entire story is that you just have to keep living and discovering yourself a new as your life and the world changes and grows there is no happy ending just the happy life you work to build for yourself day after day you've turned disasters into triumphs with your sheer joyful inter iable infectious buite that's the take click here to watch the video we think you'll love or here to check out a whole playlist of awesome content don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications and make sure to subscribe to our patreon for exclusive new videos

Channel: The Take

Views: 32,670

Keywords: the take, video essay, video essays, Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget Jones Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Bridget Jones's Baby, Bridget Jones Baby, Mark Darcy, Bridget and Mark, Daniel Cleaver, renee zellweger, Colin firth, Hugh Grant, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Mad About The Boy, Bridget Jones 4, new Bridget Jones Movie, Bridget Jones Mad About The Boy film, What happens in Bridget Jones Mad About The Boy, does Mark Darcy die, explained, film

Id: szpH8kXqUZg

Length: 13min 16sec (796 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 14 2024