The Bechdel Cast - Bridget Jones's Diary with Amy Solomon

Episode Date: March 4, 2021

This week, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Amy Solomon take to their diaries to write an in-depth analysis of Bridget Jones's Diary.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @amybethsol Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson.

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Hey, Caitlin. Yes, Jamie. Am I, okay, this is not going to pass the Bechdel test, but am I completely alone in having a lifelong struggle with knowing the difference of Colin being on screen and Hugh being on screen is that something you've ever have you ever been like oh yeah it was Colin Firth or it was Hugh because it's usually one or the other but when it's both I don't even know if my notes make a shred of sense I have not had this

problem I know that they're both like stuffy english men but they look different enough to me that i can very easily tell them apart their hair is different and their eye color is different and their faces are so different i know the face structure is different but they're the same guy though you know like they're the same guy like they've both won awards they've both pivoted to drama they've both yeah they both say cute little things and it's like i guess the difference is what like hugh grant is hornier like is that yeah hugh grant he's like got more charmed like raw charm to him whereas like colin firth tends to be more like stoic and awkward i feel like it's radically so different i don't know the difference between

them and i refuse to learn i I think that like Hugh Grant is, I mean, if we're like in a death match, I hate to turn men against men, but if we're in a death match, I guess I would probably choose Hugh Grant to survive. Well, he was the villain in Paddington too. So he's a part of the Paddington extended universe. And therefore he's amazing. I agree. And then it's like, what is Colin Firth?? I mean Colin Firth is bringing, oh no, what if I'm wrong? Colin Firth is in What a Girl Wants. Is that right? Yes. That's him, not Hugh Grant. See, it's

hard. Well, only because I haven't really seen that movie. Here's a fun fact, everyone. Colin Firth was originally cast to be the voice of Paddington, but then they thought that he just didn't sound quite right so they had to recast him they're like he's too similar to hugh grant people get

confused it's there to me there are different flavors of the same exact person like if you if you have like a little like a little volume if you turn the volume down you get colin first i also get and then if you bring colin farrell into the mix you're like oh my god another like brunette european man that i'm just like couldn't pick out of a lineup i know that moms know the difference but i just this is the i get their names confused because they're both colin f and then i get yeah i get hugh jackman and hugh grant not them the people confused but I accidentally call I switch their names around Hugh Jackman has I guess yeah Hugh Jackman and and Hugh Grant I mean they both kind of have a theater kid energy but it's like again it's like Hugh Grant the volumes turn down a little bit then Hugh Jackman it's like out of 40 you know

Hugh Jackman sometimes I'm like relaxed but then other times I love it I don't why are we talking about we're talking about sweet welcome to the Bechdel cast this is not what it's normally like I just I just want to like I'm feeling excited but insecure going into this episode because I know there's a point in my notes on this movie where I realized I had the two character names mixed up and that I didn't know which one was I went through whole scenes of Colin Firth being like anyways Hugh Grant like it's just it's hard for me I know that there's going to be a bunch of people who are like how could you not tell the difference between I don't know the difference between men and that's feminism I'll do my best to guide you through this, Jamie.

Thank you. Welcome to the Bechdel cast. You know, if this is your first episode, that's funny. Yeah. So our show is a podcast where we usually condemn the talking about men. But it's kind of a loophole if you're like, who are these people? True.

We're like, yeah, exactly. But in any case, so the Bechdel cast is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point. And of course, that is a media metric created by queer cartoonist

allison bechdel our rendition of the test requires that two people of any marginalized gender have names speak to each other about something other than a man for at least a two-line exchange of dialogue most movies can't get you there nor was the first four minutes of this episode getting you listen it does happen it does happen i just was i i'm so nervous i know it's gonna happen at least once where i'm like also naming them daniel and mark does not help me like i'm just like oh great the two most generic british guy names to describe the two most generic British guy actor. Like, this is just, it's not going to be good. However, we have, so today we're talking about Bridget Jones's Diary.

It's been a popular request really since the show has existed. It's, you know, kind of an early aughts rom-com staple. And, you know, it took us five years but here we are and i'm so excited for our guest today yes she is a tv producer and her book notes from the bathroom line comes out march 16th it's amy solomon yay hello welcome thank you this is so fun sorry for really dragging out that intro. I loved it. I loved every second of it. Welcome. Thank you for bringing us this movie.

What is your history with Bridget Jones? I guess we're covering the first movie, but in general. With the canon of Bridget Jones. I don't know that I had ever seen this. I do think I'd seen parts because some scenes I was like, oh, okay. But I guess I think my history is just that my mom is so horny for these guys. Like just, oh, my God, these are her guys. Moms know the difference. i called her last night and said

we were talking about it today and made her i was like ultimately if you had to pick colin firth or hugh grant and she couldn't do it she got all flustered oh my gosh i kind of wonder if we were like who are like two random british guys that we would do this for today because it's like who would like my child be like what is the difference between these men it would be like robert pattinson and some other guy where you i'm a big fan of nicholas holt so he would be in my top two dude if you put robert pattinson and nicholas holt on screen we would be like frothing till the ends of the earth and our and like the next generation could be like um i don't i see two identical men you know is this the you know what i was i meant to look this up is this the only movie they've ever been in together colin and

hugh oh no they were in love actually together of course, of course, of course. Okay, okay, okay. They're both in the Bridget Jones sequel, Edge of Reason. There's got to be... I'm sorry if I'm being unreasonable here. I'm just like, it really was so confusing to me. So I think what the movie should be this. Bridget Jones has to choose between Alfred Molina and Paddington. And then at the end they're like

let's be Polly. And they all move into a house together. That would be so nice. I'm also seeing that Hugh Grant and Colin Firth were possibly born the same week? It says, oh I looked this up. It's a day apart. this was in the imdb

trivia there's something like planet wise going like maybe it has nothing to do with looks and it's just a planetary thing going on because they just give you the same spiritual vibe yeah they both they both recently turned 60 congrats to them i honestly you know if I would absolutely you know have a what is it what's British dalliance with Hugh Grant you prefer I'm a Colin I prefer Colin see I think I'm a Hugh see I've read too much about he doesn't seem like the greatest guy oh no oh I I believe that it's called I could see i mean again i guess i'm just judging on strictly their movie characters i'm like oh colin firth's probably a family man and hugh grant is probably not i would highly recommend a foray into the hugh grant personal

life wikipedia oh god it is unbelievable caitlin also i am as devoted to the paddington universe as you are maybe not as devoted because you're the queen of it thank you so much but in that way i'm a hue girl but now i didn't know that about colin auditioning for paddington's voice yeah he in fact not only did he audition i think they recorded basically all of paddington's dialogue until they like realized it just wasn't going to really work out with just the way his voice sounded it was going to be too confusing to jamie this is sorry i meantime i was like i'm gonna let the girls talk about paddington i'm in hugh grant's personal life section on wikipedia and it is so long i will summarize it for you that basically he had these two wives or or like intense

relationships where he basically flip-flopped between them and would have a baby with one and then a baby with the other and then marry the one and it's unbelievable it's too much to fully get into here but i highly recommend that also his name is hugh john mungo grant his second middle name is mungo which is very british to me very oh yeah like mungo jerry from cats that was exactly what i thought it was why aren't colin firth and and Hugh Grant in the movie Cats? Huge missed opportunity, if you ask me. They would be like unique. I mean, everyone's bad in that movie, but they would be like uniquely bad in a way that

would be really fun. I feel like Hugh Grant could probably almost pull it off. Colin Firth, I don't know. I don't know. He might. He would be like Piercece brosnan trying to sing in mamma mia pierce brosnan is iconic in mamma mia because i feel like pierce brosnan knows in mamma mia that he cannot hold a note but he's just like karaoke committing at a 12.

that's amazing how many of those movies have you guys done we've just done the first one although i feel like there's now that i've seen mamma mia the first one although i feel like there's now that i've seen mamma mia here we go again i feel like there is a fair amount of discourse absolutely oh yeah and we love to cover a share movie always always a bonus and it's the superior mamma mia movie because agree fernando is present true true thank you anyway should we talk about the actual movie bridget jones's diary yes sorry caitlin what is your history with bridget jones oh um i saw it like right after it came out which was late or no i guess mid 2001 the only thing i remembered about the actual plot of the movie was the end when Colin Firth sees the diary, sees all the stuff she wrote in it

about how she hates him, and then he leaves. Then he's like, just kidding. I went out to buy you a new diary. And that's the only thing I remembered. Isn't that the first time we see the diary? I think you see little glimpses of it throughout. I felt like at the very end of the movie is the first time she sits down and writes in her diary.

It's called Bridget Jones's diary. Right. I feel like most of the diary is like ADR. It's like voiceover. Sorry, ADR. What am I? I'm fired from Hollywood. No, no. ADR, It's like voiceover. Sorry, ADR. What am I? I'm fired from Hollywood. No, no.

ADR, far the more technical term. Also, we are recording at 1 p.m., but I did pour some Pinot Grigio into a cup because I'm like, we're talking about Bridget Jones. Yeah. It's 1 p.m. on a Monday, and yet here we are.

You know, we've been in quarantine for years. Wait, one more thing I learned in the trivia online was that British people blamed they blamed Bridget Jones for sales of Chardonnay going down what oh because she was like this sad sack who well we need to get into this because quote-unquote sad sack who like drank chardonnay and then the sales went down in the years after the movie came out that's really funny and also i i don't know like i know that movies influence sales but i feel like usually it's an overstatement where they're like et saved reese's pieces and i'm like first of all i don't care and second all, it sounds like an overstatement.

It's just like how millennials are killing the diamond industry. Like Bridget Jones is killing the Chardonnay industry. Leave her alone. My whole thing with this movie is leave Bridget Jones alone. What's your history? My history is, I think, pretty close to Amy's. I think I've seen this movie but also I'm not totally sure that I've seen this movie I definitely cultural osmosis I knew what happened but I also like going in I'm like I don't remember if she ends up with anyone at the end I don't remember kind of

where it I don't I'm not sure but I I know that I've taken a lot of Bridget Jones in through cultural osmosis. And I have a lot more complicated thoughts on the movie and like the property in general than I thought I would. So I'm excited to talk about it. Yeah. Well, let's do that, shall we? Yeah. Okay. So here's the recap. Bridget Jones, who, of course, is Renee Zellweger.

Who is not British. But she does. And I'm no expert by any means. But I think she does a convincing enough English accent that I was like, wait a minute. Is Renee Zellweger one of those like British actors who just always gets cast in American roles? And I just didn't know this about her. And I like looked it up. And she is, in fact, American. But I was like, she's from Texas. And I like looked it up and she is in fact American. But I was like, damn, she's doing a pretty good job. I guess people were really mad when she got cast

because it was such an iconic British gal from the books. But then people had to admit she really pulled it off. And she got nominated for an Oscar. I know. It's so bizarre that we're so cool with british actors doing american accents but it's the second american actor does a british accent we're like that is unbelievable it's like no offense england we have more actors our country's bigger so make space for random american white girls doing british accents that are pretty convincing.

I thought, yeah, I was genuinely, I assumed the same thing, Caitlin, that she was British but played American often. Just like, I mean, God, I feel like every popular American actress is secretly Australian. So like, whatever. I thought it was really, I was really impressed. And then I looked up on that horrible that horrible website quora.com yeah where it's like basically yahoo answers too and I was like do people like Renee Zellweger's accent and Bridget Jones and generally yes some

some British people say that it's a bit too posh for a middle class person but then they'll others will excuse the fact that she's clearly trying to like change she's trying to like you know impress people and act wealthier than she is so maybe it does make sense right she's giving such a nuanced performance why didn't she get the oscar for bridget jones i read that she also did the accent between takes. Like just on set. Oh, she stayed in character? Wow. Which I have mixed feelings about.

Really? Well, just I totally respect it to stay into it. I think that makes a lot of sense. But when you are on a set and someone's doing that, it's like, okay, let's just talk normally.

You know? I guess putting myself in her shoes, I'd be so afraid that i would lose it if i stopped that's my thing i'd be like i have to stay in it what if it goes away i also love when women even go two percent method because men get away with the weirdest shit totally and then the second a woman does something weird they're like she's difficult. On Barry, we have all those guys who play the Chechens. And they were kind of during the pilot deciding, like, are we going to stay in this accent between scenes?

And Bill Hader was kind of like, no. That's the best. But that's also like, it's pretty, they're doing a pretty, you know, Noah Hank is a pretty goofy character. So it's a lot. But yeah he's an icon but yeah i respect renee for staying in it for sure i would be afraid that hugh grant would make fun of me he seems like the type that would be like okay knock it off but yeah respect yeah um okay so bridget jones has been single for 32 years um which i guess is the movie's way of saying that she's 32 years old yes well when you're a baby you are single

it's true um her mom or her mom is always trying to set her up with someone. And this year at a holiday party, her mother tries to set her up with Mark Darcy. That's Colin Firth. And she's actually interested in him, but he is not interested in her. And she overhears him saying some very mean things about her. And she realizes that if she doesn't make some changes soon she's gonna be alone forever or end up like glenn close in fatal attraction which i love i have a whole but like i love that you see bridget jones like part of her insecurity is stemming from the media she's consuming i'm like wow if only she could have listened to the Bechdel cast.

I know, especially because in our episode on Fatal Attraction, we talk about what a like societal and cultural impact that movie had. And like everyone who saw it was like, oh, my gosh, women are so unstable and they're gonna kill me. I very rarely see like a hetero woman on screen and be like i could save her but that's how i feel about bridget jones i was like oh i wish we could just hang out with her and her friends 20 years ago right um so then in her diary which she is in theory writing in throughout the movie which we mostly get through like her voiceover narration she makes a list of what she wants to accomplish which is to lose weight to find a nice boyfriend and to stop fantasizing about her boss daniel cleaver and that is hugh grant And then, so we see her at work. She has a job in publishing.

We also meet her friends. Jude Shaza, is that her name? I guess. Yeah, I guess. I was curious about Shaza, question mark. She seemed fun, but she only shows up to say fuck. Yeah, she says fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. And then Tom, that's like their friend

group so then bridget starts flirting with daniel at work and by that i mean her boss begins to sexually harass her in the workplace via email very chic yeah i was like, wow, MSN email representation. My mom feels so seen right now. I mean, there's so much Buscemi test in this movie of like, if Steve Buscemi is your boss sending this email, are we okay with it? No, we're not. Seriously. So then the following night is this big launch event for their publishing company's new book, Kafka's Motorbike. Pretty funny. Pretty funny.

And she's like, OK, I'm going to go there. I'm going to be fabulous. But I'm going to ignore Daniel because she's playing hard to get. And then who shows up to this event but Mark Darcy? And also the real Salman Rushdie playing himself. I did not realize that. Wait, I didn't. That's him.

Why? I like it. It's pretty amazing. There's also, I guess in that scene, there's like a whole Pride and Prejud prejudice thing that we can talk about in a bit about this yeah but i guess that um helen fielding who like is bridget jones and wrote bridget jones really loved the pride and prejudice mini-series that starred colin firth and i guess whoever the other guy in that series is appears in the movie in a small role at several times and she was like just a huge pride and prejudice miniseries stan so they're all over the place it's all connected the real pride and

prejudice heads love that miniseries yeah that's their big that like over the movies or any adaptation that's their thing i should watch it sometimes i'm like, I'm a basic. I've seen the Keira Knightley one and I'm like, cool. And then I was strapped to a table and forced to read it in ninth grade. But other than that. Well, isn't Hugh Grant in Sense and Sensibility? Like the other big Austin, like major motion picture adaptation. Oh, Gemma Jones is also in it, who plays Bridget's mom.

Yeah, there's like so much. Yeah, Sense and Sensibility would have come out before this. Oh yeah, this was 95. I'm pretty sure that Helen Fielding was really deliberately being like, anyone who's been in a Jane Austen adaptation, free for all, welcome. It is more of a,

I mean, we can get into this, but it's more of a like, there's slight homages to Pride and Prejudice. It's not really that. It's not, I don't know. I don't find that it's really based on it.

Yeah. Besides there's a character named Darcy and blah, blah, blah. I, yeah, I read like the list of like direct references, but they are all kind of more like homage-y than actual

plot like adaptation yeah yeah anyway so mark darcy is at this book event and you can tell that he's like hmm wait a minute maybe there is something to this bridget jones but then hugh grant swoops in and takes her out to dinner. And it turns out that he and Colin Firth used to be good friends. Sorry, I'm going to switch between their character names and the actors' names. It won't help. But it turns out they used to be good friends until, according to Daniel, a.k.a aka Hugh Grant Mark aka Colin Firth had an affair with Daniel Cleaver's fiancee then Bridget and Daniel kiss they have sex they become an item but then he starts to get a bit dodgy and he has to bail on this like family friends party that they were

supposed to go to but you'll never guess who is at the party who it's mark darcy oh oh baby and he's also we've seen him with this woman natasha who is a colleague of his they're both lawyers or barristers which i guess is a lawyer i don't i don't i don't know such a good word it's really good and then when you find out what it actually means you're like oh but anyway so this natasha woman is with him and she likes him but i was getting confused as to like whether or not they were ever romantically involved at any point in this movie it might just be very confusing there's like right okay at that party earlier she said something to the effect of like i'm working on it yeah like she's and then at the

end colin first's dad is like maybe she'll be our daughter-in-law and it's like does that mean they're together i think they are at that point supposed to be almost engaged if not engaged the other thing that confused me in this movie is the other woman for both hugh grant and colin firth look exactly i can't tell apart look really similar and so like i i had to i don't usually when I'm prepping for rom-com episodes, I don't usually need to watch the movie twice. But so many of the key players in this movie have the same haircut that I was like, wait a sec. Because there's like Liza, Lisa, and then there's Natasha. And they have the same 2001 haircut that my mom had.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. I know. Which can be easily solved by putting a wig on one of them. Like no one on the set was like, these two women have the same hair. Like it's, yeah,

it's so confusing. So confusing. This is also what happens when there are just too many white people in a movie. Yes. A hundred percent. Problem easily solved by diversifying your cast even a little like make your movie better and help the audience england is a diverse place it's just yeah yeah but yes

the two the two the two other women have the same hair and so i was also confused about what was going on there but i think that by the, at the beginning she's working on it, by the end they're engaged and I'm assuming that there's some like cut scenes or something because it's really unclear. We skip over like the developing of their relationship quite a bit. They're at least in a relationship enough that they're like in a canoe together,

which is kind of intimate. Right. But Bridget and Hugh Grant are in separate canoes that's how you know it's not gonna last yeah true and in that scene he makes a titanic reference because he says i'm king of the world amazing and we're like wow like maybe he is a keeper but he's I mean, to tie everything back together again, in Love Actually, another movie that both of those actors are in, we see. Oh, no, it's not Colin Firth. It's Liam Neeson. Never mind.

It's Liam Neeson who's watching Titanic with his like stepson. And for a second I thought it was Colin Firth. But that is not who that is. Anyway. Too many old white guys okay so Bridget goes back to London and discovers that Daniel is cheating on her with this younger woman from like the New York office of their publishing company. And not only that, they are engaged. So then Bridget tries to get her life together. She tells Daniel off.

She quits her job. She gets a new job in television at a news station, which doesn't seem to be any better than her old job because her new boss also sexually harasses her. I know. I was like, God, this is like... Yikes. There are elements of this story

where you're like oh that's so depressing but also like reflective of life it's like oh what fresh hell i'm gonna career change because my first boss was making my life impossible and now i'm gonna go to a new career or my life will be impossible but in a different way i know it's it's not the most optimistic film of all time so then she goes to a dinner party where mark darcy just happens to be he's everywhere and he's everywhere and which like 90 of this movie Colin Firth's character either very coincidentally being in the same place as Bridget Jones or deliberately showing up unannounced to where she is. I guess I would. Hmm. I feel like, okay, if we did like a full investigative thing into like Colin Firth entrance scenes, I feel like that's something you see a lot of him being like, oh, hello.

You know, like. Totally. Uh-huh. He knows you're there first. entrance scenes i feel like that's something you see a lot of him being like oh hello you know like totally uh-huh he knows you're there first he's like i guess it's not even a scene entrance because he's just he's been there you're suddenly there with him he's been and then he just like kind of turns around and he's like oi i feel like across genres this is pretty common well i i took it upon myself to watch both sequels to this movie bravely i know um and the same thing keeps happening with his character in particular throughout and but also like it happens also with hugh grant more and more like it's just i mean i do think that there is i mean we've we've like kind of talked about this before of like the whatever how it's supposed to seem inherently romantic when a when a man shows up unannounced without checking in about how you feel first because hugh grant's character

does it in this movie too he shows up at her house assuming that she's alone on her birthday and then it's like oh egg on my face i guess that you're you have a life and i just never considered that before also she's had this she for all that is very sad how they make her out life out to be she has a great group of pals yeah she has a support system like totally people are so i'm just like i i just wish bridget j Jones had someone in her life that was like you're great relax like it's all good you're you're a normal person and you're figuring shit out stop why are why are these identical men yelling at you all the time they're both so terrible I have a whole we'll get into why all the reasons that they're both such trash they're like different flavors of toxic okay so mark darcy is at this uh like dinner party with a bunch of other couples and this is

the scene where he's like okay bridget i know i've been like really mean to you up until this point but i just want you to know that i actually like you very much and I like you just the way you are. And she's very taken aback and confused by this. Also, because she's like, but I hate him, I think. This is the part that and I guess, because I am admittedly not a Jane Austen head. So Jane Austen heads sound off in the comments that I'm totally off base here. But it's this plot point that I feel like is especially Jane Austen-y in that it feels like something that is weird to be happening in this century where if like I feel like there's a lot of like female protagonists written by women in the 1800s who like create emotional intimacy but it's still in a pretty toxic way with a pretty toxic person i'm thinking of like pride and prejudice and jane eyre of like oh like this guy has been nothing but cruel to me

but he's only cruel because of his own shit so i guess i forgive him i feel like that's like a common thing and then bridget jones like i don't know i kind of was expecting like bridget jones like the writing to comment on it a little more, but it kind of just happens. Right. Because, well, like the 20th and 21st centuries version of that is like men negging women directly to their face as a flirtation tactic, but not like just like. It's very old fashioned negging that Colin Firth is doing. He doesn't really ever speak to her until this scene. Right. He just kind of glares at her and says something very awful about her to his mom at that party in the beginning.

Right. So it's like, how do you even know you like her? When he says, as you are, and also he insults her 40 times and then he's like, but all these negative qualities that I just made you feel bad about is why you're not like the other girls. And you're just like, oh, gosh, I want more for her. Oh, it makes my head hurt. Bridget's great. She really is. She should just she should just get a cat and, you know, live her best single life.

Keep watching Frasier. She watches Frasier at the beginning. Oh, my God. you know live her best single life keep watching frazier she watches frazier oh my god i that was another i was like wow feeling lonely and turning on frazier energy been there been there there's so many elements i mean we'll get into it more but like there's so many elements of bridget that i really love and i feel like it's like you don't often get to see women personally and privately dealing with their insecurities even though a lot of their insecurities come from a very toxic place but it's like Bridget doesn't really put other people down very much she's just really hard on herself and

there are that I don't know there are moments in the movie where I was like oh that's she's like she's so wrong but I also felt the exact same way at different points about like my body or a bad relationship or i just wish that the plot went differently yeah i don't know i love bridget and the plot is a disaster yeah i don't know that the that the movie thinks she's wrong about those those things right right yeah right bridget um okay so after he professes his feelings for her she runs into him again when she's covering this um kind of high profile court case for her work and he's a lawyer he's a barrister defending the people in this case and he helps her get an exclusive interview with them and then she cooks a birthday feast for her friends which is like make them cook for you if it's your birthday anyway um but guess who shows up at her door

unannounced it's mark darcy and guess who else shows up at her door during this dinner unannounced it's daniel cleaver and they both want to kiss bridget so what happens next is they have a fist fight in the street that lasts for the next three minutes of screen time it's really long it's so long i do like the scene where tom runs into the restaurant it's like there's a fight i was like that was fun so mark wins the fight but bridget is not impressed with him nor with daniel so she kind of goes off and then she spends the holidays with her mom and dad who are headed to mark darcy's family's like holiday lunch or something like that and bridget's like i'm not going but then her mom was like by the way it wasn't mark who had an affair with daniel's fiancee it was daniel who had an affair with marks his wife so then

bridget's like oh my god i had it all wrong so she drives like a bat out of hell to marks this i'm like even if that is all true bridget you were still his second choice like what are you doing and that does not redeem him for any of the other stuff he's right like movie having experienced pain does not mean that you can just be a fucking asshole to anyone you're romantically interested in until you die he's like 40 oh my god sorry um okay so then so at this little luncheon or whatever she professes her feelings for mark darcy but then his father announces that mark is moving to new york and that natasha is going with him and that they are like now betrothed so he goes to new york for a bit and then bridget is all sad and then her friends are like hey we're gonna take you to paris but right as they're leaving who

shows up again but mark darcy he goes oh hi right when she's about to go on vacation to paris right it's like screw him go to paris right but she decides to stay behind and she's like okay let's hang out but then he sees her diary in which she has written about how awful he is and how much she hates him so then he leaves and bridget goes running after him in her underwear in the snow. This scene I was like, oh, I've seen this in a million clip compilations. And I mean, listen, Renee Zellweger plays the hell out of it. It's fun. True.

The plot point itself, not great. Renee Zellweger's performance in the moment. I have no choice but to enjoy it. Sure. And she finally catches up with him and she's like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. But he's like, no, it's fine. I was just buying you a new diary that doesn't contain all manner of vitriol directed at me specifically so that you have a fresh start with me and then they kiss and that is how the movie ends beautiful so no notes let's take a quick break and we will come back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017,

was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state and she paid the ultimate price Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free,

subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman.

The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Teddy Mellencamp. And Tamara Judge, better known as the Twats.

Yep, you heard that right. We're the hosts of Two Teas in a Pod. For all the housewife lovers out there, every week we break down every episode and give you our opinions. We cover it all. OC, Jersey, Beverly Hills, New York City, Dubai. As we always say, you're only as good as last week's episode. Plus, we're talking to all your favorite bravo-lebrities and not just housewives. We're putting your favorite people in the twat seat and getting the juicy stories everybody wants to know. So join us as we stir the pot and get ourselves into some trouble. Okay, maybe a lot of trouble.

It's not really trouble when it's truthful. Let's just say we can be a little twatty. Listen to Two Teas in a Pod on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast and we're back um i feel like okay there's so much to talk about but i feel like because all the men in this movie get to lie lie lie lie lie and experience kind of really no significant consequence for it that a better ending is at the end renee zellweger says i'm lying i'm from texas and she's the big twist is she's not even british and wow then all the men need to deal with the fact that this is the first time conceivably they they're being deceived yeah no no man is ever deceived in this film. No.

And it's like, on what ground? Where shall we start? Well, I think the very nature, the big issue with the movie is she is a fresh-faced 32-year-old Renee Zellweger. Is the loveliestiest most beautiful little gal and the central tenet of the movie is she is a fad fat sad sack i can't even say it because it's so preposterous she do you read she she gained 25 pounds for this yeah she is skinny yes correct it's so there it i mean the fat phobia in this movie is so rampant and i feel like it speaks to i mean it's like it's frustrating because it's like you can't even really behold it to this movie specifically because that is so early 2000s and 90s culture

is it all fat shaming women i also feel like there there's this whole there's a youtube channel that i really love called be kind rewind that has like a whole she has a whole video about how when like you know western beauty standard very thin hollywood actresses put on weight or alter their appearance in some way they are more likely to be rewarded for their performance and it's like what a risk for you to have a normal woman's body and like what an amazing thing and I feel like Renee Zellweger I don't know it's so hard because it's like I really love Renee Zellweger's performance in this movie I think she is like doing an amazing job but it is like i i don't know it's so it's icky that like a woman having a very normal body is considered like brave in any way and that it's

like oh we need to reward this like actress for looking normal and then the whole character like you're saying amy is like bridget i don't know it's the it's so hard because it's like you can see bridget so many different ways like i understand why she was a popular character because women are so encouraged to be like really hard on themselves and like hate their bodies and think that the only way out of their life as it is is to like be in a relationship and bridget is like navigating that and that's interesting to see but then on the same way like you're saying earlier amy it's like the movie seems to think that all of her insecurities and all these like toxic thoughts that she has about herself are correct and it's like right oh i don't know and then i mean i think another reason this movie was such a hit and this character was already so

popular before the movie came out and that she's i mean she's just a relatable rom-com heroine in the sense that like and like actually relatable too because i feel like a lot of rom-com heroines that you're supposed to be real like relating to you're like um this is jennifer garner who works at a museum like yeah right i don't know this woman or it's like oh sandra bullock tripped and i trip sometimes so therefore and i'm in the cia this one's like oh she's a like kind of bumbling kind of sad gal who has a real job seemingly right she has vices you know she drinks and she smokes cigarettes and she she's not good at public speaking and she kind of makes a fool of herself sometimes and just yeah

some of them I mean it's a lot of it is still rooted in some pretty like tropey rom-com stuff because she also pratfalls quite a bit and she works in publishing like there's stuff going on but it's like I felt like generally especially for this time she was like more relatable yeah and there there's like moments where I'm like am i reading too far into this probably usually but there i liked that like kind of the like subtlety of like she wants to stop drinking smoking and eating delicious food because she thinks that she should hate herself for doing those things when in reality she seems to like enjoy them and it's like i don't know like i just i i really related with that of like oh she enjoys eating food because she is a person a human she likes like drinking with her friends because

she's a person and she feels that she shouldn't because of all this you know shit we're told of like you have to look and behave a very particular way. Yeah, the things that make her relatable to audiences are the same things that she like punishes herself for and the movie like encourages her to punish herself for. thing like the other part of what makes her kind of a sad sack or a person who we as the audience are meant to think is sad is that she's single like the movie frames being a single woman as being pathetic and that's 32 like it is the oldest age to ever exist right and this is like this is a very common thing especially like in the rom-com genre especially of this era where like oh my gosh if you're not partnered off with a man because of course you're hetero and you're older than like 25 wow how pathetic and like she's feel she's like oh my gosh i'm so pathetic and everyone thinks i'm pathetic and everyone's trying to set me up with someone so that i'm not pathetic but oh my

god it's just like that is like horror it's like that is horrible and we see that in movies all the time but then on the other end like i also the fact that like she is experiencing loneliness in a way that like i don't know i feel like there's two things going on with her at all times there's like it does seem like her character really does want a meaningful relationship sure but then on the other end like she's constantly pushed into the arms of these fucking losers who are not nice to her because she's told that she's too old to like take her time to find someone who doesn't super suck and it's like i i did like that i don't know like that opening scene with her is like so iconic she's watching fraser and she's like

kind of drunk and kind of bummed out and kind of lonely and i don't even dislike like there's most people have been there at some point but then it's like the movie telling you that it's pathetic and it's not like just how things are at different moments in your life yeah well the problem is she then is forced to go in this you know the whole movie is the battle between the only two options, seemingly, right? Like she doesn't meet other men and pass them up for these two guys. It's just the one her mom introduced her to and her boss. And that's it.

And she just has to pick one. And I feel like they're just even reading. It was interesting reading through the reviews of this movie at the time, because I think in 2001, it seemed to be kind of like viewed as at this moment was so gaslit into thinking that characters that are Hugh Grant and Colin Firth's age would only go after women 20 years younger than them and would only do a fistfight after out like over the thinnest woman of all time and they're like well it's a woman who is a normal person and she's like as she's a woman who is a normal person. And she's like, she's a woman who's like closer to their age than normal, even though she's still 10 years younger than them. Oh, she's only four years younger than than Mark Darcy. Well, I'm sorry.

I'm talking about the actors. Oh, I see. But yeah, I don't know. It's like it's not enough progress to be like now we can have toxic relationships with everyday women. It's like. Right. No. Also, like just the cut.

OK, so there's that scene where she goes to the party that was supposed to be tarts and vicars and no one gave her the news. And so she dresses up in the little like Playboy bunny suit. She looks unbelievable. She looks so hot. she is so hot it's just so preposterous that that's in this movie where she's supposed to be this like oh finally a real woman like she looks so hot also i found it very funny that that exact same plot point also happens in Legally Blonde a movie that comes out the same year wow because like both movies are a woman being told it's a costume party showing up in a like playboy bunny outfit turns out it's not a costume party and then has to like feel humiliated that

she's in this very sexy costume okay also why was that ever the theme for that party because she shows up and it's all 60 and 70 year old people like were they really were they gonna go through with it yeah at what point were they down for that it's so bizarre oh i don't know it's really weird I had forgotten that about Legally Blonde. And then only she and her dad didn't get the news. So he's dressed up as a Catholic priest or whatever. Unbelievable. Yeah.

Very, very strange. Yeah. So it's like we're supposed to think that, first of all, Renee Zellweger is like a fat character. And that that is inherently wrong right by the movie standards both of which are deeply flawed premises i also like this is a i forget if we've ever talked about this on this show but a very specific gripe i have as like an eating disorder head is when people are mentioning like numbers when it comes to weight in movies it really bothers me because when i was younger it was like a teen or a preteen hearing numbers was super like oh if i weigh over this number or like if i weigh this number

i am bad which takes into account absolutely nothing about an individual person but it was like completely god like there's this is so depressing but like there's so much of my like teen eating disorder that i can attribute to an episode of family guy that it's so odd but it was like because they were like, if you weigh over this number, you are worthless. And if you are like, I don't know, it's like if you're over a certain age, maybe you can be like, clearly that's a joke. And it's like satire to an extent. But like when you're a kid and you hear Bridget Jones say, I weigh this much and I need to weigh 20 less than that. I feel like that really does like get your kind of brain going in a bad way.

I really do. Catherine Cohen has an amazing joke about she went on a date with a guy and then he was like, come back to my place. You can ride on the pegs of my bike. And she was like, no, I can't. And he was like, it can fit up to 100 pounds. And she was like, you don't understand weight or math oh she's the best no i so agree it's so i don't know anytime a movie what regardless of who the intended audience is

like there were a lot of young girls who saw this movie in 2001 and it just i hate like on top of the fact that you're having like a major plot point b that a woman's worth is tied to her weight saying which weight is invaluable is like yeah and the movie i mean the movie is obsessed with like how she looks her body size in the sense that like she's always putting herself down for her weight and her size other characters are doing the same thing nothing about that is challenged in any way and yeah it is a very of the era it's weird and i've heard you guys talk about this before on the podcast not to out myself as a big fan, but like they kind of hint like they're going to challenge it,

but then they don't. Like it's like almost like if we present this, it counts, you know? Because that horrible woman that's in the bathroom that Hugh Grant has, it turns out, is engaged to. Engaged to. She goes, I wrote it down because it was so horrific.

She goes, I thought you said she was thin about renee zellweger so it's coming from the mouth of like the villain right but then she's criticized for it for the whole movie so you don't know that the movie's point of view is very confusing it's very murky yeah it's so because it's like they're the setup could do something interesting to like comment on how like i don't think it's unreal like it's hard to say it's unrealistic that bridget jones tearing her body to shreds and like being extremely critical of herself is unrealistic but then but then it but then nothing happens it's just like she she's right i guess their answer would be that colin firth says well i like you just the way you are right that would be what they're saying is right

which her friends are like so wait a minute he likes you the way you are not 20 pounds lighter or whatever they say they're like they think that is unbelievable. Because even her friends think of her that way, kind of, right? Yeah. According to that statement. Yeah. And you can like galaxy brain that as well and be like, well, we know all of her friends are also very insecure in a lot of the same ways. And so there is, which is like, again, it's like that is not something that doesn't happen

of like i know that whatever if this was a movie targeted at our moms basically of like i know that my mom would hang out with her friends and they they would you know kind of like talk a lot about their insecurities and maybe not in a way that was helpful or healthy towards each other but it's like it's a movie you know like what's the point you know other than being like this i don't know i just like you have this huge opportunity to say something to a mostly female audience so to say nothing and just be like yeah we're really fucked aren't we here's a fantasy where you you're like married off to a toxic guy, but at least he's hot.

Like it's just so sweet. Who's been only horrible to you for many years. Yeah. Like, oh, it's so, I don't know. I know. I wasn't expecting to love Bridget as much as I did. I'm really, I mean, I really am rooting for her throughout. And she does like managed to she does

a lot of like pretty amazing things in this movie that i feel like the movie doesn't even really reward her for very much of like she completely pivots her career in the middle of the movie after she has this horrible experience with her boss who, you know, realistically that should have gotten him fired. Although we know that rarely actually happens, but then she totally pivots her entire life. And I was like, wait a second. That's, that's amazing. Like she becomes a TV producer and like, but then, but it's like, I don't know. It just feels kind of strange that not a lot of like her victories and like what she does to change her predicament like it's immediately forgotten about the second one of the British guys enters the scene yeah yeah because the story the trajectory of the story is not really focused on her career it's all about the relationships with these two men, which, I mean, is now the time to get into that?

Well, let's take a quick break, because there's about to be a lot, and then we'll come right back. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who, on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks.

President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current.

Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Teddy Mellencamp. And Tamara Judge, better known as the Twats. Yep. You heard that right. We're the hosts of Two Teas in a Pod. For all the housewife lovers out there,

every week we break down every episode and give you our opinions. We cover it all. OC, Jersey, Beverly Hills, New York City, Dubai. As we always say, you're only as good as last week's episode. Plus, we're talking to all your favorite Bravo celebrities and not just housewives. We're putting your favorite people in the twat seat and getting the juicy stories everybody wants to know. So join us as we stir the pot and get ourselves into some trouble. Okay, maybe a lot of trouble. It's not really trouble when it's truthful.

Let's just say we can be a little twatty. Listen to Two Teas in a Pod on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. Really, really quick before we get to the men, I did want to say that i guess again this is like very i feel like movies of this time like these like early third wave feminism attempts at movie making like at very least we do see a lot of women working and we do know like

any in high-powered jobs yeah like we know what they do we know that they're generally pretty successful at what they do we'll have a conversation about Bridget's mom in a bit like I was generally encouraged about like how much you see about women and like Bridget outside of her rocky start at the TV station, seems to be pretty good at what she does and seems to be interested in what she's doing, which is a very, it feels like crumbs now. But I was like, okay, movie. Totally. That's not nothing. Did you read that Renee Zellweger worked at a publishing house for a month to research?

No. Oh, wow. That doesn't feel necessary even. Given how you really do not understand at all what she does for work in the movie, it does not feel necessary, no. But I read she worked at a publishing house for a month. She did a disguise and something

so that people couldn't tell who she was. And you know who she was? She was dating Jim Carrey at the time. And she had a framed picture of him on her desk and people would be like that's weird but no one said anything that's extremely weird so i i don't know why a renee zellweger jim carrey early 2000s relationship totally makes sense to me but i'm like you know what it i get it that makes sense but yeah i don't think you uh i don't know that she needed to go that method and do that that little stint

unfortunately the movie does not have that much to do with her job or her career aspirations or really i'm like i couldn't tell you what her job was. She worked in publicity? She's like the publicity for the publishing house, I guess. Because he does that really demeaning line where he's like, you just come in and out with your memos and you don't know anything about what's going on or whatever. But no, you're totally right. I never know her name but to me she's moaning myrtle her friend yes oh my god i didn't put that together the character's name is jude jude yeah but she she they mentioned she has a big fancy job too but then she calls crying from

the bathroom about a guy but she has one but she has a job but guess where she's calling from ding dong like oh yeah we do know what women do it just never really comes into to the plot outside of bridget's career change which i thought should have gotten a little bit more attention yeah right shaz is a journalist yeah who says fuck that's all we know yeah and there's all those lady barristers true yes i mean we only know them in the context of the other women like you know calling for its other woman but she is a lady barrister that's true and i will say barrister as often as possible from here on out. Okay, so let's, I suppose, start with, okay, I guess Daniel Cleaver is where I want to start, a.k.a. Hugh Grant.

Which one? Okay. Okay, here's everything that's wrong with him. He's a sexual harasser. Big time. Big time. Big time big time like horrific horrific which like okay what what is baffling to me in that scenario is that he starts emailing her with like extremely sexually suggestive comments again it's like a quick run in the bishami test is like it's a no yeah right but you know because the movie's like but hey it's hugh grant who's charming and cute so haha it's fine which according to his personal life section is also how hugh grant lives his life. So he's doing that.

She does call him out for sexually harassing her, but it is framed as a joke because it's like her calling him out is part of the flirtation, which sends a very harmful message that like, no women are actually asking for it. They want to be sexually harassed yeah which is obviously horrendous on top of that he is a pathological liar he is a gaslighter he's a womanizer he's a cheater like he's just he doesn't tell a single truth the entire movie so between the two men i would say he is the more toxic one yes yeah but but it's

but that's such 2000s movie logic we're forced to put in it's like well you you have you legally you're contractually obligated to be in a long-term relationship with one of these assholes and then it's just like damage control it's so depressing it's that classic like love triangle scenario where like a woman's caught between two men both of them are damaged for different reasons and it's a matter of like which one do i want the vampire or the werewolf do I want the emotional abuser or the man who's emotionally withholding it's so depressing but we seem to decide that the love triangle belongs to pride and prejudice and if you're going to do a love triangle you have to say it's it's a adaptation of pride and prejudice Like there can be other love triangles.

It's so frustrating. And I feel like there's like a few moments thrown in for Hugh Grant's character where you're supposed to be like, he's not that bad a guy. Like, I don't know, little insidious details, like the fact that you are set up to think that he's going to make fun of Bridget's underwear, which he does, but not in the way that she expects. And so it's like, oh, wow, he wasn't completely cruel to me about my underwear. Yeah. I was about to say that the canoe scene is supposed to be the one that teaches you that he's actually

like fun, charming. But he comes into her canoe against her will. Right. It's like she doesn't want him to. And it's very dangerous. He's like not even clearing the bar that we put on the floor for him. He's just tripping over it and falling flat on his face. But I feel like those little details are supposed to be the ones that convince us like, oh, he's not that bad a guy.

He seems like a womanizer. But look, he accepts her body. And look, he's goofing around. And it's like, this is not enough. We need more for Bridget. I'm going to need more for Bridget. And what the movie wants you to think is more for her is Mark Darcy. So let's go through him.

So like we mentioned earlier, he is extremely cruel to her from the very beginning so and then after that in the various moments where they are very just like coincidentally in the same place he's usually just ignoring her or being very i don't even know just stuffy and weird again it feels his care the darcy character feels like the only jane austen-y character in the movie it's so weird like he does feel actually mr darcy-ish to me where it's like a standoffish asshole who's like withholding his emotions and then is like actually i have all these feelings but never ask me about them again like he's the only jane austen character in the movie and it's weird because it's 2001 right i think that's really all she wanted to use yeah i don't think it's ultimately i don't know

you'd i i this whole thing makes me want to read the book. Because I would imagine the book is more of a condemnation of the way society tells her to lose weight and blah, blah, blah. But that's like just a hopeful idea. Because the book is written by the woman and then the movie is written by her with three white men, I think. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm excited to get into the Helen Fielding of it all. Yes, yes, yes.

Yeah. Yeah, Mark sucks. Like he sucks he's he's like um by the way i actually like you a lot even though he's done absolutely nothing to show this nor would he like they haven't even talked to each other so how would he know that he likes her and i fully think that the moment where we're supposed to think that mark is an awesome guy is when he can cook an omelet that's where we're like oh wow he's actually like a woke king because he could cook an omelet like just the standards for these men are so low it's like if you can fry an

egg you can marry renee zellweger and it's, that's just that we have to need, we have to want more for her. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. His whole thing is that he's just so emotionally distant and withholding. And then the big thing for me, what I was like, oh my God, he's awful, is that he invades her privacy when he finds what is clearly her diary and then proceeds to read it it's unbelievable we literally saw her write what it is on the first page two times yeah

and then he reads it um and the only thing that i was like okay this is i guess slightly not even redeemable for him but that he did the bare minimum decent thing to do. And I was surprised by it because we never even see the bare minimum decent thing for a man to do. But he does ask for consent to kiss her at the end. After he reads her diary. He's like, I forgot to kiss you goodbye.

Do you mind? And then he waits for a response. He reads her diary while she's changing into tiny panties for him because she was so shamed by Hugh Grant for her other ones oh I didn't even make that connection oh that's so leave Bridget alone I feel like Mark is really the personification of that like shitty thing that a lot of girls are taught that it's like if a man is mean to you it means he has a crush on you and it's just that ideology except he's 40 and it's all true where it's like normally when men are cruel to you it's literally just because um they're not nice people they don't respect women

but but in mark's case he is actually just he just doesn't know how to he only knows how to express himself by uh insulting women and so she should give him a chance he also like we've already mentioned starts just showing up unannounced oh hi there he's it's so weird especially when uh the biggest win of bridget's career i went like that moment where she like nails the story and they're like wow she's such a charming host we love this girl was because mark showed up somewhere i just wish that she had like gotten a win that was independent of yeah i know he hands it to her yeah the the interview i mean she does great at the interview but she he gives it to her right yeah and then the scene where they fight which again this is usually presented in movies

if two men are fighting over a woman it's because they just love her so much and isn't it so romantic that they're beating each other to a pulp over you and it at the very least she rejects both of them right after this fight yeah i did like that but that is grounds enough that like if two men are like so toxic in their masculinity that they are going to physically fight each other and then she ends up with one of them. That. No. Right. I don't.

I don't care for that. I was scared she was going to take Hugh Grant inside and go nurse his wounds. I'm so glad she did it. I mean, that's like. Thank God. I'm so glad she did it I mean that's like god of the few wins that I do it's never enough but I do like the two moments where she kind of like hands Hugh Grant's ass back to him this moment and then when she tells him to fuck off at work I mean he should have gotten fucking fired yeah for clearly having sex with every female co-worker he's attracted to and like relentlessly hitting on them.

Because you could like build a story where that American woman, Liza or Liza, could be in a very similar situation to Bridget and probably is. Where she is like being hit on by her boss and doesn't have anywhere else to work. And it's like that classic horrible situation for women in the workplace of like well if i don't you know do what he wants me to do then am i gonna have a job or not and so it's not what i would how i would want that seed to end but i do like that bridget at least is like go fuck yourself i'm i'm out of here so oh i don't know it's so there's both so awful and the fight too i was like uh i was trying to figure out how i felt about the fight because it is funny to watch and i feel like there is i don't know i feel like in rom-coms we sometimes see it's okay tell me if this is

if i should just put my head through a shredder and then i will but i do feel like with this fight it was it was filmed a little more like two women fighting over a guy than two men like you know in combat which i thought was like i don't really think it's better or worse i just thought it was interesting because i don't think you you i feel like you more frequently see women pulling each other's hair in like fights like this then you see men throwing like i mean they're not fighting well they're fighting like really badly i don't think it's good or bad i just sort of had that thought of like it seems like they're having a similar fight to when in this genre women are like you know tearing each other's hair as opposed to like i don't know being at war like they're they're they're not good fighters it was funny to watch it is so long it's really long

i hate them both yeah you know who ends up being the feminist hero of this movie is you know when she goes on those the series of job interviews to try to find a new job in tv or whatever and then ultimately at the last one she admits like i had an affair with my boss and he is making my life hell or whatever and the guy goes okay fine you start monday that guy was like understanding about how like her former toxic workplace like she couldn't but then he sexually harasses her so never mind he's like also if you fuck the boss we won't fire you no i liked her being honest about it for a second though she was like i can no longer stay in my toxic workplace you know but then no never i take back everything i just said he's only understanding because he also wants to have sex with her right he's like oh so you fuck your

bosses like that oh horrific i love bridget though i you know it's hard i can't get who does she okay caitlin you've seen the movies yes after this uh-huh who does she does she end up with anyone what happened oh i oh i'll give you a very brief rundown okay so bridget jones edge of reason which i think came out in 2004 that sounds like a james bond title end of reason so the story there is it picks up like six weeks after the first movie ends she's in a relationship with mark darcy and she's like i can't believe he hasn't asked me to marry him yet even though we've only been dating for six weeks i mean how long was he dating natasha you know three minutes we don't know okay so he is in like a another kind of like barrister partnership with another woman who um she keeps thinking that he might be having an affair with um they break up at some point i think and then she starts working with hugh again, who is also now working in television.

He's also made the same exact career switch. He's like a travel show personality. So she goes with him to Thailand. And if you are like, I wonder if there's a bunch of racist stuff that happens in that storyline. You would be correct. Correct. And then she gets arrested and thrown in a Thai prison. What? For a large portion of the movie. Oh my god.

What? And then Mark Darcy has to basically use all of his connections to get her out of this Thai prison but he like plays it off like oh I'm just the messenger I didn't do any of this for you but then she finds out oh he did do it all for her and she's like he must still love me and then Shosu like goes to him at the end and they're like well I guess we're in love again and so basically the same exact like plot points happen in the second movie as do in the first movie. It's just like some of the circumstances are slightly different. Right. So that's the gist of Edge of Reason.

Now, Bridget Jones's Baby, which came out in, I believe, 2016. So like over a decade after even Edge of Reason um here's what i'll say about it it is two hours long which is uh at least a half hour longer than it needs to be it is so long and very slow and very boring um hugh grant's character is dead what they kill off daniel cleaver so he refused to come back he didn't want to do the movie he was shooting padding he's like i'm busy exactly exactly that would have been like the right timeline yeah i think so so weird what how did he die wait i want to know how he died he died um i think something like he was flying like a private. Sorry, my neighbor's dog is barking. But if you can hear it. But he was flying like a private plane and then like crashed it or something.

I don't know. So he's dead. He's not in the movie. Instead, the love triangle is with Patrick Dempsey this time. No. Oh, poor Patrick Dempsey. He's hot to me. And he's especially hot in this movie i was gonna ask if i should watch these and between thai prison and patrick dempsey

so she has sex with both patrick dempsey and colin firth within a few days of each other and then she gets pregnant but she doesn't know who the father is and she leads them to believe they are both the father and then hijinks ensue. I kind of like this one better Mamma Mia! This is funny. Yeah like this is kind of more fun to me than the second one sounds. That's such a bold

move to kill off Hugh Grant. That's so funny. Especially because Renee Zellweger and like Colin Firth by 2016 they both have Oscars and they're still game. But Hugh Grant is like, I am not available. If it's for Paddington 2, I have no issue. True. We need to find out why and then we can decide if we're going to judge it.

But the skip ahead, you know, 15 seconds or whatever for the spoiler of bridget jones baby but at the end of that movie bridget and mark darcy aka colin firth get married and they raised their baby whose baby was oh it was his i don't even remember i think they like figure out like genealogically that it is Colin Firth. But I truly was like only half paying attention. It'd be kind of fun if Colin Firth raised Patrick Dempsey's baby. Okay. So if you were like doing a power ranking of the three Bridget Joneses,

what's your, what's your ranking? I would say the first movie I like the best and the baby one I like the least also especially because like it came out five years ago and it is really no less problematic than these ones from the early 2000s that is there more than one book is the book is it a series it is a series I know that at least the first two like Bridget Jones's Di diary and bridget jones the edge of reason were also the name of the books i don't know how long this series went on for but that's a that's a great pivot into a little bit of context corner stuff with helen fielding i mean it's nothing

that is like completely earth shattering, but the Bridget Jones is like written and based on the life of Helen Fielding, who wrote the books, who isn't Bridget Jones exactly, but has a lot in common with her. She worked in publishing and then she made a career pivot in her 30s to work as a TV producer, which is incidentally where she meets the director of this movie, Sharon Maguire. They were both working at BBC in like the 90s. Helen Fielding started writing this column. It all sounds vaguely like British sex in the city, basically, where Helen Fielding starts writing

this column anonymously about her life as a single 30-something. It gets popular. She fictionalizes more of it and turns it into this novel which becomes Bridget Jones's diary the book becomes really popular uh then she gets I mean the the fact that this movie is direct like a rom-com in the early 2000s directed by a woman unfortunately is pretty huge unbelievable um and and i feel like there are some choices where i'm like oh i'm so glad that there was a female director for this like i don't necessarily trust a male director to not just be super obsessed with the protagonist

body and like all this other shit that i thought was at least more tastefully handled but anyways Helen Fielding and Sharon McGuire are friends they're on this come up together um what I think is most interesting is that Helen Fielding so because this movie is uh turning 20 years old pretty soon um there's been a lot of like, anniversary reflections, there was a whole documentary on the BBC that you can't watch in the States. So I don't know what happens. But basically, Helen Fielding has been reflecting on Bridget Jones, you know, 25 years after conceiving the character, and watching this movie back. And she gave like this really interesting quote I would like to share about her experience watching back this movie with her kid,

who I think is like in their 20s now. So this is from like December of last year. So this is from a Guardian article, and it goes like this. Quote, Bridget Jones's creator, Helen Fielding, is now shocked by the sexism her character faced, the writer has revealed. Looking back 25 years, Fielding said she would not be able to write the story now. Watching the hit film of her first book recently with her children, she was staggered. Helen Fielding says, the level of sexism that

Bridget was dealing with, the hand on the bum in so many of the scenes, made it quite shocking for me to see how much things have changed since then, Fielding told radio host. Fielding added that she was particularly struck by a scene in which Bridget's fictional boss demands a shot of the boobs. Seeing old attitudes that were just part and parcel of her life depicted on screen again was alarming, although heroine played by renee zellweger is not a passive victim in the end she turned around and stuck it to them um so i just thought it was interesting to see like well this is like not the triumphant feminist tale like that even like the author's understanding of her own work which is to an extent a reflection of how she saw herself and her own life at that time has changed over the years and with all the you know not i mean with the progress that has taken place since bridget jones as a character was conceived in the mid 90s the author is like oh my god that was so bad that was so and in ways she didn't even

realize as she was writing the character so I thought that was like kind of a cool I don't know I feel like most writers don't give you that kind of level of insight into their own work later on yeah yeah because you do see stuff that again again, we with our 2021 lens, we very clearly notice things that, again, we're just so normalized in that era that just strike us so alarmingly as just being very problematic. Like, yeah, she's subject to so much sexual harassment. And like, there's a creepy like uncle figure character who's harassing her and that is like played for laughs arguably in the movie but not because like i don't think the writer was like oh let's laugh at women getting sexually harassed it's more just like that was the mentality of that era yeah and same thing with her boss too or like that it's so weird that was like i wrote

down like self-bushami test where you see her be hit on by two of her bosses but one she doesn't find attractive and so it's creepy and then one she does find attractive so it's not like her dream come true right and i was just like well there's a level of self-awareness happening there and yeah i mean i view Bridget as very much like a product of her environment almost of like it's I kind of hesitate to fault her for how hard she is on herself because that is all the that's the only message and feedback she's getting even from people who love her even from like her friends and family they're like you're so what's wrong with you and so it's kind of like well you know unless you have this like unless you're like reading through

feminist texts day in and day out like what you know what are you supposed to do as a normal person if everyone in your life is telling you that you're like not worthy I don't know I really feel for her I and I and I'm glad she exists so it's like I don't know I love Bridget's die I don't love her diet but like I I'm pro diary and anti the plot of the movie yeah I think well it also makes you wonder like since she spends so much of her diary railing against Mark Darcy and saying how much she hates him and how awful he is. Why does she end up with him? But also he wasn't a very big part of her life. She's spending a lot of diary space on someone she doesn't really talk to.

Right. At all. Right. Yeah. But you know what's so interesting about hearing that quote is how many female screenwriters can now reflect on a movie they had made 20 years ago. That's just so rare. Like the fact that it was, I mean, she co-wrote the screenplay with a couple dudes. Richard Curtis. Like the fact that it was co-written and directed by a woman in 2000 and then came out in 2001. Yeah, yeah. It's I'm like,

I was really glad that she was kind of like down to interact on that level and not get because they did like so many writers and I don't even like, I mean, it's like just people get defensive when you're like, why is Bridget Jones? Like, why is everyone so mean to her? And she's like, I guess that's just kind of how I felt. And like, she also kind of comments on um i don't know i feel like there's some kind of like there was a a string of articles that came out in 2016 when the bridget jones's baby was coming out that were kind of just like bridget jones isn't a feminist so screw her like which I think is kind of like okay that's kind of weak but Helen Fielding kind of talks about that in 2020 where she says uh quote at the time Bridget said being a feminist with a capital F was another thing she felt she wasn't very good at uh what's great now

is that feminism has sort of lost its capital F unquote, which I really I thought that quote was like super insightful of like, I don't know, like, I think it is interesting to have a character like Bridget, who seems to like want to feel good about herself. And she doesn't seem to really carry a lot of hatred or judgment for other women in her life. And so it does seem like she is like kind of this like aspiring feminist character but she's just she's not given any tools or any people in her life to kind of get her there and so i kind of like i don't know the idea of there's like kind of this romantic rom-com icon who's like this very imperfect aspiring feminist like that's that's cool i just wish that the plot was mostly different wish that you liked either of the male options at all

a single redeeming quality i take i take any uh or even like you know whatever i know so little about sex of the city but like i do know how the tv show ends and it's like just choose to be single at the end like that would be honestly given the characters were given a pretty logical decision in this movie is like her journey being feeling from like needing that she needs to be in a relationship to realizing that she actually doesn't and that it's like she can there's so much in her life to be happy about i don't know um just wanted to touch on a couple other very of the early 2000s era um just things that you hate to see one this movie is painfully painfully white yeah bridget seems to only know other white people there is reference to mark darcy's ex-wife who was japanese and we never see her we always never like leg we see her legs getting railed yeah we see

the legs of a woman who is having oh right in the flashback Hugh Grant's body double yeah but that's it um but Japanese people are referred to as being a cruel race no less than three or four times throughout the movie yeah usually from Bridget's mom, but then Bridget even, I think says it at one point. Yeah. It's like a joke for, for them in a way.

Yeah. So, um, you know, that's awful. Uh, Bridget's mom also makes a Holocaust joke within the first five minutes in the movie.

Like two minutes of the movie. It is unbelievable. Horrifying. I had to rewind it to be like wait a second us too us too i was like wait wait let's just let's check that out real point uh yeah and then these go completely unchallenged bridget has a like token gay best friend character who and i had to ask one of my british friends how like offensive the word i don't even want to say okay i had this question too okay what what is the answer so it's basically

the equivalent of like the american version of the f word that is a homophobic slur. Not great. Okay. That was not great. So the, the word, the P word that is a homophobic slur used in England gets used a lot in this movie. If I'm wrong about this, like for our like British listeners, let us know. I'm not famously not.

We just don't know. We're famously not British and we don't know the nuances of your homophobic slurs Tom was another character that I'm like I I'm uh I don't know like it's he he clearly is filling the gay best friend role in her life but I would also argue that he's no better or worse written than the other women in the room like i think we actually know more about him than we know about shazzer he has like a bit because he wrote that hit song nine years ago or something yeah it's kind of a fun like it's a fun bit i mean ultimately it's like the only you know openly gay character we have is there to just i mean only exists in relation to bridget

and is like very much fulfilling the gay best friend but i but in terms of her friend group i guess i would say we know one thing about each of them except for shazzer who we know no things about she likes to say fuck she and i guess that's the main thing that people know about me so i don't know. That's how we talk about you, Caitlin. Everyone be careful. Caitlin's coming over and she's going to say fuck. She's going to say fuck.

Try not to gasp when she does it. Those were the main things that I noticed. I wanted to really, really, really quick. I know that we're we're starting to we're quickly approaching the runtime of the movie but I wanted to really quick talk about Bridget's parents for a second because they do have a small arc that again I was like I was interested in as it was starting and then by the end I was like oh really yeah where we get i mean bridget and her mom we get a little bit of insight into their relationship again some people argue

that this is like a jane austen contrivance but i think it's just more of a general contrivance of like mother really wants you to get married but father is chilling pretty nice like I think that that's a very common annoying contrivance that is just made to make older women look shrewy uh kind of just yeah for no reason so that already is like okay come on but on top of that I was interested in that scene where Bridget's mom is like I'm not satisfied satisfied with my life. And like, I'm, you know, getting older, and I've never gotten to have a satisfying career or like, things to my sex life or sex life. Yeah, she's dissatisfied with where her life is at. And it's like, okay, this is interesting. We don't usually get storylines like this. And so Bridget's mom goes off she basically starts working on qvc uh and which is

like you know great for her but it's also inherently connected to her relationship with another man which it didn't need to be and then by the end she quote unquote gets over it even though this solves none of her marital issues and then it's supposed to seem like really chill of jim broadbent of moulin rouge fame and paddington fame again he's mr gruber and paddington damn what i mean king we love jim brad paddington connections are all over the place it does just seem like they have 15 actors total in all of great britain and yet when we bring renee zellweger when we bring a glorious american export like renee zellweger people get mad um they're also in the imdb trivia is all sorts of stuff about how many

of them are in the harry potter series too yes there's a lot of overlap there as well that tracks but like at the end it's supposed to seem like oh jim bradbent takes her back and isn't that a satisfying conclusion and it's like well no none of her problems have been addressed or solved and he showed no growth or like her father was mad at her for like doing what she wanted with her like it it's like you don't know. In the same way that both of like. It's almost like a toxic like generational trauma story. Where in the same way that Jim Broadbent does not care really about who his wife is. Like nor does Colin Firth really care who Bridget Jones is.

And we're just taking the same scraps that are offered to us generation in and out I was so bummed out with that because I thought that was like a funny interesting story of like oh she's like forging her own path and it's like kind of dorky and kind of messy but like go mom but then it's not yeah i was so frustrated by that because she leaves bridget's dad because none of her like emotional or sexual needs are being met in this marriage which is huge for that for women of that generation like that's a huge thing and she's like i'm gonna you know like strike out on my own do my own thing and then she basically just goes immediately into the arms of a different man who treats her worse so then she just retreats

back to jim broadbent even though he's again just like demonstrated no indication that he has like that he's going to treat her better or be more attentive to her needs or anything like that which now that we're saying it is literally what is happening to her daughter like right Hugh Grant is the QVC guy and Bridget's dad is Colin Firth yes oh I wonder if that was on purpose or if just if life is that bleak but I I was so I wanted I mean, all the women of the Jones family. I'm just like, come on, come on. Hearts go out to them. Truly.

Truly. But that said, I love I love Gemma Jones. She's always fun. Yes, I love her. And I love Jim Broadbent. And I didn't realize that the friend was moaning Myrtle, but now I can't stop thinking about it. Well, that was a complete mindfuck for me because when I saw the Harry Potter movie that she first shows up in, which is Chamber of Secrets, I think. Like she's supposed to be like a teenager who would have like been a student at Hogwarts.

And then you see her in other movies when she's a full adult. And I was like, wait a minute. This person is not like 16. I think she says to be like 15. Yeah. Yeah. It's so bizarre. I have been her for so many Halloweens because I look just like Moaning Myrtle.

Oh, my God. I do love like that's the best like stretch of like Riverdale logic of like, no, she's 15. And it's like, no no she's 42 yeah but but i believe i fully believed she was 15 yeah same oh does anyone have anything else they would like to talk about regarding bridget jones and her diary i I think I'm going to watch the others. The Thai prison thing is really something I need to check out. It's handled just about as well, or should I say poorly,

as you would expect. Yes, yes. The music budget in this movie, it's unbelievable. Okay, you're a producer, so you know a lot more about that. I was curious because I was like, they use so many huge songs. Huge.

What's the one she's singing along to at the beginning too? All by myself. Yes, and it's also a whole other level of budget for someone to like sing along to it. Oh, really? Like there's playing and then there's like interacting and then there's like you know i didn't even realize that they always ask us like if people are going to do a dance then you have to like do a you know it's all the whole thing i mean i'm probably being dumb and music supervisor will listen to this and be like shut the fuck up but believe you i think it's

a whole thing and so yeah i just could not stop thinking about that. The movie made absolute bank, though. Oh, for sure. I mean, $280 million worldwide? And it was like $25 million budget or something. Which is, I mean, I'm glad that it like, you know, launched. I mean, Renee Zellweger, I think up to this point, was most famous for having been in Jerry Maguire. And then this is kind of what like led her to like carrying movies on her own. And I love Renee Zellweger. I think she's a great performer.

I have no notes for Renee Zellweger, except that Judy was not great. But I'm glad that she has an Oscar. But yikes, what a messy movie. But imagine someone getting nominated for Best best actress for a rom-com now unheard of i'm kind of unbelievable it's so i'm like i guess we just had to be there like because it's so because she gives a great performance but so do a lot of rom-com performers and it's not even a thing i'm like i'm curious if it has to do with that whole like she changed her body to play the part which i feel like is classically oscar baity in a kind of toxic way but i just i don't

even maybe it was just it was so successful yeah i don't know but i'm like you know good for her they're like we've never seen an american do this authentic of a British accent. Give her an Oscar. I guess also just like another shout out to Renee Zellweger, because I feel like she's uniquely criticized for how she looks and has been uniquely criticized for how she looks at every point in her career in a way that I feel like pretty cleanly demonstrates. For like, there's nothing you can do to not get criticized. Because when she put on weight for a part people made fun of her when she lost weight the year after this to do chicago everyone said

she's too skinny she looks bad when she's gotten any sort of anything that has altered i mean she was like being mocked a couple years ago for getting plastic surgery which everyone does and like for someone who's who's like extremely talented, has like a shelf full of trophies and seems like a really kind person, like she's just been absolutely like torn to shreds no matter how she looks at any phase in her career or life. So she had an amazing quote.

I read when someone was criticizing her for like supposedly having work done over the past few years. She said, like, of course, I look different. I've aged also because I'm happy now. I was like, hell yeah, girl. Which I thought was great. Yeah. No, I mean, she has gotten it almost as bad as anybody.

Just any move she's made. Unbelievable. Totally. And she's so talented and like oh yeah so i and especially i mean if you compare like even if you look at the three main players in this movie of like they have they are all 20 years older now but who is the only person that has taken a load of shit for that? It's Renee Zellweger. I know. She's great. So shout out to Renee. I don't know who won the Academy Award instead of her.

Oh, yeah. It would be wild if someone won a Performance Academy Award for a rom-com. Right. Can't imagine. Wow. Anyways. Now I want to know who won that oscar i know i'm like who snatched that from renee's hands what was it would have been it would have been 2001 so it would have been 2002 ceremony right yeah that's how that works um who took it oh nicole

kitman in the hours so another uh traditionally hot woman who slightly altered her appearance and gave a good performance classic and then they would both star in cold mountain together not long after that right wait i'm wrong i'm wrong i'm wrong this year of nomination no this is hallie berry's year so it's fine oh okay okay i'll allow it it was nico. Because Renee Zellweger, she's on a fucking hot streak in the early 2000s. She was nominated for Best Actress two years in a row because she's nominated for Chicago the next year. Wow. Oh, yeah.

And then all of a sudden, she's living her life and then comes back and we're like, I guess we're going to give it to her for Judy. Judy's favorite film. It always bothers me. I love Renee Zellweger and I love Judy Garland and that movie sucks. So I guess I just

don't know what to say. Did not watch it. I didn't think I could handle. I was so, I was really rooting for Judy, but it simply

is a stinker. Yeah. Anyways, Bridget Jones. Bridget Jones. Does this movie pass the Bechdel test yeah does it i actually wasn't sure i forgot to pay super close attention because i know that women interact a lot in this movie between bridget and her two friends who are women she and her mother she has a female colleague at work named perpetua perpetua yeah oh god i'm so glad we

commented on which is like i was like what an iconic name perpetua like it sounds like a greek myth right and then i was like maybe it's a pride and prejudice thing but i don't think it is i don't know like are people in england literally named perpetua it's so i mean it's like a midsummer night's dream type name it's wild um i dropped off paying attention to whether it's super passed consistently i do know that it at least passed in that longer scene with bridget and her mom where bridget's talking about or where bridget's mom is talking about. It's unfortunately the thing I had passing was Bridget's mom being like, you know, I didn't really want children like that exchange.

Oh, right. If I had to do it again, I wouldn't have you Bridget. She's like, you know, I'm your child. Right.

And like that passes. So there you go. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I was just noticing that most of the conversations between women, while many of there are named female characters. Yeah. But if we're if we're keeping close score, it does pass at least a couple of times that I was able to find. But only but weirdly only in like two line exchanges in longer conversations. Yes. But I thought it was,

that was one of my favorite bad passes was a mother telling her daughter that she wishes that she was never born. It does pass. That's rough. I know. Yeah. Well, that brings us to our nipple scale.

So zero to five nipples based on an examination of how the movie fares from an intersectional feminist lens and i think i can only give this movie like a two because while i do appreciate the character of bridget jones and the like exploration of her insecurities and her being a more relatable rom-com protagonist who is a woman more so than many other rom-coms, especially of this era. There's just so much of this era bleeding into the story and contributing all these problematic things to it namely the like having to settle for one or the other of two very shitty toxic men the just offensive and problematic jokes casual racism casual homophobia things like that that make the movie not age very well yeah but yeah i wish i wish you could just take a character who

is similarly relatable and uh dealing with you know what life throws at you as a woman who is like navigating her career and trying to navigate romantic relationships and trying to navigate just everything in your personal or professional life and have her be relatable and interesting and well-developed and just like put in a scenario that isn't so problematic so that's what i want for bridget jones um but yeah so i'll give the movie two nipples and i will give one to paddington bear and i'll give the other one to Phoenix Buchanan Hugh Grant's character in Paddington 2. Wow maybe one to Colin Firth for losing out on that part. Yeah so yeah I'll give him a half nipple and then I'll give another half nipple to Mr. Gruuber aka jim broadbent oh i do love jim broadbent i feel like i first saw jim broadbent in the really crummy narnia movies when i was a kid he was in those wait i

didn't remember him being in those he plays i think their grandfather i don't know i used to have a huge crush on one of the siblings in the Narnia family. His name was Skandar. Anyway, he's a lawyer now, I learned. I'm sorry, do you mean a barrister? Probably. He's British. What even is a barrister?

It must be something related. It seems like government related almost, right? Is it the same way that like a lawyer and an attorney? It's like basically the same thing. It's just like two different words for it. Maybe in England, it's like you're a lawyer, but also a barrister. Same thing. I don't know. So for our British listeners, we need a lot of help.

Please answer all of our questions. Clearly we're struggling. Do you have more than 15 actors and if so that we definitively know is um i'm gonna go two nipples here as well i feel like bridget jones the character I am rooting for, I feel like there were so many good opportunities in this movie to take on like Bridget's insecurities and create a thoughtful plot that says something. And unfortunately, most of those opportunities were just like dropped where I feel like it's very, very rare in a rom-com for like the pressure that's put on women's bodies to look a very certain way is even brought up at all in a meaningful way and this one does but then nothing happens and like it's very rare in a rom-com for ageism to

come up in any way and this one does but then nothing happens and so it's like i don't know i hope that i i don't think i mean we already know that rebooting bridget jones is not the solution to this problem but i would like to see in rom-coms more often and i feel like this happens on tv more often than it does in movies generally which is true of a lot of more progressive things that you know like women who are responding to the pressures that society is putting on to them and like struggling with it because it is an impossible bar to clear and you're never gonna be the person that everyone wants you to be and i i like seeing a character struggle with that and I like seeing her be like what the fuck and sometimes being like fuck you I'm gonna get drunk and listen to Chaka Khan because like

it's just all like I don't know I I I understand why like female audiences of this time loved Bridget Jones for being so like just putting it all out there but privately I don't know I'm pro diary anti-plot of this movie and that is simply where and I and I also I just like I wanted more for Bridget's friends too like they're clearly all like miserable and very insecure as well just everyone in this movie is so deeply insecure. And I feel like no one gets less insecure by the end of the movie. So maybe it's just real life. I'm going to give it two nipples. I'm going to give one to Renee Zellweger because I really love her.

And then I will give my other nipple to Shazzer. Shazza she says fuck yeah i think two is right i mean if you watch i think i almost want to give it three in the context of jamie reading that quote from helen fielding now because you're like oh she was just sort of reflecting the time she lived in you know um but yeah it's almost worse that they like bring up these issues and then let them fall you know um yeah i think two is right unfortunately but then i love bridget so you know i do i want to read the book honestly because she was so beloved and i see why they did this you know yeah do i give my nipples out if you want yeah yeah i give them to you too they're for you oh my goodness no one's ever given us their nipples before our first maybe

like once or twice but in our almost 300 episodes you'd think god god i can't believe people give us their nipples more thank you so much for i feel so honored i have i have one last renee zalwiger quote i'd like to share because renee zalwiger has also been very open about see as as an adult woman who has been single at for many stretches of her life and has come to be like i was happy so fuck you yeah this was what renee zalwiger said a couple of years ago about bridget jones she says if we were all privy to one another's inner dialogue we would recognize that we are so very much alike we all feel the same pressures to measure up and we all share the same fears that we won't i was like you know what you're right renee zellweger she is and for her time i feel like bridget jones was doing the best she could with the crummy plot

she was given our fledgling feminist bridget jones she's working on it yeah she's now she has i guess now she's stuck with colin fir's baby. So yeah, hope they're happy. Maybe they get divorced. And then I don't know, two, three years time, we get like Bridget Jones's Feminist Awakening, the movie. Well, if it's if it does the Mamma Mia schedule, there will be Renee will play like Margot Robbie's mom or whatever. It will be their kid.

Oh, right. That would be kind of fun if Renee will be their kid. Oh, right. That would be kind of fun if Renee or if Bridget, sorry, they're one in the same. If Bridget had like an extremely like militant feminist daughter and then was like learning retroactively from her daughter and they were bumping heads. Pitch it, Jamie. Pitch it. Here it is. I'm like, helen i've got an idea well speaking of writings and such uh amy first of all thank you so much for being here and thank you for giving us our nipples um uh tell us about your book that's coming out soon how can people get it how can people follow you online totally

it's called notes from the bathroom line it's a big collection of humor writing by 150 women in comedy jamie's in it um and i caitlin's not but it's because i didn't know caitlin and now i feel horrible um and you're careful you can order it from wherever you can go to notes from the bathroom line.com it makes it very easy to pre-order it especially from female owned indie bookstores and it comes out March 16th

2021 baby highly recommend it we're going to post a little more about the book on our social media as well because there's so much overlap between women in the book and Bechdel cast guests I love the Otzko um austin powers

episode oh my gosh so good she's amazing a champion the fact that she's only been on to cover mike myers vehicles on the show we left so it's so straight like it's just something and at this point of like do we stop like it's unclear or yeah or do we double down i'm like okay osco you're coming out for the cat in the hat sorry it is what it is amazing our our number one requested movie that we cover is that true literally no one has ever requested i was like that is so strange i couldn't i was like we did wayne's world Are there other Mike Myers movies? I just ran out. Oh, gosh. There's a bunch of offensive ones where he's doing a weird character and or accent.

Oh, let's skip those. Let's do Cat in the Hat. I'll email her. Please. You can follow us on social media. You can subscribe to our Patreon, a.k.a patreon aka matreon at patreon.com slash spectral cast and it is five dollars a month it gets you access to two bonus episodes every month plus the entire back catalog and um and then check out our merch at tpublic.com slash the bechtel cast uh get a mask and then wear two of them. And then wear two of them.

And, you know, we don't say this enough, but why don't you go on iTunes or whatever and give us, speaking of needing nipples, give us some more ratings. Give us some stars. Preferably five out of five.

Hell yeah. Anyway, cheerio. I'm sorry. Bye. Bye. everywhere, unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before. Tried to assassinate the president of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore.

The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. I'm Joe Gatto. I'm Steve Byrne. We are Two Cool Moms. We certainly are.

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