Why was Bridget Jones viewed as a sloppy single disaster when actually she was an independent woman with a good job, great friends, and an even better flat?

“Bridget Jones was a total legend”. Those are the words my editor used in her email to me when we were discussing this very article and it’s hard to disagree. She just was. I watched the movie for the first time just before I hit puberty, and I still related to her. I’d never had two men fighting over me but I knew that when that day came (please god), I’d react exactly as she did. And even back then, I understood all her body image insecurities, not to mention her constant humiliation, her awkwardness at family gatherings and her need to howl along with Celine Dion in PJs with ice-cream.

Exactly 25 years on from the film’s release, I still do. No matter how many times I watch Bridget Jones’ Diary, I find myself crying, laughing and wincing along with her. But the difference is that now, with the benefit of time, I can also see that Bridge deserved better – both within the movie, but also in real life.

Much has been written of the way Bridget’s character was treated, and even author Helen Fielding herself has said she couldn’t write Bridget the same way now. “The level of sexism that Bridget was dealing with, the hand on the bum in so many of the scenes”, she said on Desert Island Discs, made it “quite shocking for me to see how things have changed since then.” Bridget constantly faces sexual harassment, whether it’s in the workplace or with a bottom-pinching relative. In keeping with the pre-Me Too times, Bridget doesn’t call HR and demand change; she just puts up with it. Watching it now is, as Fielding said, shocking – but it’s also just sad.

So is her (and everyone else’s) obsession with her weight. Bridget relentlessly counts her calories and forces herself into Spanx, while those around her view her as an overweight mess. Daniel Cleaver’s girlfriend even cuttingly remarks: ‘I thought you said she was thin’. In truth Bridget is just a size 10/12 – the average in the UK.

All of this is so much easier to spot 25 years on. Why was Bridget always viewed as a sloppy single disaster when actually she was an independent 32-year-old with a good job, great friends, and an even better Borough Market flat? Why was she continuously defined by her relationship status or lack thereof? And why did no-one think to question that?

At the same time, it’s also depressingly relatable. Today many women still worry unnecessarily about their weight, because we live in a world where we’re judged primarily on our looks, and the pressure on single women to couple up, have kids and become ‘smug marrieds’ is still going strong.