Bridget Jones: Fat And Dumpy!
No surprise that those adjectives are being applied to a perfectly normal-looking size fourteen woman. Is Bridget Jones supposed to be "dumpy" or just average?
posted by mo pie at 9:57 AM
Friday, September 03, 2004
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15 Comments:
Well, in the movie, I believe, her character was suppose to be dumpy. Dumpy and overweight- lots of overweight people are not dumpy and lots of dumpy people are not overweight. But her character is suppose to be both. So my question is, who in the hell would want to buy her dumpy clothes?
Those size 14 "fat clothes" just fall off of her.
I hate the way that's written/portrayed.
It's the reason size 14 women hate themselves.
I know it's kind of a worn-out statement, but I still think it's worth pointing out one more time: Marilyn Monroe was a size 14. Also, on an "I Love Lucy" episode, Lucy auditions to be one of the glamorous dancers on Ricky's show. She tries to fit into the costume, but rips it to shreds. The size of the costume? Lucy explains her failure to squeeze into it with "That was a small size 12!"
So there! I know these examples are from the 1950's, but the point is that standards of beauty are extremely subjective, almost arbitrary and constantly changing. And one decade's "fat" is another decade's "gorgeous." If only we could take these standards not so seriously...
I've been reading a lot of these comments, and I agree with an awful lot of it - to be fair, though, Marylin's clothing would be a size 6 today. Causes real havoc in the vintage clothing business, and does everyone a disservice, IMO.
I wanted to disagree with Anonymous in that I don't actually think the character of Bridget Jones was supposed to be dumpy. (I totally agree that fat and dumpy do not have to go hand in hand, but that they can.) I think of her wearing fairly cute outfits! Other than the outfit at the Turkey Curry Buffet, but that wasn't her fault. Remember her see-through top? Her sexy black dress? No no, Bridget isn't dumpy.
In the books bridget weighs around 130lbs and is quite tall so she's really not dumpy at all. However, she does spend most of the book thinking she's fat and dieting so this is probably where the media image comes from.
Kate
It is just impossible to use your size in clothing to gauge anything. Every line is different- I have a girlfriend that refuses to buy any clothing from Ann Taylor because in that line, she can't fit into a 12 yet she wears a 10 in most every other line- and at J.Gill, she wears an 8! I have clothing myself that run from a 14-18- and then there are "women" sizes that have you wearing a 14w that is actually a 18 in regular sizes... confusing, no?
The whole Bridget Jones thing drives me CRAZY. In the book, she was a normal-but-not-tiny woman who had a screwed up mental image of herself (as many women do). Remember when she lost a bunch of weight and went to the party, and everyone kept asking if she'd been sick etc.? AND even Renee Zellweger playing Bridget Jones looked like a normal-but-not-tiny woman -- it was just that all the media surrounding the movie kept talking about her as though she was 300 pounds.
In the second book she is 128 pounds on average. Which doesn't even count as overweight unless she was under 5'0"
In response to the I Love Lucy comment:
In the 70's my mom worked at Burger King and, being one of those people who just can't throw things away, she kept her uniform and had me wear it for Halloween a few years ago. The costume fit tightly. I was a size 14; the tag on it said size 20. So, if sizes changed that much from the mid 70's to the mid 90's, I'm sure they changed a bit before then as well.
Sorry about kind of ruining what you were trying to say, Regina, but it's an important technicality I just couldn't resist throwing out there.
Oops, I didn't notice the comment that already mentioned the size change... sorry about that! :)
I'm a size 12/14 and 5 foot 11. I do have some problems with my body image, but most guys I've talked to prefer a curvy, healthy woman over an anorexic bibmo.
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