This week, we read a bit more of the play, and researched more about women’s rights. But what I want to talk about in my review blog post is our first “Go Deeper” assignment. The assignment was to watch one or more movies about women from the past several decades.

I chose to watch Bridget Jones’s Diary, which was released in 2001. I didn’t actually realize until I started the movie that it has the same plot as one of my favourite books, Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, and that shocked me! Not that people would want to keep adapting it, but that all of the sexist societal standards that force the plot of the book could still be found over 180 years after it was published in 1813.

Comparing these two works, Bridget Jones’s Diary and Pride and Prejudice, has helped me understand how much has changed for women and how much stayed the same. The central motivation of many of the characters in Pride and Prejudice is to get married, or, in the case of Mrs. Bennet, mother of the main character, get their daughters married. This is very similar to key plot points in Bridget Jones’s Diary. Bridget’s mother insists that she marry someone, and is constantly trying to set her up. Every time she goes to dinner, the topic of conversation is when she’ll be married. Even over a hundred and eighty years later, society is still placing expectations of marriage on young single women. This is an example of continuity, from our continuity and change competency. 

However, in Pride and Prejudice, most characters want to be married for financial reasons, which changed by the time that Bridget Jones’s Diary was written. Instead, characters want to be married or want Bridget to be married solely for the sake of being married. The reasons for this societal expectation have changed, but the expectation still remains. It was really cool to watch this movie because I didn’t expect to be analyzing it like this!

Thanks for reading my blog post!