Gen Z on Bridget Jones + Super Bowl weight loss ads

Assorted body culture bits this week.

Stills from the hims & hers Super Bowl commercial | hims & hers

Body Type brings you insights about body culture and body image from an independent health journalist who’s worked in the fitness industry. Here, we wade through complex body stuff together.

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I have chapters coming due for said book and am traveling, so I’m leaving you for now with a little Q&A, plus a discussion topic.

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This week, I asked

Ochuko Akpovbovbo

of

as seen on

— resident commentator on culture, business, and trends from a Gen Z POV (and voracious reader; she reads like three books a week, my god, goals) — about if/why Gen Z “can’t get enough of Bridget Jones,” lately, which is apparently a thing.

I loved the books and movies in my early-aughts high school years, and was subject to the very mid-90s body culture in the first book especially: I was a nearly 200-pound teenager reading Bridget’s immense sorrow about weighing 136; each chapter opened with her weight, calorie intake, and associated anxieties. That sucked.

I think author Helen Fielding was poking fun at the ridiculousness of this, not entirely co-signing it (Bridget’s friends find her obsession annoying and tell her she goes too far; she winds up with man who loves her and her body “just as she is”), but it was still a whole thing that Bridget Jones — who, I repeat, weighed 136 pounds — was “fat.” I asked Ochuko to shed light on how Gen Z women she knows talk about body stuff and the Bridget Jones literary/cinematic universe. Read on.

Also: The hims & hers company’s Super Bowl commercial stirred up some controversy this week:

I wrote an initial thought on Notes, but would love to hear yours in the comments in true discussion post style. I’ll respond when I’m back next week.

OK, onto Ochuko.

MJ: Are you and other women your age talking about the body stuff in Bridget Jones (the books or the movies)? Obviously, her preoccupation with calorie counting and weight is a big part of the plot; how do you receive it?

OA: One thing that’s pretty interesting about my generation is what we will or won’t talk about in groups or even one-on-one—not because we don’t engage in those things, but because we know we shouldn’t. There’s not one of my friends who isn’t at least a little preoccupied with weight. I am currently preoccupied with my weight. At every point in the last two years, I’ve had some low-priority goal of changing the way my body looks in some way or another. At this point, it almost seems par for the course. But it’s this weird thing where no one wants to be that toxic friend who admits they want to lose a few. It’s not cool. It’s not “right.”

So my answer is yes and no. Calorie counting abounds; the discourse around it, not so much. To be honest, the times I’ve admitted to my friends that I wasn’t totally happy with how I looked, I started the sentence with something like, “I know this is kind of toxic, but…” And they say the same when they admit they feel the same way. It’s all very hush-hush because we are smart liberal arts girls who should know better.

But on the other hand, I was talking to an older millennial friend yesterday who was telling me how people used to make comments about your body or weight with zero shame. And that sounds horrific. The early 2000s beauty standards sound horrific

Ochuko Akpovbovbo

I’m seeing pieces (like this one in Elle) about why Gen Z “can’t get enough of Bridget Jones.” Do you personally think it’s true?

To be honest, neither Bridget Jones nor this movie has come up in any of my group chats, but I’m just one girl—I can’t speak for my entire generation. Still, to say Gen Z “can’t get enough” of Bridget Jones would definitely be an exaggeration. But it’s a headline, and that’s just how these things go. Do I think young people will watch the movie? For sure—I know I will. Do I think it’ll become a phenomenon? Well, I’m not sure. There’s a lot of cultural discourse going on right now; a lot to cut through.

There’s a subset of millennial women who, if they were randomly talking about reading Bridget Jones today, would be sure to make a point about how problematic the body stuff was. Do you think women your age would do that? Do you all care about pointing out all that’s wrong with older media in the sometimes deeply annoying way my generation does?

My friends and I don’t do that. Because where’s the line between realistic and problematic? That’s one Venn diagram that’s massively overlapping, you know. Like I said, lots of people don’t like the way they look, and knowing logically that it’s because of the patriarchy or whatever doesn’t really change your day-to-day lived experience. Of course, there’s context. I’m not going to go on and on about my weight because that might negatively impact someone else, you know?

I think if my friends and I were to watch Bridget Jones now, the commentary would be more about how open she is about being unhappy with her body. Like I said, women in my circles aren't really going around admitting they'd like to be skinny or they enjoy being skinny. It's mildly amusing.

You also have to remember that part of why Gen Z loves older media is because it’s kind of fun to think, Oh wow, she really just said that. No one would put that on TV now.

I’ll ask the same Q to you that this Air Mail headline does: Would the Gen Z Bridget Jones be on Ozempic?

Oh yeah, she’d definitely be on Ozempic. And more power to her, too. She’s clearly spent so much of her adult life worrying about weight. It would be nice for her not to, even if that doesn’t come from radical self-acceptance. Truth is, most people will never get there. And that’s okay.