I’ve been quite amused at comments from students and colleagues who enjoyed my recent Bridget Jones version of department head blogging, but who have totally missed the intertextual reference. I mean, come on, it’s blatant copy-catting!
Surely I’m not the only new media scholar to have read Bridget Jones? Both volumes? And let’s be frank, I really enjoyed them. They’re hilarious.
noah
Perhaps those of us who got the intertextual reference thought, like you, that it was so obvious as to not require comment? If memory serves, they even work this type of thing into the movie. Now, when do we get to see Adrian Mole, department head?
tom
You’re not alone. Although I remember reading the original column in the Independent before it went all book-ish. Bridget is the example I usually use on students when trying to explain interactive adaptation for the first time (cigarettes, off-licences, map of london etc).
Jill
Oh god. I loved the Adrian Mole books as a teenager, but I haven’t been able to bear the thought of his pathetic self as an adult. Maybe I should venture into the adult books after all…
LiL
I’m a film scholar and I read them. Also saw movies. Liked all.
Eirik
You definitely should give some of the later Adrian Moles a try, Jill. The latest one, “The weapons of mass destruction”, is totally on the level with the first two, IMHO. While I also enjoyed Fieldings’ books, Sue Townsend is more than just funny. There’s a social and political conscience, and a sense of contemporary Britain, that is totally lacking in “Bridget Jones”.