You just have to start any series to realize it: on TV, women drink, and they drink a lot.
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While the alcoholism of women is still severely judged, it seems ubiquitous in TV series. The late Sue Ellen, an eternal figure of the bourgeoisie who stashed her bottles under the flowery cushions of her living room, have succeeded hordes of funny young women who drink continuously during bachelorette parties, and working girls including glass in hand has become as essential to their outfit as pumps with 12 cm heels.
Just start any series to realize it: women drink, and they drink a lot. In Cougar Town, the divorced forty-something played by Courteney Cox dives continuously into a huge stemmed glass. In The Good Wife, Alicia Florrick’s consumption is maddening, but the character never has a hangover. A cult scene from Season 6 shows her character staring at the clock. She’s waiting for something. When the needle reaches 5 p.m., the lawyer gets up to pour herself a glass of red wine.
But on screen, emptying those huge balloons or stringing together shots of vodka never seems to make it serious. ill anyone. Above all, the drink seems to have become the essential accessory of the modern and emancipated woman. “The girl who drinks too much has become a cultural mark, a social status, observes Claire Touzard, the author of Without alcohol (Flammarion, 2021). We, the sober, enjoy a very poor image in pop culture.” Understand: not funny girls.
“This is all thanks to Bridget”
For Clare Pooley, “Bridget Jones is in charge”. The British writer, who recounted her regained sobriety in I Begun to Live Again (City Edition, 2018), remembers how much she adored this heroine. She adored him so much that she found herself, at age 30, in a BBC documentary about the “real Bridget Jones”. We see her, tipsy, declaring to the camera: “Look, I have a great job, a very nice car and I own my apartment.” But the voiceover then questions her inability to find a man. “Everyone saw it. Everyone heard me slap the emancipation of a woman and be called dissatisfied. Yet that didn’t stop me from continuing to idolize Bridget. After all, she gave us all a good excuse to drink. Drinking six liters of Chardonnay with a friend? Drinking alone at home while singing – out of tune – at the top of your lungs? No problem, thanks to Bridget, it had become quite cool, not to say essential. “
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