Richard Curtis, the prolific screenwriter behind Love Actually and Four Weddings and a Funeral, has said he would write “different” films in today’s political climate.
The three-time Bafta-winner was talking about the shift in social attitudes that has come in the wake of the Black Lives Matter and MeToo movements when he made the comments on Newsnight.
When asked by presenter Emily Maitlis if he is looking back at his films, which were hugely popular in the Nineties, to see whether they stand the test of time, Curtis said: “I think I would write different movies now. Things do change and that is what is exciting about a moment like this.”
He added: “We are all recalibrating, we are all thinking about things in different ways. We have a really impatient younger generation who’s focusing on things that I never focused on. You know, I’m hopeful.”
Curtis’s films have been criticised in the past for their lack of diversity – especially Notting Hill, which had a majority white cast despite being set in one of the most multicultural areas in London.
Bridget Jones, too, has not aged well, with the behaviour of Hugh Grant’s character Daniel Cleaver being deemed as workplace sexual harassment by many viewers.
Numerous TV shows and films have been put under the microscope since the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, with Peep Show, Little Britain and Gone With the Wind all criticised for either containing blackface or problematic representations of race.
