This blog post was inspired by a conversation my mom Carrie initiated during our weekly family Facetime. It went something like this:
Carrie: What do you think about all this Bridgerton stuff?
Esmé: What do you mean? I haven’t seen it but know a lot of people like it.
C: I mean, with all the Black characters. Don’t you think that would confuse little kids?
E: ??
C: There isn’t slavery in the show, right? I mean, what do you think of all this representation stuff? Isn’t that confusing for a kid to watch a story that takes place back then but without the racism and slavery?
E: Well, I don’t think it’s confusing, and I think more people of color were in aristocratic positions back in the day than film/TV up until this would’ve led us to believe… The sense that I get is that there is still racism within the show but it’s not as explicit as slavery, it’s more nuanced and implicit like today.
C: But what about people who don’t believe slavery happened? Doesn’t that further their argument?
E: I mean, it’s a fictional show…
Hindsight is, famously, 20/20, and there are many things I wish I’d pointed out to my mother in the course of this conversation: that Bridgerton is a bodice-ripping soap opera that even the most oblivious parent probably wouldn’t let their child watch, and that historical fiction is so whitewashed it’s become difficult for us to imagine people of color even existing in the distant past, much less succeeding or holding any position of power.
Again, let me preface this by saying I haven’t seen any Bridgerton at all. All my knowledge of it has been filtered through newspaper op-eds, TikToks, and word of mouth. The especially salacious parts naturally get the most press: Sex! Sex in regency England! Naked sex in regency England! I remember comparisons to horny Jane Austen being made about it at the time and thinking, But Jane Austen’s already horny…
After recently seeing Challengers, the baffling new Luca Guadagnino film, I hunted high and low for different readings of the film, explanations for what I experienced as a nearly incoherent, anti-erotic story that had the entire movie theater laughing when it definitely did not intend to.
I promise this has something to do with TV studies!!!
Questions of authorial intent and formal filmmaking decisions aside, this recent convergence of watching Challengers and having this odd conversation with my mom made me think about Mimi White’s essay “Ideological Analysis and Television”. Buckle up for the words you’re about to ingest, dear reader: White’s essay, which I read within the past month, is possibly the singular encounter I’ve had with (and understandable explanation of) Marxist ideologies.
At an American liberal arts college.
Wow. Just let that concept sink in. I’m as shocked as you, don’t worry. My point in mentioning this is that it’s inhabited a place at the front of my mind through which I’ve filtered a lot of media and conversations, especially television. A classical Marxist take on Bridgerton and other shows in the Shonda Rhimes cannon would shovel it in the same pile as Fox news and Say Yes To The Dress, arguing that television as a medium is not harmless entertainment, but a bourgeoisie brainwashing tool to convince the masses to participate in the (economic, social) systems that oppress and blind them. As White fleshes out, though, classical Marxist thought is flawed in more ways than one. A more complicated take holds that individuals find pleasure in mass media like television despite its propagandistic elements, and thus it has positive value to the individual viewer. It’s over-simplistic and snooty to categorize all media made for profit as valueless when shows like Bridgerton and Grey’s Anatomy imagine worlds in which marginalized viewers see themselves in characters who have agency and are more than a hollow racial or gendered stereotype.
One reply on “Bridgerton? Bourgeoisie.”
Hi Esmé!
Joining the conversation with my Bridgerton expertise (aka I’ve watched the show and recently, the newest season)! My initial reaction to your conversation with your mother was something like, “well kids wouldn’t/shouldn’t be watching the show anyway,” although you seemed to have covered that bit of the argument. But, that’s not the point. The point is that this fictional drama casted colorblind, similar to Shonda Rhimes’s Grey’s Anatomy, and who’s to say if that’s the right or wrong way to portray a historical time period. What does it mean that the queen, the person with the most power in the show, is played by a black actress (Golda Rosheuvel)? There’s many questions one could ask.
I was struck by your comment that “historical fiction is so whitewashed it’s become difficult for us to imagine people of color even existing in the distant past, much less succeeding or holding any position of power.” Embarrassingly so, I would agree. Occasionally I wonder if a point of contention in the show will be based on race, with the leading love interest of Daphne Bridgerton (white) being Simon Bassett (black), Francessca Bridgerton (white) being John Stirling (black), and Violet Bridgerton (white) being Marcus Anderson (black). I unfortunately catch myself thinking, “it’s gotta be,” as if that’s the most obvious way for the writer’s to spark drama. However, to my recollection this never occurs.
Someone in class commented that Grey’s Anatomy’s postfeminist cultural environment, according to Elana Levine, fails to address real world issues by projecting a “near-perfect” world. While I do think that it’s important to have TV shows and film educated viewers of the factual race and power dynamics of the time (and there’s plenty), I think that it’s misguided to say that the show Bridgerton should be cast according to history. The show does a fantastic job of creating “characters who have agency and are more than a hollow racial or gender stereotype” as you coined it – I mentioned something similar in my blog about Grey’s Anatomy. I appreciate this style of storytelling. It provides a new perspective, allowing marginalized audiences to view themselves in roles they never thought to be possible. It also adds much to be discussed in television studies.
I’d love to keep discussing this!
– Florence