Shondaland fans can rejoice. Netflix recently announced that it has renewed “Bridgerton” costume making for a second season. This is not surprising – in early January, “Bridgerton” is one of the 5 most viewed original shows on Netflix.
Regency-era drama was adapted from Julia Quinn’s best-selling book series, but with a modern twist – imagine a version of the “color-conscious” story in which Black Queen Charlotte (Golda Roshuevel) would create more opportunities for people of color . The first season follows debutante Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor) as she browses the wedding market and her courtship with the libertine Duke Simon Bassett (Regé-Jean Page) – all narrated by “Gossip Girl” -escape Lady Whistledown (Julie Andrews) and she meddling in society newspapers. Since the program’s launch on Christmas Day, it has regularly appeared in the Netflix Top 10.
If the next season presumably follows the events of Quinn’s second book in the series – a book for each of the eight Bridgerton brothers’ love stories – we can expect the spotlight to shift from Daphne to eldest son and heir Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey ) and his search for the perfect wife. After being abandoned by his opera singer lover in the first season, he decided not to risk his heart again and will simply choose who is considered the “Incomparable” for a loveless but comfortable marriage. We will see if this is what really happens.
A second season can also give the show the opportunity to dig a little deeper into its own universe. Although the first season was extremely popular, it received mixed reviews. The first reviews were mostly positive, calling the show a fun and compulsive getaway – this is where I initially landed, after watching the first episodes. But the first praise yielded greater analysis and criticism of the program, which pointed to unequal treatment of race and consent.
Here are some of the main criticisms (along with some personal complaints) that Season 2 will hopefully address to make this guilty pleasure a little less guilty:
1) Consent issues
“Bridgerton” may have invested in the Vitamin String Quartet version of “Thank U, Next” to bring us into the 2020s, but chose to maintain an offensive scene from the original book.
A short summary of the plot: Daphne thought her husband was physically incapable of having children, a stratagem maintained because she had no idea how babies are actually made. After learning that Simon may have children, but chose not to have one (which she learns from an embarrassing scene of post-coital tissue theft), Daphne forces him to have sex that would conceive a child.
It’s shaken. The show quickly goes through the attack, framing it around Daphne’s feelings of betrayal. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Chris Van Dusen allegedly kept that plot point on the show because “it is a part of his journey”, going from “innocent debutante” to a “woman who can get rid of all the restrictions that society kept for her, and she finally finds out who she really is and what she’s capable of. ”
But this framework implies that someone’s attack can be consolidated into the history of their partner’s personal growth, and is especially disappointing in a program that calls itself progressive. It is also a shocking departure for a series that seems deeply invested in themes of consent, having portrayed how a man’s unwanted advances can imprison a woman in marriage so as not to “ruin” his social position irrevocably.
And while this exact set of circumstances is unlikely to repeat itself in subsequent seasons, “Bridgerton” would be able to take a closer look at the source material that is adapting to see if it makes sense when viewed with modern sensibilities.
2) Color blind historical fantasy or “color conscious” alternative history?
Critics pointed out that “Bridgerton” cannot decide whether it is a color-blind historical fantasy or whether it is trying to offer a “color conscious” review of history, as Van Dusen claims it is – the last of which the show falls short of doing.
I struggle with the way the show arrives somewhere in the unconvincing medium. “Bridgerton” selectively addresses issues of race, as in the case of the late Duke of Hastings pressuring his son to look perfect because “he is not as a duke traditionally looks,” Van Dusen told Salon. At other times, the series fully embraces historical fantasy by neglecting the discussion of race. Daphne and Simon never discuss what it means to be in an interracial relationship, despite what has been said about the rarity of Simon’s title.
The series also fights against colorism, giving more central roles to the plot for lighter-skinned black actors – this includes Marina Thompson (Ruby Barker), Simon, seamstress Genevieve Delacroix (Kathryn Drysdale), Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) and even Queen Charlotte – while relegating darker-skinned actors to small roles (as in the case of Simon’s father). If the program claims to be color conscious, what is the choice of conscious colorism it is doing? Most likely, some unconscious forces are at play and therefore it is worth reexamining going forward.
3) The unenviable misfortune of black women
Despite being set in a time when a black queen is supposed to raise the status of people of color, black women do visibly poorly on the show.
Marina, the only young black woman introduced to the wedding market, is intimidated by her only friend, declared pregnant, discovers that her lover died in the war and ends the season married to her brother, whom she barely knows. And the only reason this proposal is available to her is because Daphne acts as a white savior, launching herself to locate Marina’s lost soldier. In the books, Marina is the distant white cousin of the Bridgerton clan, which readers never know. To talk more about your story would be to report a possible spoiler. In this case, changing your race to Black for such a tragic result hardly seems a fair treatment.
Madame Delacroix, the dressmaker, is possibly the happiest black woman in the series, but she succeeds only in suffering the white gentry who believes she is French and therefore buys her dresses. Even the queen ends up becoming the consort of the queen, married to the crazy Jorge III, who is indisposed for the series.
By giving white characters the weight of speaking roles and better results, the show is not really indulging in inclusive escapism.
4) Trauma and communication
The problematic temperament of our libertine hero can be explained by a problematic creation. Simon’s father was only concerned with promoting the Hastings lineage – to the point of abusing his son, while he struggled with a speech problem. As a result, Simon made a nasty “promise” to never have children literally on his father’s deathbed, in a rather dramatic and exaggerated flashback scene.
This trauma obviously shapes Simon’s worldview, but the program focuses on two ways it affects his marriage: through the obsession with adhering to that “vote” and the semantic difference between “I can’t and I won’t” when Daphne asks if they will have children.
Many of the couple’s problems boil down to a pattern “this couple cannot have a single normal conversation”. It’s a fast-growing trope – I’m thinking of my diminishing interest in the final episodes of Hulu’s romantic drama, “Normal People,” a show that I really liked at the beginning. Yes, one of the central themes of “Bridgerton” is the idea that the wedding market results in matches in which husband and wife never speak to each other (as was common at the time). And it is adapted with a keen sense of dramatic soap opera irony, transmitted by looks of desire, to walk bored and to sigh virginally.
But it also takes place in a fictional world, where a woman is free to refuse a proposal from a prince to “save” his duke, and where that duke repeatedly crossed the line during courtship. There is some latitude to give trauma more space than the “backstory”. And there will be opportunities to do that next season, as many of Anthony’s difficulties in his search for a wife refer to the trauma of losing his father at a young age.
5) Sexiest sex scenes
“Bridgerton” is definitely not lacking for sex scenes. But the series’ gestures towards the female eye – a lot of oral sex and objectification of the male protagonist – are not enough to make the sex scenes look really sexy. The real lust on the screen is more than an urgent missionary on marble steps, hitting a tree (ouch) or being pushed against a bookcase (even if the library itself is enviable).
It’s all about building chemistry and paying for tension – something that the first half of the season does much better, even without showing us the two tracks having sex. It is the construction of chemistry through play and impropriety and then raising expectations through restraint – in moments as subtle as the touch of fingers in an art gallery, or as direct as Simon asking Daphne (while he stares) if she has touched herself.
The second half gives us a honeymoon, but it is a little too bright, a little superficial image, perfect for really feeling anything. When sex scenes inspire laughter for your happy ending, rather than sighs, that’s a failure.