Beware: important spoilers about Bridgerton forward.
“Don’t forget to say goodbye to Prudence, Phillipa or even Penelope while you go,” Lady Portia Featherington tells a group of suitors in one of Netflix’s first episodes Bridgerton, which tracks the drama, scandal and intrigue of the 19th-century London wedding market.
O up until in Lady Portia’s phrase is a veiled criticism of her daughter, Penelope, and shows how little she sees her – especially compared to her From others daughters, Prudence and Phillipa. Penelope is the youngest Featherington (presumably, her ages are never specified) and looks different from her sisters. At one point, she is ridiculed for being “two stones heavier” than they are. Your skin is criticized. In the middle of a dance, a girl pours a drink at her. The message: it’s not just the Featheringtons that belittle Penelope.
We quickly learned that she is not like other girls. While Daphne Bridgerton, Prudence and Phillipa are presented as beautiful and desirable brides, Penelope receives the book moth treatment. She is the younger sister, the peculiar best friend, the joke – despite the fact that she too is eligible for marriage. Even Eloise Bridgerton, an eccentric colleague, sits on a dress in one stitch and is told how stunning she is. Bridgerton almost goes out of his way to introduce Penelope as the “ugly duckling”.
We ended up finding out why. It turns out – big, big spoiler alert – Penelope is Lady Whistledown, the anonymous scribe who spreads everyone’s gossip in the form of a widely read newsletter. The revelation slightly justifies her character: all this time she was the most powerful force in London, someone who can change the course of high society with just her pen. She’s the toughest. A boss. The curator of your city’s wedding market.
This is one way of looking at things – but there is also another way. As a large size person, I got angry Bridgerton she couldn’t just portray Penelope like the other girls: beautiful, capable of dating and worthy of love. Instead, it made her an outcast: a woman who will never find a suitable place in society, so she is forced to see it from the outside. It’s the concept of a thin, nonstick woman finding love This one implausible? Same?
Harriet Cains as Phillipa Featherington; Bessie Carter as Prudence Featherington; and Nicola Coughlan as Penelope Featherington
LIAM DANIEL / NETFLIX
I just hope that Penelope receives flowers in the second season – if any It’s a second season – but for now I’m disappointed. If there was to be an “ugly duckling” in this series, why did he have to be the only character who isn’t as thin as lightning? Unfortunately, this shows how little we have achieved in terms of diversity in size and representation. Even at a show like Bridgerton—Produced by Shonda Rhimes, a champion of inclusion – non-skinny characters still have something to do.
Bridgerton he is pushing the limits in a number of ways, especially in his representation of 19th century London. We see open marriages, gay sex and women questioning the rules set for them. But when it comes to seeing a curvaceous sexualized and sought after woman, we are still in the dark ages. We are “awake” but not This one “woke up.”
Which is a shame, because so many people, including me, would have benefited from seeing a woman who looks like Penelope treated like Daphne. As an incomparable of the season: sexy, sophisticated and a total wedding material. (I hate to put it in those terms, but I’m playing within the limits of Bridgerton’s (premise). Maybe then people with body image problems would stop thinking that they need to change to find love. We can’t be what we can’t see – and except for a few brilliant examples, non-skinny people consume pop culture and still think something is wrong with them. Just look at the fat jokes made about Emily in Paris or Ellen Pompeo’s quote about how Patrick Dempsey couldn’t have returned Grey’s Anatomy if he gained 36 kilos. “The girls want to see the dreamy McDreamy,” she said.
Why can’t Penelope be a dreamer? The revelation that she is Lady Whistledown certainly opens up her plot for future seasons. I have a feeling that if we can see more, she will be in the front and in the center. But I do not only I want her to have more screen time. I want to see her in pastel dresses and hats with 80 suitors knocking on her door. I want a montage of her sex scenes ripping up bodices in an orchestral version of Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams”. There must be a man willing to marry her although it carries a big secret, like an unplanned pregnancy.
The fact is, there are more Penelopes in the world than entertainment –Bridgerton included – is representing. And we are not idiots, carpets of flowers that receive drinks spilled on us. We go out (a lot!), Have hot sex and wear fancy clothes. We it is the incomparable. It is time for television to begin to reflect this.
Christopher Rosa is the entertainment editor at Glam. Follow him on Twitter @ chrisrosa92.
Originally appeared on Glamor