Yea, Bridgerton is such a weird re-imagining. The idea that re-casting white supremacist elites as people of color is some sort of progressive thing to do comes from people lacking in historical knowledge and political praxis, imo.
Like, I unreservedly love Shonda Rhimes and her aesthetic of unrepentant acceleration, but Bridgerton's blind cast has always struck me as deeply tone-deaf, if not racist.
Hamilton, on the other hand, is just fucking racist; recasting historical white slave-owners as people of color while still idealizing them is psychotic.
With Bridgerton being a romance fantasy, a deep and abiding suspension of disbelief is required. For women to find any historical romance compelling is already a big fucking leap, as we all know that actual women in these time periods were essentially domestic slaves, and things like marital rape and domestic abuse were legal while divorce and homosexuality were not.
Bridgerton makes some half-hearted commentary on these issues, and they do the same for trans atlantic slavery and racism. In my opinion, it makes the show even worse, as it breaks the fantasy and the commentary they offer is still both misogynistic and racist. No one needs to watch another female character get raped, for example, and the idea that Queen Charlotte had black ancestry was started by one of her racist contemporaries. There's no truth to it, and the idea that a black woman could sit the throne while watching her people be brutally enslaved . . . Not what I'd call progressive. There are a number of scenes of her collecting/ eating towers of bonbons, for example. It's played for laughs for people who have no understanding of where that sugar came from.
Like, we do have historical examples of women finding themselves at the helm of imperial patriarchies, but any progressive actions they took were carefully offset by the sorts of depravity that imperialism requires. Difficult to run an empire without pledging allegiance to extreme hierarchy, and no oppressed person can hold the power of their oppressors without being complicit in that system of oppression.
I think one of the reasons women like Queen Elizabeth I, Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette, Anastasia, and so on is that these women were prominent enough that we actually have a pretty good historical record of their lives. The lives of everyday women have, for the most part, been erased by male supremacists throughout history.
It makes sense for women to find kinship with these figures, because they are often all the evidence we have of our foremothers. But, at the same time, feeling represented by a string of imperial leaders doesn't exactly foster leftist political ideals.
One can do both, tho! I think Queen Victoria was a fashion icon, but obviously I save my social and political respect for Harriet Tubman and Anna Elizabeth Dickinson.
What I find most enraging is that there are, despite men's best efforts to erase them, plenty of truly progressive, courageous, badass women throughout history that performing and visual arts could focus on, that tv shows and films could be written about.
Like, as much as I love My Lady Jane, when tf will we get a show about Boudica? Apacuana? Kittur Chennamma? Ana Betancourt? Jenny von Westphalen? Lucy Parsons???
Many, many such horrible deprivations.
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