Bestie I am requesting to know your thoughts on everything related to Bridgerton 👁👄👁 rumaan and I have been DMing so now I just need yours (and Ardi’s) to determine if I in fact do have the right opinions 🤣
hiiiiiiiiii jennnn! okay, so first i have to list out a bunch of caveats (also i really want to know your/rumaan's thoughts too!) but...
i haven't read the books. and i don't plan to. not only because julia quinn's comments on writing characters of colors are quite sus 👀but reviewers i follow have also pointed out racist undertones here and there, so i'm basing this completely off the netflix adaptation!
i knew going into this season that any type of fantasy/catharsis given british historical colonialism/brutality in india would be wishful thinking. and with s1's mishandling of race, i didn't expect much.
romance as a literary genre is so unfairly maligned. but at the end of the day, a well-written story is a well-written story!
so some thoughts (i'm on s2, ep 7 thus far):
so i have...mixed feelings about it all. like okay the positives, simone ashley is a star. a star! love her and what she brings to the character. i honestly found daphne in s1 to be such a bore, bland, and uninspiring. so kate is such a breath of fresh air in comparison. her relationship with edwina is so interesting and chemistry with anthony is satisfying.
love to see a south asian actress of tamil background headlining a major netflix show. we can go on and on about the colorism rampant (not only in the indian film industry but whenever south asians are portrayed on camera) so this was nice.
i'm enjoying s2 (actually more than s1 tbh) as hitting on what i enjoy in the romance genre generally speaking (tropes, lush costumes, stupid dumb fools in love, etc.) without the consent problems and lackluster main of s1.
okay, the negatives. i just can't get over how little research the writers did when constructing the sharmas' background. like i get it's supposed to be "fantasy" or whatnot but you end up flattening the vibrant and diverse cultures across india to this hodge-podge mess. (and let's not forget our good friend mr. keith butternaan pointing out the casteism at work too!)
the way the show treats race just leaves so much to be desired. this vox article captures my thoughts: "the inclusion of racially conscious casting becomes a convenient mechanism by which racism as a theme can be duly eliminated." like it's just not satisfying to me when there are still class divides, misogyny etc. which are being explored but we conveniently explain away race?
tl;dr it's fun if you don't think about it too carefully, but when you start unpacking the show, then there's a lot left to be desired for me. idk idk.