Pop culture eats up ritzy, gorgeous dramas set in the British Regency era (1811-1820). The latest drama to dabble in this historical period is the Netflix series, Bridgerton. Upon its December 2020 release, many viewers praised the show and its inclusion of Black, Indigenous, and people of color. To see these BIPOC characters in ball gowns, eating confections, dancing, loving, and happily ever aftering is affirming; however, is inclusion into this historical fantasy enough?
Colorism was a major issue in this season – lighter-skinned Black characters were in positions of power (such as Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel)), while darker-skinned characters played more subordinate roles (like the boxer Will Mondrich (Martins Imhangbe)). But beyond this casting, the show fails to grapple with race. An attempt was made in the fourth episode, when Simon Basset, the Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page), is reminded by his guardian, Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh), that there were once two societies divided by color until King George III fell in love with Queen Charlotte, a Black woman. There has been much speculation about the queen’s racial heritage, but Adilifu Nama, professor of African American studies at Loyola Marymount University, explains that this scene is "a very reductive analysis of race in history and the intertwining of those two. . .[reducing] it down to a personal feeling."
The second season of Bridgerton was released on March 25th and has left many buzzing. This season follows Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) on his search for the perfect viscountess. He later finds himself courting both Kate (Simone Ashley) and Edwina (Charithra Chandran) Sharma, two sisters who arrived from Bombay, India on a mission to marry Edwina into British high society. The incorporation of this South Asian family, says Chris Van Dussen, was to expand the “multihued, multiethnic, colorful world” of Bridgerton. While colorism is not a pressing issue in this second installment, the incorporation of subaltern subjects into a fantasy that does not take empire seriously is a little…unsexy. But, can Bridgerton speak (to these issues)?
The term subaltern was first used by the Marxist theorist, Antonio Gramsci, to describe economically-dispossessed people excluded from state power. In the Subaltern Studies project, Ranajit Guha and other scholars appropriated this term to locate and re-establish a collective “voice” in postcolonial India. The term was then used to describe the condition of subordination in South Asian society, especially in terms of gender and caste. Stuart Hall and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak take a more discursive approach to the term and argue that the West cannot speak for subaltern subjects, and the reclamation of this “voice” reinscribes their subordinate position. While the Sharma sisters may or may not be considered “subaltern subjects,” it is clear that the historical fantasy of Bridgerton muddles and erases subaltern subjectivities.
One conflict in the Sharma plotline is that their mother, Mary Sharma (Shelley Conn), lost her inheritance and left for India after marrying the girls’ father, a lower-class Indian clerk. Despite the racist implications of the Sheffield’s reaction to this marriage, the show does not comment on this response, provide any more details about the father, nor discuss the “escape” to India, which was under the exploitative control of the East India Company and British colonial rule. Following his death, the Sharma women return to England with the hope that Edwina can marry an English gentleman and restore their family’s reputation. From her birth, Edwina was trained to become an object of desire in this society – she was taught how to walk, talk, dance, and act “English.”
Unlike the single episode in season 1, the second season takes a half-in, half-out approach to race. Harleen Singh notes that the Sharmas are from North India but their supposed mother tongue is Marathi, a language spoken in central and South India. The terms of endearment the sisters use are also mismatched: “appa” is South Indian, “didi” is Hindi, while “bon” is Bengali. Inaccuracies aside, Singh finds the moments of intimacy between the Sharmas the most moving – the marigold-laden Haldi ceremony, coconut oil hair massages, the love of chai tea, and the sense of belonging.
The truth is, dear reader, Bridgerton may never speak to issues about race, colorism, and colonialism in the Regency period. We need more media to represent BIPOC in different ways for different purposes. Yes to romance, fluff, and fun, but we also need ritzy, gorgeous dramas that show us how rotten the British Empire was for so many people, including subaltern groups.
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