#character to do EVERY SINGLE BIT of heavy lifting in the relationship while Daphne is an insolent karen of an 1800s lady is so astonishingly

[scattoo]

Just binged all of Bidgerton on Netflix and holy shit. That sucked.

Don’t get me wrong. There is a moderately diverse cast in a setting that is all-too-often only white actors & actresses, but the POC represented in the show are based in some bleh stereotypes (sure, maybe the book included it all, but nonetheless) and treated like shit.

Spoilers under the cut

To be clear, I haven’t read the book, I am coming out of this very fresh from watching the entire show in one sitting, and I am a white teenage girl. This isn’t going to be astonishing world breaking info but I feel it’s worth mentioning that the show sucked. Please feel free to let me know if anything I say is inherently not correct/ok- I am happy to learn and grow.

So, the first half of the season rocked. Being someone who genuinely enjoys period dramas, especially romantic high society types, I was really pleased. The characters were decently fleshed out, the conflicts were not too clichéd, and there was a pleasantly surprising cast of diverse actors. Awesome!

Simon and Daphne get married, a deeply indulgent feeling, and then poof! There is another episode (much to my surprise) and it all goes downhill.

My mom immediately points out that there will be conflict about how Simon said he wouldn’t have a child, not that he couldn’t. I complained at length about how the show was suddenly one long sex scene. The tone radically shifted and the writing felt different, much more soap-y and unengaging.

Then Daphne, in my opinion (and I swear it is of the legal opinion too, but I’m too tired and frustrated to research it,) raped Simon. Over a misunderstanding.

And that’s it! She never apologizes. She continues to push his boundaries and disrespect his privacy & needs, and the show encourages it. I heard that this was their PC version of the book, but when you have a character do something like that, you shouldn’t just brush it off, right? Apparently not. Simon was admonished for not apologizing and getting over his pride; his need to uphold his vow made from trauma mocked. The narrative tells you that for all intents and purposes, it is actually quite strange that Simon cannot change his mind about having kids after a lifetime of trauma surrounding his childhood. And then the show ends with vague notion of how love overcomes all and how you have to make an effort to maintain a marriage and they have a baby. Yay, what an exciting ending!

Needless to say, I was pissed. One of two main characters of color and not only was he raped but also completely stripped of his choice to not have kids, or even consider unpacking his trauma without a preachy “you’re damaged!” speech from Daphne. Not even to touch on the situation with his father nor the fact that essentially all POC aside from Simon and the ~queen~ are poor or working class people, the show does a shit job with it’s representation. There are some notions about how fortunate Simon and his pseudo-mother are for their status, which I suppose might explain away that working class majority, but it was not touched on enough to seem like anything other than PC points or angst.

I’m just so mad to have been lead into a great show with cool characters and an engaging introduction only to be so let down, all under the guise of “love heals all wounds! <3” when sincerely, the most human and realistic end was a divorce. It wouldn’t have felt good, but jesus, what an ass story.

I did like the filmography and the design of the whole show otherwise. It just really disappointed me.