#trying to make my room look like a regency or victorian gentleman might live there

[thiefbird]

The search for Antique-looking Desk continues

[mryddinwilt]

A Bridgerton Rant

Not that I needed encouragement to rant but @constantvigilante here we go... 

First lets talk background as I think it matters for how I experienced Bridgerton. I read extensively in the Regency Romance genre. Like at least 20 books a year if not more. I have read and not particularly enjoyed 2 1/2 Bridgerton novels. I am a huge Jane Austen fan. I am writing my own Regency romance series and have done a lot of research into the time period. I also adore historic dramas of any time period. 

I should be the target audience for this series. 

Except I’m not. 

Bridgerton is not a show for Regency aficionados, Janeites, or costume drama fans. It is a show specifically designed NOT to be a “regular” period drama. A show that from it’s costumes, to it’s characters, and story telling, is actively trying to break the mold. 

But I LIKE the mold! 

I desperately want more shows and series like the 1995 P&P or North and South or even Downton Abbey (which for all its soapiness is still a show grounded in a historical period). Instead I get Bridgerton. 

Bridgerton with it’s hyper-saturated colors, it’s ridiculous dialogue, it’s vague historic period, and general fantasy feeling. Bridgerton, which feels so far from the Regency period that it might as well be a spin-off of Reign. The worst thing is that since Bridgerton is successful it will encourage copycats and diminish the chance of having good period dramas in the future. I just googled “Best Period Dramas” and Bridgerton was top of the list. Ugh. 

To be fair this problem does not start with Bridgerton. It’s just part of a larger trend in the costume drama genre. I’m just grumpier about it because it’s Regency romance. This year gave us two Jane Austen adaptations in Sanditon and Emma. and both had elements of the issues that plague Bridgerton though neither at the same scale. 

So what did I not like? Buckle up buttercup here we go.

General Ahistorical-ness- The series tries to center itself in a specific time period, they even give us the year 1813, and then proceed to ignore the time period. No mentions of Napoleon, a guy that at the very least the Prince would care about since Bonaparte is killing all his countrymen while he dances with Daphne. We get Queen Charlotte but no Prince Regent (the guy the period is named for) or any of the other royals. No mention of the War of 1812 or the Peninsular War. No mention of anything that would ground it in a place or time. Compare this to something like Poldark or Outlander where the characters are actively engaged in the world they live in. Bridgerton doesn’t exist in the Regency world, it just put on the trappings of it.

Ungrounded/Fantasy (except when it’s not)- I do think that the ungrounded nature of the story is on purpose.  We are meant to be swept away into this fantasy land of pretty dresses, hot dukes, pop-music ballrooms, and consequence free sex (for the guys at least) Even the weather gives us a vague “summer” feeling (never mind that the London season took place in the Winter and into Spring and that by summer everyone was out of the capital because it was hot and stinky). I have argued before that the literary Regency romance genere is way more fantasy than reality and this aspect is in the books. So I guess I shouldn’t knock it for this. EXCEPT they had to go and add the pregnant debutante subplot.

The books don’t have a subplot about a girl needing to marry fast because she is pregnant because lbh it’s too real for a light romance read with a fake dating plot. By adding it the show just highlights the bizarre fantasy of the Bridgerton world. Maria (is that her name?) is literally shown the “poor people” to encourage her to get married fast. If we are going to be in fantasy lets live in the fantasy. Like the cartoonish element and the half-hearted commitment to a time period it creates a dissonance for me.

Costumes- A ton of work and effort was put into the costumes and they are in many way beautiful. But they are also just pure aesthetic. Bright colors (very bright), overblown trim, not a bonnet in sight (I cannot say how much this annoys me). This was not a case of not knowing the period but a stylistic choice. They kept a Regency silhouette but actively used colors, fabrics, and the like that had not even been invented by 1813. Contrast this with Emma. where they gave us a very bright aesthetic while also being highly accurate to the time period (like ridiculously accurate costumes). 

Dances and music- Literally it’s Reign all over again. From the type of random couple dancing to the use of pop music covers by a string quartet. Bonus we get an outdoor ball at Vauxhall... guess the actual building with the ballroom was full.. smh. The choices are deliberate. They don’t want it to feel like a Regency ball room. Too which I ask “Then what is the point of the historical setting?” 

Proprieties- They ignore all the rules of the time. Except when they need them to move the plot forward. For example Simon and Daph have to marry because the scandal of them being caught in the garden. But they were alone in several other scenes in circumstances that, at the time, would have caused the same scandal. There are lots of other instances but I imagine they are the kinds of little things that only someone obsessed with the genre notices. Also no bonnets or hats of any kind...shocking!  Cartoonish- I found the whole thing to be a caricature of the time. The costumes, over saturated colors, and bad CGI of buildings contributed to this. But there were also scenes like “ the gentleman callers” that showed massive rooms just filled with guys holding presents as a means to telegraph “this girl is popular”. Because subtlety is dead in this version of a “period drama”. This could have worked if they were going for an over the top “Importance of Being Earnest” (with Firth and Everett) vibe. But the acting and script were played straight so it was dissonant. I felt like they wanted me to really believe that this was how things worked back then.   All Regency girls are prudes- I know this is an artifact from the original novels but I feel the show plays it up by having Eloise be like “but how is a baby made” and making it a plot point that girls are left in the dark. Eloise’s mother had her babies at home and she would likely have seen farm animals. Plus girls then would be told exactly how and why to guard their virtue and would have experienced other women being pregnant. 

Look I get that most people think that sex education was minimal back then but the truth is that they had erotic novels, drawings, sex manuals, and the upper class were more sexually liberated than is generally thought. Anthony sleeping with an opera singer is accurate. But it would be equally accurate for Lady Bridgerton to have a guy she met up with on the regular just for sex. The upper class weren’t prudes. Like there was a trend for awhile where the women would wear white gowns and get them damp so they were practically translucent. They did this at dinner parties. The Georgians (the Regency occurs at the end of the Georgian period) were not the Victorians. 

Okay that’s probably enough. I only got halfway through episode 4 so there are likely other things I could quibble with (and I am well aware that some of this is quibbling). I am glad that other people like the show. I’m happy they are happy. But I really hope that the next Regency related media I see is not more of the same. So help me if the new Persuasion starts being marketed as “edgy” or a “reimagining” I just might cry.