Victoria: Like many of our readers, we spent a considerable portion (about eight and a half hours) of our holiday break watching the new Netflix show, Bridgerton. I think it's fair to say we both enjoyed it, with some caveats.
The show is the first from Shonda Rhimes' Netflix deal, and this show is very Shonda. Based on a series of eight romance novels from the early 2000s, it's about a family of eight kids (named alphabetically by age for convenience) as they fall in love in Regency London. Many people on Twitter said it was period Gossip Girl, which is true. There is a lot of sex.
Once the show was announced, I read the first and second Bridgerton books (you might remember I referenced them in our issue about historical accuracy). I enjoyed, but did not love them. The thing that was frustrating about them for me was that the men were so sexist. Like I get that sexism is "accurate," but it's such a bummer in a romantic lead!
The sexism of the show was equally frustrating, at times, though the cast of men, especially Regé-Jean Page, who plays the Duke of Hastings, does make up for it by being ridiculously hot. Some of the casting did remind me of this iconic tweet, though:
To me, maybe the most exciting thing about Bridgerton's success is not the show itself, but the fact that it opens the door for Netflix to greenlight more romance content. There are so many amazing romance novels that deserve an adaptation, and I want them all!
What was your reaction to the show?
Hayley: I love period pieces, obviously. And Regé-Jean Page is so incredibly hot that I can barely stand it. Overall I enjoyed this show, but I had some issues with it. In fact, almost two weeks after finishing it I am still parsing through my thoughts about it, both positive and negative. I guess I will start with the positive.
I think the best thing that any period piece can do is show how integral house staff, servants, and merchants are to the structure of daily life. Bridgerton does this incredibly well, better than a lot of period television shows I've seen, and the second episode in particular shows how quickly word of mouth can spread from one household to the other until everyone is talking about the same thing. Coincidentally, the scene that I loved maybe best of all was when Daphne and Anthony decided to get a glass of warm milk, but don't know how to use the stove. It is so rare to see a period piece showcase how utterly clueless members of the aristocracy are when it comes to the simplest, most menial tasks — aka the ones that are always done for them by their servants. Is it boring that I love the power dynamics on display in Bridgerton the most? I mean it's a show about the Regency, power dynamics are kind of the whole deal.
Something that irked me about this show was the pacing. Maybe it was the way that I viewed it (I watched the first three episodes in one sitting, then a few days later watched three more, then maybe a week later I finally finished the last two.) but I feel like there were some plot points that were rushed, some that dragged on, and some that we didn't need at all. I think, obviously, some of these things can come across in a book more readily than a TV show, so maybe my complaint is with the adaptation itself. I haven't read the books, so I'm not sure.
Okay I've warmed up and now I'm ready to talk about Daphne.
I.....don't like Daphne! I find her to be the least compelling character on this show aside from Mr. Featherington, which is saying something. She is not the prettiest, the smartest, the most charming, the most anything. She kind of has these lukewarm feminist leanings but also her number one desire is to be a mother and overall she feels like too much of an amalgamation of many different kinds of femininity. It's either bad writing, or the show is actually trying to show us that the most "desirable" woman of the time was actually someone like Daphne who is boring but comports herself well.
How do YOU feel about Daphne?
Victoria: I completely agree about the pacing. It could have been an episode shorter, and then the last episode was bizarrely 72 minutes long! Streaming gives TV creators flexibility with running time, which is good, but more shows should use this to make shorter episodes, not longer.
Daphne. In the show, many characters say how she's the prettiest, most eligible girl of the whole season (the "diamond," they call her more than once) which I think is such a terrible thing to do to your main character!! No one can measure up to that, and it just made Daphne seem worse in comparison, since everyone couldn't stop talking about how amazing she was.
It didn't bother me that Daphne wanted to be a mother so badly — she'd learned her whole life that that's what she should aim to be, and she came from a huge loving family that she always dreamed of for herself. But I wish the show had been a little smarter about how it explored the sexual politics of Daphne's story — but that would have ruined the veneer of romance.
Spoiler alert for this paragraph, so I can talk about this a little more in detail: a big part of Daphne's plot hinges on the fact that she doesn't know what sex is. It's an infuriating double standard, that her old brothers can have sex with whoever they want, but her mother feels too uncomfortable to tell her about sex, even moments before her wedding. Once Daphne is married, her husband has to give her....hands on tutorials. And because Daphne doesn't know where babies come from, her husband is able to manipulate her, and when she learns the truth, she ends up violating her husband's consent in a terrible way (though I think one could argue she doesn't understand quite what she's doing).
The show doesn't really dive into how very bad all of this is, because if they did then it shatters that this is supposed to be romance. It felt strange when I read the book, and it's wild to me that they didn't significantly change any of it when making this adaptation (in which they changed lots of other points, big and small).
Because I didn't quite buy Daphne and Simon's story (because of the above and also because I didn't think their chemistry was particularly great), I think I will enjoy future seasons more than I did this one.
Hayley: Sorry to talk about Outlander again in this newsletter, but it merits mentioning that particular show is compelling *specifically* because the male lead has anachronistic views about women. There is a LOT that Outlander gets wrong, but I thoroughly enjoyed it as the sexy period piece escape that it is clearly meant to be.
I, too, am looking forward to future seasons as well. Overall I enjoyed Bridgerton and like you said, if we can take anything away from this show it's that we should have more shows like this. But again, let's beef up the fantasy and romantic elements a bit here! Can we move the needle forward for this genre and get some steamy romance without all the sexism and the sexual assault? Good story and plot tension and character development can come from other things! Like love triangles and mistaken identities and misunderstandings and I just realized I am describing While You Were Sleeping.
It seems like the next season of Bridgerton will focus on Anthony as he attempts to find love. I am interested to see how that goes, because I think it will be a mess and also he is very hot.
Things Victoria Recommends:
Jonathan Bailey, who plays hot Anthony on Bridgerton, is also a West End actor. You should watch this video of him singing a song from The Last Five Years.
This week I finally watched Ted Lasso, which is on Apple TV+, which is annoying but you can get a one week trial and watch it for free, like me. It’s perfect. I also finally watched Derry Girls, which is on Netflix and is also perfect.
I cannot stop listening to the new-ish Little Mix album, Confetti.
I’ve really been enjoying the Maintenance Phase podcast, which is all about debunking the junk science behind diets and health fads. If you are also tired of Noom ads, I recommend it.
Stuff Hayley Digs:
The biggest news of the year is obviously that Taco Bell is bringing back potatoes and dear reader, I wept with joy when I found out.
I thoroughly enjoyed Jaya Saxena’s new book of essays, Crystal Clear, in which she unpacks the mythical, cultural, and personal stories behind the power of crystals. If you’re very woo-woo but also possess critical thinking skills (hello) this will be a delight to read.
I got this Buffalo dip at Whole Foods last week and ate nearly all of it one sitting with tortilla chips, it’s very good.
I am teaching a virtual donation-based yoga class once a week! It’s a Gentle Vinyasa class every Sunday from 6:00-7:00pm CST. To register, simply join Yoga Specialists (it’s free) and you can access my class as well as a variety of other virtual donation-based classes.