“Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they've got ambition, and they've got talent, as well as just beauty. I'm so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for,” said another 19th-century woman character, in the unashamedly modern version of Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women.
Modern remakes or renditions of the bygone eras often aim to update the race and gender politics of the time. It is one way to offer viewers something new or, more cynically, better appeal to a new target audience. And what is so wrong in that, we might ask.
Historically, female audiences have been belittled, while shows catering to male audiences are seen as literary and rule-breaking. Shows, that are popular with women, often get the bad rap of becoming ‘guilty’ pleasures. In the preface to her book, I Like To Watch, TV critic Emily Nussbaum writes, “Fights about art had always doubled as fights about what the world takes seriously — which is another way to say, they were fights about politics. They were fights about power. ” So bring on the central women characters, turn on the touchy-feely stuff, and amp up the domestic drama.
Bridgerton, a regency romance, starts off unapologetically girlish. It manages to spotlight not just a romance but all the relationships that define the female world – the bond between mother and child, sisters and brothers, friends and girlfriends, a scribe and her readers, small business owners and customers, a queen and her diamond. It seems like each Bridgerton sibling gets a series. In a few sweet moments, they really do resemble a family: teasing each other about being improper ladies and gentlemen or scandalising their mother with gawkish banter.
Eloise and Benedict share a clandestine cigarette before she shares her anxiety about not wanting to be a lady and feels heard by her brother. The best scenes of the show are ones with a drawing room full of Bridgertons. Such camaraderie and the dense web of society is also what made Jane Austen’s world so compelling. For Elizabeth, the second biggest impediment to Darcy’s character is that he compromised the happiness of a most beloved sister. Despite the condescension of her help to Harriet, Emma’s nosebleed speaks to the guilt she does not yet comprehend. Even though love is the engine of the story, Marianne learns sense from Elinor and Elinor sensibility from her sister.
Even though Austen’s stories end in happy marriages, first love is often a doomed affair or at the very least the harbinger of an ocean of pain and suffering. There is a twinge of pessimism about heteronormative institutions such as marriage in an age where women did not have any rights at all. Even though Elizabeth might say that nothing but the deepest love would induce her to matrimony, she is already resigned. She also regrets passing judgement on the decision of her friend Charlotte to marry for stability. However, the disillusionment stops when male characters come around, when arrogant Mr Darcys champion the cause of communality.
However, as much as Bridgerton fancies itself fixing the ambivalences of Regency era proto-feminism, it stops at subversion for the sake of subversion.
In Season 1, it managed to do right by girly girl Daphne without casting her as vain or boring because of her traditional desires of finding a husband and having a family, but disappoints in Eloise as she comes off as a straw feminist. In an interview with Shondaland, show creator Chis Van Dusen does not like the usage of ‘colourblind’ to relate the politics of Bridgerton. He wants his work to be socially relevant.
Like an orchestral cover of Britney Spears' 'Toxic' plays in Promising Young Woman, an instrumental version of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham washes in at peak moments in Season 2. From the jewellery the Sharmas wear to their haldi and tel rituals, details conjure an authenticity. However, the show still messes up the Sharmas’ roots – Kate speaks Marathi and Hindustani, while calling her sister Bon and father Appa. The Indian characters fail to have the specificity of the white characters on the show.
In the new season, a woman is also the withholding love interest and a male protagonist is internally motivated, which eventually means she must fulfil a literal checklist of demands from a viscount. There are more shallow, one-dimensional women on the show than on The Bachelor: the Featherington siblings, Cressida Cowper, the many, many women Anthony rejects before also rejecting the innocent Edwina for no fault of hers other than not being Kate. Even Pride and Prejudice recognises that a woman does not need all the accomplishments of the world, notwithstanding a privileged birth, in order to marry well. When Bingley enumerates the talents and skills all ladies possess, Caroline and Darcy tack on. But Elizabeth is incredulous. When Darcy asks, “Are you so severe on your own sex?” She answers, “I never saw such a woman. She would certainly be a fearsome thing to behold.”
Bridgerton pedals love the magic potion as all-conquering. Recall the scene in Season 1, where Lady Danbury attempts to induce the Duke to marry. “We were two separate societies divided by colour, until a king fell in love with one of us. Love, your grace, conquers all,” she tells him. And the Duke responds by saying, “The king may have chosen his queen. He may have elevated us from novelties in their eyes to now dukes and royalties, and at that same whim, he may just as easily change his mind.”
YouTuber Broey Deschanel’s breakdown of this scene describes the danger of the narrative that all it takes to smash the system of racial oppression is one big-hearted king. Without the emotional literacy of Austen’s world, love in Hollywood (and Bollywood) is sold as a neoliberal fantasy, which keeps us from engaging with larger socio-political issues. Race, gender, and class are treated as an interpersonal phenomenon where systemic problems are individualised. Is it any wonder that heterosexual institutions such as marriage are still seen as the highest personal achievement of women everywhere?
Bridgerton Season 2 is streaming on Netflix.
Eisha Nair is an independent writer-illustrator based in Mumbai. She has written on history, art, culture, education, and film for various publications. When not pursuing call to cultural critique, she is busy drawing comics.
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