{"id":150099,"date":"2021-01-08T19:15:46","date_gmt":"2021-01-08T16:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/bridgertons-real-scandal\/"},"modified":"2021-01-08T19:15:46","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T16:15:46","slug":"bridgertons-real-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/bridgertons-real-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"#Bridgerton’s real scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Bridgerton’s real scandal<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Sharon Bala: In episode six, ‘Bridgerton’ drops the facade of fluffy rom-com and reveals itself as a horror\n <\/div>\n
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Sharon Bala is author of <\/em>The Boat People, winner of the 2019 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and the 2020 Newfoundland & Labrador Book Award.<\/em><\/p>\n

Bridgerton<\/em>, Shonda Rhimes\u2019 (Scandal<\/i>, Grey\u2019s Anatomy<\/i>) new Netflix series<\/a>, which dropped on Dec. 25, follows the titular Daphne Bridgerton\u2019s quest for a husband. Liveried servants, crescendoing violins, horse-drawn carriages, ambitious mamas and a scandal-mongering gossip voiced by Julie Andrews. Pomp, circumstance, plumage and luxe. But this ain\u2019t your granny\u2019s period drama. A speculative fiction, Rhimes\u2019 Regency is post-racial with dreadlocks among the top hats and tiaras.<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s diversity is a departure from its source material, a series of novels by Julia Quinn. Romance is notoriously straight, cis-gendered and white, a controversial trifecta that recently sparked a public row within the industry. Against this backdrop, the adaptation\u2019s success looks a lot like a middle finger raised at the old girls\u2019 club.<\/p>\n

When the Queen is Black, the sky\u2019s the limit. Characters are granted agency and interesting backstories, allowed the full scope of human experience, regardless of skin colour. Black bodies are desirable, gloriously lit. Exhibit A: society\u2019s most eligible bachelor, Simon, the Duke of Hastings. So, let the trolls wail about the anachronism of Black wealth, conveniently ignoring the 19th-century orchestra playing Ariana Grande. Romance, a genre that profits women authors for centring female desire, has always been subversive.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0The best thing about \u2018The Queen\u2019s Gambit\u2019? There\u2019s no sexual violence in it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Bridgerton <\/i>isn\u2019t perfect. One wonders why Rhimes didn\u2019t choose\u2014and elevate the fortunes of\u2014a Black-authored novel. Note, too, the almost total erasure of Asians and the sidelining of the darkest actors. But the vast majority of television is guilty of these failings. It feels churlish to single out Bridgerton<\/i>, given the impossibly high bar cleared by its very existence.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know how precarious of a situation we are in?\u201d a character asks, voicing an anxiety that could app<\/a>ly to the series itself. \u201cWe have been granted this line\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009but it will only remain ours as long as we remain extraordinary.\u201d The extraordinary arrives in episode six when Bridgerton<\/i> drops the facade of fluffy rom-com and reveals itself as a horror. Finish the series before reading on. There are major spoilers<\/b> ahead.<\/p>\n

A running gag in the early episodes: no one has enlightened the debutantes about certain marital diversions<\/i>. Daphne goes to her honeymoon in ignorance and when she realizes Simon\u2019s been pulling out to avoid conception\u2014that when he said \u201cI can\u2019t <\/i>have children\u201d he actually meant he won\u2019t<\/i>\u2014she\u2019s furious. But rather than confront him or seek understanding, Daphne takes what she wants without preamble, pinning Simon down, overriding his requests to \u201cwait, wait,\u201d and bringing the theme of entitlement, introduced in episode one, full circle. Afterward, she gaslights, accuses him of taking advantage. \u201cI trusted you more than anyone,\u201d Daphne says, an absurd claim given her close-knit family, and particularly vicious considering his lack thereof and the cruelty of his late father, the very reason for his reluctance.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Netflix Canada in January 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s worth questioning whether television needs yet another depiction of sexual assault. I\u2019d argue there\u2019s value in inverting the 1970s bodice-ripper trope, in subjecting a fictional man to the interrogation usually levelled against real women. Why didn\u2019t he shout \u201cstop\u201d or push her off? Did he like <\/i>it? Was it rape or misunderstanding? By rendering a more nuanced version of events than pop culture usually offers, Bridgerton<\/i> forces an important conversation about the grey zone in which so many real-life encounters exist.<\/p>\n

Afterward, Simon is devastated, Daphne unrepentant. Separation seems imminent. It\u2019s difficult to avoid the conclusion that all this heartache would have been averted with honest communication. But if the series hoped to impart that lesson, it took no pains to spell it out.<\/p>\n

Daphne never apologizes. Worse: Simon does. As an author, I admire the restraint. Daphne is immature and self-absorbed with a 19th-century understanding of consent. Contrition would have been a clumsy imposition, wholly out of character. On the other hand, we can\u2019t pretend fiction exists on a separate plane, divorced from the culture that feeds and consumes it. When a show tackles a heady subject, is it obliged to telegraph a clear moral? Or do viewers bear responsibility as well, to be critical rather than passive consumers?<\/p>\n

After a family gathering, where Daphne\u2019s younger siblings charm him, Simon seems to come around. An heir is born. Everyone appears overjoyed. That\u2019s one interpretation of the finale. Here\u2019s another. Like so many victims, Simon swallows his trauma. Because his abuser loves him. Because they are married. Because who can he tell, and who would take his side? But betrayal is a wound that festers. \u201cIt must be taxing,\u201d Daphne\u2019s sister Eloise says in an early episode. \u201cThis game<\/a> of pretend you feel you must endlessly maintain.\u201d Perhaps Bridgerton<\/i> has given us the most subversive thing of all: an unhappy ending.<\/p>\n\n

This column appears in print in the February 2021 issue of<\/em> Maclean\u2019s magazine with the headline, \u201cBridgerton<\/em>\u2019s real scandal.\u201d Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here<\/a>.<\/em>
\n<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Bridgerton’s real scandal” Sharon Bala: In episode six, ‘Bridgerton’ drops the facade of fluffy rom-com and reveals itself as a horror Sharon Bala is author of The Boat People, winner of the 2019 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and the 2020 Newfoundland & Labrador Book Award. Bridgerton, Shonda Rhimes\u2019 (Scandal, Grey\u2019s Anatomy) new Netflix…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":150100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/BRIDGERTON-BALA-JAN5-750x422.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76247,67806,1377,39190],"class_list":["post-150099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-bridgerton","tag-editors-picks","tag-netflix","tag-sexual-assault"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}