The Racist Representation of People of Colour in Bridgerton

Essay from the year 2022 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,0, University of Leipzig (Institut für Anglistik), course: Screen Cultures: Understanding Film and Television, language: English, abstract: Since the Black Lives Matter movement regained global popularity in the summer of 2020, racial equality became a prominent issue in the media. Shortly after, Shonda Rhimes' post-heritage drama Bridgerton, based on Julia Quinn's romance novels, was produced by Shondaland, and released on the streaming platform Netflix in December 2020. Since racial issues had been dominating the media, a possible reason for the series' immense popularity might be its multiracial cast. Bridgerton, whose fictitious storyline is set in London during Britain's Regency era in 1813, tries to create an alternative historical past in which people of colour are not being victimized because of their skin tone. It can be assumed that in such an alternative history the characters must start on an equal footing, regardless of their skin colour (Romano). However, it turns out that the series is not clear about what message it wants to bring across, since the racial identities of black characters are almost entirely muted leaving the series as one that opts for escapism over a nuanced exploration of real-time racial dynamics (Tillet). Even as people of colour and other marginal groups of society have gained more visibility in the American film industry, they are still subject to discrimination and severely underrepresented in television (Hunt and Ramón). Considering that racism describes 'policies, behaviours, rules etc. that result in a continued unfair advantage to some people ... based on race', the purpose of this essay is to reveal racist aspects about the series ('racism'). Although Bridgerton tries to represent people of colour progressively by casting diverse actors, the series creates the opposite effect by concealing relevant racial issues, destroying the idea of a black solo reigning queen, and by silencing and stereotyping black characters negatively.