Dear Reader,

Two years have passed in quick succession since this author discovered the Bridgerton series. What with a plague running rampant and a show released on the books, one wonders what the greater evil is. While most might argue the widespread death in wake of the plague is definitely the greatest evil to beat, this author thinks…not. After all, hypocrisy and art remain eternal, those laid to rest however might claim to receive the peace of never having experienced the travesty of the Bridgertons.

The Zoya Project, Society Sexposé, 2022

THE BOOKS

In February 2020, I was sitting in my college dorm trying to find a book to pass the time. Romance has always been one of my go-to genres, and so a deep dive into Goodreads led me to Julia Quinn’s regency romance book, ‘The Duke and I’. I love regency romances, I have since I discovered the hallowed pages of Jane Austen when I was eleven.

So, I picked it up and went through it pretty quickly. And I was… horrified. As most fans already know, the story follows Daphne Bridgerton the fourth sibling of eight Bridgertons as she makes her debut in London’s season. She is set on being wed by season’s end, and for the beginning part of it, remains unsuccessful. Our male hero, The Duke of Hastings, his Christian name – Simon, has arrived for the season, yet is tired of being courted by desperate Mamma’s of the ton. The Duke, you see, has no wish to be wed.

The rest of this review will contain spoilers. My advice would be to turn back now if you still wish to remain ignorant of the story.

The Duke and Daphne enter into a mutually beneficial arrangement wherein they will pretend to court each other allowing Daphne to become desirable and have her pick of suitors and let Simon be at peace without being bothered by desperate debutantes. It’s the basic trope of fake dating, common to a number of books. They fake their courtship, end up falling in love, end up in a compromising position, are caught by the eldest Bridgerton – Anthony, there is a duel, and eventually, Daphne and Simon end up married.

It’s a pretty simple story, there isn’t too much wrong with it till now.

We then find out Simon’s reluctance to marry was his decision to never have children because of some daddy issues he suffers from. If all the drama already wasn’t enough, this is the icing on the ‘Oh My God!’ cake. He doesn’t tell Daphne he won’t have children but rather that he can’t. Daphne unaware of how children actually come into this world, as girls often are, agrees because she wants Simon. They discover the pleasure of the marital bed until Daphne eventually finds out the truth. Here is what happens next.

‘She shifted restlessly, and Simon felt the strangest, most intoxicating surge of power. She was in his control, he realized. She was asleep, and probably still more than a little bit drunk, and he
could do whatever he wanted with her. He could have whatever he wanted.‘

‘A quick glance at her face told him that she was still sleeping, and he quickly undid her bloomers. Underneath, she was wet and needy, feeling her leap beneath her fingers.‘

“Oh, Christ!” she suddenly burst out, her voice harsh and primitive with need. “I’m going to—I can’t—” Her eyes pinned upon him with a strange, pleading sort of look, and she made a feeble attempt to pull away.

In most instances, I, and other educated people would call this – rape. I do feel terrible because while this is in no uncertain circumstances rape, this is not exactly how it took place in the book. Now that we have some context on how consensual this was, let’s delve back into Quinn’s words. The real ones this time

He shifted restlessly, and Daphne felt the strangest, most intoxicating surge of power. He was in her control, she realized. He was asleep, and probably still more than a little bit drunk, and she could do whatever she wanted with him. She could have whatever she wanted. A quick glance at his face told her that he was still sleeping, and she quickly undid his trousers. Underneath, he was hard and needy, and she wrapped her hand around him, feeling his blood leap beneath her fingers.

“Oh, Christ!” he suddenly burst out, his voice harsh and primitive with need. “I’m going to—I can’t—” His eyes pinned upon her with a strange, pleading sort of look, and he made a feeble attempt to pull away.

The Duke and I – Julia Quinn

This is where I put down the book to try and fathom what had just happened. Surely, this was an educational moment regarding men experiencing sexual assault. Quinn would address it. I let myself dive back in.

…

She did not address it.

I think she makes Simon apologize to Daphne after this, they have children and end up happy. I was appalled. I would not pick up the other seven books in this series, because of how wrong this one moment was. It was a matter of principle.

When the show came out I watched it and then titled the review for both the book and the show as my ‘Bridgerton Sexposé’. As research, I began reading the others in the series, noting the sexual problems that came up in the few I got through. I read Anthony Bridgerton’s story, then Benedict’s, and I was halfway through Collin’s, by which point I’m sure I had lost a few IQ points when I had to bin the sexposé due to personal reasons.

So here goes. In Anthony’s book, we were slammed with this –

‘Kate’s body seemed to stiffen and melt at the same time. And then she blurted out, “I think we should wait.” He nibbled on her ear. “Wait for what?” She tried to wiggle away. He didn’t understand. If he’d understood, he’d be furious, and he didn’t seem particularly upset. “For the wedding night,” she clarified. He drew back, his dark brows flattening into a straight, and perhaps a little bit angry, line. “No,” he said simply.’

And then with this –

“Tell me how to make it right. For I don’t think I can grant you your reprieve.” He molded his body against hers, his strong arms holding her close as he groaned, “I can’t wait a week, Kate. I simply cannot do it.”

And in the third book regarding Benedict which I actually quite enjoyed, we were hit with this bordering on an ‘I won’t be able to stop the sexing later’ implication –

“If you want me to stop,” he said, his voice achingly hoarse, “you need to tell me now. Not in ten minutes, not even in one. It has to be now.”

THE PROBLEM

Suffice to say Quinn’s books are ripe with sexual problems. Lines are crossed and never addressed. Here’s my issue with this.

Historically, not much would be wrong with this. After all, after marriage, a wife would be her husband’s property, for him to do with her as he wished. So rape and sexual assault were common. What with the lack of sex education women had, it wouldn’t be surprising if they didn’t even see it that way.

But in a fictional romance book where anachronisms are one to the dozen, one wonders why Quinn won’t change sex for her female protagonists. Why not make it a consensual act for her readers? If she was keeping all her points and settings in the book accurate to a fault I would even let it slide for the sake of historical accuracy, but in a book where she isn’t stuck to making sure every p and q is accurate, why make the sex scenes so?

As a reader, and a woman above that, I wonder if she sees such gestures as romantic. Or if not romantic perhaps this is a norm and she doesn’t consider it a problem. At any rate, it turned me off the show and the rest of the books with a fury drumming up and down my veins.

THE NETFLIX SHOW

I’ll begin with the good.

The instrumental covers while historically inaccurate are done quite brilliantly, especially in the second season.

Onto the bad. Let’s go in order so it’s easy for everyone to keep track. Sex and then race.

SEX

I’m going to begin by saying that this show is intended to be a frothy and frivolous period drama to tickle our corona virus-ridden lives and infuse them with a feel-good watch. This did not happen.

I have to say the second season focused on Anthony Bridgerton, who looks far more dashing than he did in season one, did brilliantly by eradicating anything that reeked of rape or sexual assault. Hey, if you can’t handle the address then the better idea is to not show any of it at all. It’s an idea I can get behind.

As mentioned earlier the sexual problem lies in the first season. I might have let everything else go had they removed the rape scene featured above. But they made it less rapey and still had it. So while I would say they tried hard to make sure it wasn’t a problematic sexual scene, they didn’t come across as successful.

I’ll repeat, there are a variety of anachronisms in the show. For the most part, Daphne and Simon wouldn’t be romping around the fields like animals in heat if they held their reputation as Duke and Duchess dear. Yet Netflix showcased that and chose not to remove the sexual assault.

Some progress… but really not a lot.

RACE

Here is where I had the greatest problems with the Bridgerton show. There is a massive difference between creative license and misrepresentation. As someone living in the 21st century, I have to say that diverse casting in our entertainment forums is an absolute must. We need to see casting with POC because the range and depth of their talent still remain unfairly unexplored.

The creators of Bridgerton decided that in a primarily white historical world they would have a diverse cast. It was a decision worthy of applause. I wish they had come outright and said that while people of color (POC) were widely discriminated against in history, they wished to utilize the vast amount of talent that POC brought to the table as well as their experiences. Instead, they decided to misrepresent history and take matters completely out of context thus creating a problem.

I’m going to mainly address season 2 because that is material that I’m better educated at. Spoilers ahead, brace yourselves.

So in Season 2, we follow the eldest Bridgerton, Viscount Anthony. The show turns our female leade Kate (Katherine) Sheffield into Kate (Kathini) Sharma [pronounced Shaama].

For foreign readers the name is pronounced : Shur – Ma. It’s not that difficult. Any amount of phonetic research might have proven so.

Here’s my issue with this. This is a show placed in the year 1814. Effectively this places us in a time when India was colonized by the English, where we as a race were used as slaves and soldiers and generally referred to as savages. Here are a few lines from a textbook used to teach Indian children about the way we were treated during the colonial period. I’ve used the most basic source, perhaps not even worthwhile reading academically, to show how well colonial brutality continues to be remembered.

The Britishers urge for vengeance and retribution was expressed in the brutal way in which the Indian rebels were executed. They were blown from guns, or hanged from the gallows. Images of these executions were widely circulated through popular journals

So this is the time in which we view Bridgerton season 2. A time when an Indian woman if found in England would not be given anything. Not the scraps from the hearth even, nor employment as the lowliest servant in a peasant family’s home. We were colonized and brutalized.

The show portrays an English woman (Mary Sheffield) who married an Indian man and brought her Indian daughter and stepdaughter back to be introduced into high society after many years of staying in India even when her Indian husband died. The show shows how her parents cut her off which is likely what would have happened, but then does this really convoluted thing where they say now the three Indians are back and will be introduced to society and readily accepted. I mean it sort of seems to go without a hitch.

I would have, perhaps, even been more open to the idea of an Indian woman being picked up by a British lord as his mistress and her girls being introduced into society. That would be highly unlikely and yet still more believable. But then the outward Indianness of the name Sharma would have been missing and who is an Indian, if not OBVIOUSLY identified by their last name? 

What bothers me is what this misrepresents. The civil rights movement is widely studied, so perhaps the racial ignorance of the previous season might still be overlooked. A season, where it is easy to portray that a white king married a black woman and gave the Black people their rights. It negates the entire struggle they went through, instead crowning a white king, a colonizer, as the savior of Black people. I can perhaps let that go because the civil rights movement is widely taught across the world. This does not justify the portrayal in any way, but I won’t digress because I have better knowledge about the Indian struggle.

Aside from Indians, very few people will have studied colonial India the way we are taught it, from the jotedaar take over by the EIC at the beginning of colonization, all the way to the brutality of the partition in 1947. It misrepresents the struggle of our people. A struggle that lasted almost 200 years seems almost trivial, for what were we really struggling for when the savagery of our kind was so easily accepted by the English? Our savagery, so common, that a Viscount decided to marry an Indian woman and make her his Viscountess. 

The research, from the various aspects of Indian culture they tried to appropriate to the presentation of the women, is all incorrect. Edwina apparently plays the maruli. I don’t know what that is, I’ve never heard of it. I can only assume she is talking about a mUrAli, which is the flute. She reads Guleeb. As a woman brought up in India, I’m surprised someone didn’t lynch Edwina, because no one would pronounce his name that way. It is Gaa – lib. Something a woman in India would know how to pronounce correctly. It is a common Indian AND Islamic name, regardless of the poet who made it his own. Of course, the issue of their accents is another oddity. Perhaps that is one stone best left unturned (but really, how do both girls raised in India have such clear English accents? Improbable.) The fact that they think Indian women, obsessed even till date about izzat and pardah, would consider the impropriety of having sex in the garden or even dressing scantily, where scraps of skin are on display, is laughable.

Edwina calls her sister, Didi, and father, Appa, but her mother is Mamma (French emphasis at the end). It seems strange to have such a difference, they might have kept it similar just for the sake of it and had her address Mary as Amma. But perhaps that would have tipped the character, that in modern times is basically a British Born Confused Desi, onto the scale of TOO Indian. Basically, they wanted the character from Never Have I Ever, which I can’t get into because that is a whole other travesty.

So here’s where we land. Keep the Indian actress. Make her the lead. BUT – do not justify her color, with nonsensical claims. Keep her Kate Sheffield and say yes we cast her because things are different now and she is a powerhouse we wanted to use for this role. Don’t make her Kathini Sharma and try to make light of the history of her race.

FIN.

So to end, the show and the books are not to my liking. And can anyone really blame me for it? I did chance upon the last and final book of the Bridgerton series and really, even the stories get repetitive and ludicrous to the point of hysterical laughter. A sham all around.

I know a lot of people want to watch the show for the ‘good sex’ (and highly inaccurate sex) but if we watch it then it should be done with the knowledge of the misrepresentation that we watch.

After all dear reader, the seasons of Bridgerton may froth with frivolity and romance but they soon bubble into a boil and tip over their truths. And no one really does appreciate the burns of an honest writer, do they?