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For those reasons, I really enjoyed the show. I loved the drama and darkness with a witty twist. The production and actors were all fantastic in their roles, and the costume design was gorgeous. Yet for all its sophistication, there were flaws in the show’s bright structure that I couldn’t ignore, namely the negative stereotyping of black characters and the colorism of the cast.
Bridgerton is lauded as a racially diverse show set in the Regency era, because having black people in a big-budget production about pre-1900s Britain felt like a foreign concept to white directors and writers, even though black, South Asian, Asian and other people of color had been living there for hundreds of years thanks to mercantilism and the monarchy that colonized more than half the world.
Having black people in the main cast is fine and dandy because historically, they should be there. But the problem with Bridgerton comes when the race of the characters is largely ignored throughout most of the show, save for a few vague references in their dialogue—using words like “us” and “them.” It’s disingenuous to say that their race doesn’t matter in this world, when the most famous and numerous people are white. If race really didn’t matter, there would be equal numbers of black people, Asians, Middle Easterners, Latinos, etc., and white people represented on the show. But there aren’t, and neither are the dialogue. The vast majority of speaking roles go to white actors. The three black characters with the most screen time are the male lead Simon (Regé-Jean Page), my personal favorite Lady Dansbury (Adjoa Andoh), and Marina Thompson (Ruby Barker). (We’ll get to the fact that two of them are light-skinned later.)
You can’t say that race doesn’t matter when the world these characters inhabit was created in part through racism. The money to build the show’s white row houses in Bath, the grand estates, and the palaces came from the slave trade. Yes, slavery existed in this world, so how could race not matter? Having black people walk around the setting doesn’t erase it, and that’s not enough. That means the subject is relevant and needs to be addressed appropriately.
Race matters when the villain plot is given to black characters. Consciously or not, Van Dusen’s creative team gave most of the black characters with speaking roles negative traits and beliefs that put them at odds with the white protagonists.
