Bridgerton Is Visually Decadent, But It’s Far From Historically Accurate
Netflix“We knew we wanted the show to reflect the world we live in today, and even though it’s set in the 19th century, we still wanted modern audiences to relate to it and to see themselves on screen,” said series creator Chris Van Dusen.
Bridgerton is an enormously popular television series adapted from a set of Regency-era romance novels by Julia Quinn. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the main focus of the show is on romance — not historical accuracy.
In fact, as Insider reports, Quinn herself has gone on the record to say, “It’s important to remember that Bridgerton isn’t a history lesson.”
The show is willing to shatter realistic expectations of Regency-era England in favor of including a diverse cast — but if you were to travel back in time to early-1800s England, you’d be hard-pressed to find such a diverse crowd.
According to How Stuff Works, Regency historian Whitney S. Christiansen said, “Bridgerton is largely a fantasy in terms of the diversity of the population shown.” At the time, only about 1.5 percent of England’s population was Black. “The majority of them were poor or working class, with most employed as servants,” Christiansen explained.
The show’s costumes, too, are largely fantasy, but they are somewhat inspired by the real fashion of the time period. “These are mostly fantasy, with the designers taking the silhouettes from the era and playing with color and creativity for effect,” Christiansen explained. “Regency-era gowns were inspired by Greek sculpture, as the Parthenon marbles were moved to London during this time, and so neoclassical ideals were all the rage.”
The show does, however, offer a decently realistic portrayal of women’s rights at the time. The fact that many of the show’s female characters vie so desperately for a man’s hand in marriage does speak to an era when women often didn’t — or couldn’t — inherit homes on their own.
When a family’s patriarch died, his estate typically went to his nearest living male relative, meaning that daughters, even if they were the only child in a family, were left out of the equation. In this sense, marriage was especially important for women to secure for themselves a stable place to live.
Still, Bridgerton isn’t a realistic portrayal of Regency England.
“Those who take Bridgerton‘s version of history as truth may fail to understand the deep racism that marked early 19th-century London, including how its depictions of Black men as boxers or Marina as sexually experienced may actually reinforce racist stereotypes rather than challenge them,” Christiansen warned.
That said, “fantasy history” shows like Bridgerton can often be a gateway for people to research the true history for themselves, which Christiansen called “a great marketing campaign that can lead to real scholarship.”
