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SensitiveQueen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story and its Portrayal of Rape [Rant]
Sometime last year (I can’t remember when), I watched Netflix’s “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story”. I went in thinking, “Oh, this is just going to be one of those cheesy romantic period dramas like the main show,” and the opening scene is literally a young adult Lady Danbury getting
I was so angry I was shaking. Even worse, they show more scenes of Lady Danbury’s
Yes, I know in the historical past that’s what happened – women were chattel; they belonged to their fathers or any other male relatives until they were married, to which they then belonged to their husbands who could do whatever they wished to them. I know NOW in some parts of the world women ARE still considered chattel and property. I’ve had people in my life say, “anannoyedwoman, that’s just what happened back then, it’s sad but true,” but even when they say that, it STILL sounds so dismissive and uncaring to my ears. It feels like the equivalent of “Yes, and?” and I hate it.
I went on the Reddit Bridgerton sub to see what other viewers thought and while some were rightly horrified and disgusted, there were, I feel, a lot of women saying excuses that “it wasn’t technically
Just stop.
Just stop.
In all these types of shows, it’s always misogyny that they keep. They’ll try to bend the rules for racism and homophobia (which I feel is disrespectful given the historical hardships and oppressions these respective groups faced and continue to face today) to fit the fictional world that is based on real life, but they’ll always keep misogyny. Now, I’m white and heterosexual, so it’s really not my place to speak on those subjects. It’s just something I noticed in the show as a viewer. Correct me if I’m wrong or I’ve worded something insensitively; it’s certainly not my intention!
Thank you for listening to my rant, lol.
Bridgerton? Is that the show I noped out because it started with a man ruining a woman's reputation in the very first scene?
(They were having sex in a carriage, and well, as Jane Austen fan, I knew whose reputation was going to suffer for it. I judge such men, and I judge them harshly.)
Yes, that was "how things were back then", but
Women knew it was shitty, even back then. Jane Austen certainly did.
Men knew how it was, and what they were doing to a woman by having unmarried sex with her. They also knew that women didn't like marital rape. (In fact, violent marital rape was pretty universally agreed to be bad. Not grounds for divorce, but bad. People were not completely evil back then. Women were expected to let their husbands fuck them, but the husbands were also expected, in theory, to not force the matter when the wife was unwell. Hence the famous migraine, I suppose.)
If you don't want to invest in making the whole thing serious social commentary, then I expect light entertainment, and in light entertainment, rapists can only appear if they are punished at the end of the story. Sorry not sorry.
Also everyone was flipping their shit about the girl in the first season sexually assaulting her husband when she literally didn’t know how sex worked when they got together, but this season with blatant rape is somehow not even brought up or discussed?!? I had to skip so much I couldn’t tolerate watching that.
Now that you mention it, it's so enraging. You can really see how differently male characters are treated compared to female characters. The abuse and mistreatment of the women in the show seems to be seen as another Tuesday by the fandom.
If every excessive, non-plot related, "titillating" assault scene was taken out of media and replaced with small penis jokes, people might actually wake the fuck up about how disgusting and gratuitous they are... They couldn't handle one minute of mini-member commentary, let alone ten minutes like the oh so funny marital r**e.
Do you think that would also work in literature?
I don't have the money to make a movie, but I can write a novel.
"And then the evil Lord Rapesalot went into the dungeon where he had the beautiful heroine chained to the wall, and she saw how tiny his codpiece was and laughed, and laughed, and wouldn't stop laughing, so he left, swearing to have her executed at dawn. Which didn't happen because she escaped that night."
In more detail, obviously.
Male directors love to make rape scenes, even if (or because?) it distresses crew members. I worked on a small historical production where the director ran a scene over and over; the woman only had her blouse torn and had to make distressed noises, but hearing him yell at the actor for not being rough enough and having to listen to the woman over and over was upsetting for all of the crew. It was disgusting in the extreme. And I think in the final cut, there was maybe two seconds used. Completely gratuitous and unnecessary to the film.
All media is propaganda on some level. Pay attention to the underlying message that is being conveyed. I ask myself "What are they trying to normalize here? What public opinion are they trying to implant in viewers with this material?" This helps me resist the brain-washing.
The way it is portrayed is the problem, as you say it is portrayed as funny, rather than tragic.
Yes, exactly. I really wished it could've been done with a lot more tact and respect.
As someone who enjoys historically accurate period pieces, I noped out of Bridgerton within the first five minutes because of everything you mentioned. It irks me so bad when they cram modernized ideas and sensibilities into history, even for fiction. If you want to tell that story then do it but let’s not distort the past! It’s not just a setting, these lives and stories deserve reality.
What was it that annoyed you, specifically, in Bridgerton?
I think I noped out because it started with a sex scene, but that might have been a different period piece.
(I have no problem with modern sensibilities. Like, they can just, you know, not show the marital rape, just like they don't show people shitting in buckets and women in the countryside just letting the blood run down their legs when they have their period. Just like they just don't include the high infant mortality. There's tons of things that just get left out because modern people just wouldn't want to watch it. Well, I do draw the line at pretending women shaved their legs in Regency England. If they don't want to show hairy female legs, they ought to not show any female legs at all.)
I guess I just realized really fast that it is NOT a period piece like I was told and completely lost interest. The costumes, hair, makeup, mannerisms, topics, etiquette were just all wrong and I realized either someone didn’t do their homework or wasn’t even trying to be accurate. It’s fictional obviously but it just seemed “made up” in all the wrong ways.
Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a correct way to include a lot of progressive themes in a period accurate way. Jane Austen characters often include free spirited women who don’t want to marry the rich secure douche, and yet there’s no #girlbossenergy because it makes sense within historical context (although don’t get me started on little women 2019). Downton Abbey’s gay character has a fantastic arc with realistic conflicts and not a Yas Queen in sight.
Have you watched The Great?
I have, it was fun for what it was but I stopped watching when it became all about sex. In reality, he was killed within 8 days and I didn’t appreciate the “adaptation” making her look like an orgasm starved fool, she was a cutthroat monarch and politician who had the longest reign of a Russian Empress ever.
Its so hypocritical. Shows like Bridgerton are happy to throw historical accuracy out the window with regard to race and the characters' appearances (they all have perfect teeth, immaculate makeup and skin, the women have zero body hair, etc). But when it comes to misogyny and women being raped in their marriages, suddenly historical accuracy becomes SUPER IMPORTANT to the story
Its the same bullshit as Game Of Thrones. The writers go on about how they need to include rape because "realism" in a story where magical dragons are flying around and all the women conform to modern beauty standards (because heaven forbid the viewers see a hairy female leg during a violent rape scene)