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Today in "ALL YOUR FAVES ARE PROBLEMATIC" -- the upcoming release of the Bridgerton series on Netflix. I am not gonna lie -- I'm gonna watch the everloving fuck out of this show because it has been a long, cold, dark 2020 and I need pretty things, BUT...
1. The author has said some questionable AF things about writing POC characters in historical romance...namely, in a panel of diverse authors, she said she basically didn't want to write marginalized characters in because she wanted to write HEAs, not suffering. YIKES ON BIKES.
2. In response to deserved backlash, not nan apology has been heard publicly. Whisper networks say that this person did the work to address her problematic views in private, but uh, if you mess up in public, ya gotta atone in public.
3. I just did a reread of the series with a bunch of friends and...some portions of these books DID NOT AGE WELL. Namely (SPOILER ALERT & TRIGGER WARNINGS) a heroine committing what amounts to reproductive rape in order to become pregnant against her husband's explicit wishes.
4. To make this more complicated and to add another layer of yuck, in the Shondaland castings of this show (which, tbh, I didn't think too deeply about because I'm rooting for everybody black), these characters are portrayed by a white woman and a Black man. This feels icky.
5. In the year of our Lord 2020, there is no need for including reproductive rape as a plot point. NO NEED. The source material is admittedly older, but when we know better, we do better, and we are better than this.
6. To sum up: HEAs are for everyone; Black Lives Matter; Consent is sexy; Rape is not a substitution for actual plot and/or character development; Bodily autonomy is for all genders; If you mess up publicly, make amends publicly.
7. Many thanks to @SashaDevlin and @katrinajax, among others, for sounding the alarms on this one. I'm still gonna watch Bridgerton because Reasons (namely being able to critique it more thoroughly and seeing pretty period sets and costumes) but y'all needed to know.
8. To balance the scales, I will also be doing my usual binge purchasing of AOC romances because again, rooting for everybody black (and brown and other marginalized groups).
