editorialized torpedo

Anon is talking about this post.

I think this is a good comparative analysis, too. I've watched Bridgerton and I've watched Queen Charlotte despite the weird thing it has about race--even on the premise of racism being "done" when these are not dealing with unreal characters, in a world where Queen Victoria doesn't exist, apparently colonization isn't happening?hmmm--and can confirm that they manage to write women pretty well and QC is where they shined.

I wouldn't say I'm a part of the fandom, because I don't engage with its fans at all. Like nothing.

Yeah, agreed. But black victory is not inoffensive apparently.

I'm in a mood tonight.

Again, such a history one should be proud of (I'm being sarcastic). This post definitely follows the last one HERE, where my answer to this one matches the previous.

The British monarchy remains terrifying in its acceptedness amongst English folk, too. Why be proud of a thing that began and licenced and continues to license organized financial, infrastructural, etc deprivation of both domestic and foreign people's?

What a proud history.

And yeah I don't think Shonda would cast a Black or mixed actress for Victoria for two reasons, one Watsonian, the other Doylist:

Watsonian

The son who married a woman who went up for the Charlotte character in the Charlotte piece is the one who is supposed to give birth to the future Queen Victoria. Both persons are white. In fact, most of Charlotte's kids are white, and I'm betting that the show justifies it by showing us a light skinned Charlotte with a light skinned brother and so a presumably light skinned family.

That and it also actually being very possible for an interracial couple of white/Black (even with dark skin) to have one look more European (thinner nose, palee skin and hair, less coiled hair) than another one who may lean ore toward Black, especially the more kids you have. With one kids or more easily mistaken for a white kid with parents who are both white themwswves. Uncommon, but there. And Charlotte has more than 10 kids both in real history and in the franchise. So Victoria will more than likely be white, maybe with a nose that can "pass" as "Blackish" or African.

But that ignores how, again, ALMOST ALL AND THE MORE ACTIVE/SHOWN of Charlotte's kids have little African in their features in the show. And the Doylist reason below, which actually shapes how the main resolution to the heir problem was written the way it was in the Charlotte story.

Doylist

Victoria, as a political and cultural figure of English & American history, is too critical and key a figure to conflict with the white personhood and the European purity culture that flourished from and during the Victorian era. There would both be an offense to many white audiences (which American and British TV always tries to avoid). Gotta keep that image of the perfect woman, leader of womanhood, and the second (3rd?) real Queen regnant of England's legacy pure after all.

AND even if there weren't, I agree that a Black/mixed Victoria would just make things worse for the problem of race in Bridgetown, be use then we'd be questioning how the hell a Black woman (Charlotte) the franchise itself claims helped Black people (even if just the aristocratic or wealthy merchant classes) overcome structural and ideological racism....when another Black Queen (hypothetical Victoria) who even came from the past Black Queen through her father licensed slavery, invaded and destroyed several societies' ways of living and governments, etc? A lot of them African?

I never read them as full stories, but the books are not so (descriptions of characters I quickly perused). All the characters are white and European. I would have preferred this.

Still, it was a deliberate choice to do blind color casting and historical revisionism for the sake of including and centering PoCs in American TV, not necessarily because of an altruistic gail so much as this is the demand from audiences and there's money to be made from it.

The show (in-world but more BTS, in the larger American society) definitely encourages and sets up race as more become a commodity to sell that something to really confront or acknowledge as a sociopolitical/economic force of discrimination that defines the parameters of real people. Maybe not race exactly so much as making the acknowledgement of race the commodity or whatever we call the ring which makes a thing more materially valuable. Race becomes more of a decoration, I think I can say, too.

I mean they basically said the solution of all solutions for the end of racism was having a black person be the head (or intimate with) of the government....meanwhile Barack Obama was elected and racism still very much exists.

Anon, what you say in particular about Indian girls being considered legitimate wives of British men reminds me of the withdrawn brideofires' Twitter post (they are "daughter of death" there) about the same franchise. I tend to agree, yet I find myself watching the Charlotte mini story when I wanted to see what the duss was about and awaiting my Dune books and reluctantly enjoying myself. The only Brigderton story I ever independent watched (the others I watched through reactors bc I didn't want to spend money) and finally got my Netflix up (she protests too much, i know).

Point is, as a PoC myself (black), this franchise discomfited me from the start yet I watched one installment and overall liked it apart from the attempts to incorporate race only to give it the needed approach. I think that PoCs who like Bridgerton or are obsessed either do not keep the history close to their memory or that they prioritize the modern media acts of centering (or getting close to that) PoC characters in order to set up more appearances of PoC actors and characters and BTS people. Perhaps these two things inform each other, sometimes maybe not (grip to group, person to person).

I'm sure you're already aware of that, though, since you refer to it. I wish to "explain" why PoCs leave behind or set aside the colonial history and specific, harrowing events. I myself was able to enjoy it only after shoving aside all those memories or reading about colonial, dehumanizing actions against PoC societies. And then thinking about it after finishing the show. But I don't think we should continue writing like this because of the capitalist and racist implications and effects on society for the precedented literal apathy for colonialism (that's already happening, but why reaffirm it?). We don't actually need a Bridgerton or a Black Queen Charlotte. There are actually so many PoC fantasy/sci-fi books to adapt shows from, those written by and about PoC people. TV writers and or producers should head on over to AbramsBooks (the publishing house) to select those stories. There's your fantasy and actual centering of PoC people. Great place to start. Looking for a series adaptation?--look at Tomi Adeyemi's Legacy of Orisha series. One story that could be broken up to two?: Denise Crittenden's Where it Rains on Color. Reni K. Amayo's duology The Return of Earth Mother is guaranteed to draw in both black and white audiences (because that's what these producers are mainly thinking about, rake in more cash), plus literally every other person fed up with white stories and the dominance of white fantasy in TV.

I am waiting to see now if the 3rd season of Bridgerton will be as focused on "explaining" the widespread and untroubled presence of aristocratic and PoCs, but as soon as they made PoC aristocrats especially with the story of a black woman as Queen fixing race Bridgerton became ethically unsalvageable.