Gossip As Agency in Bridgerton
How small talk has big consequences for most soapy shows
this newsletter’s poem
“Bridgerton”
tongues traipse over tales
of torrid trysts
and tantalizing tiffstalk traverses time
intractable
untraceable
untrustworthy
I am writing this, in part, for my dear friend, Rickens,* who forced me into watching this show. And yes, I am pulling in my many Liberal Arts degrees into a discussion of a Netflix soap - I am broke for this newsletter only!!! Blame yourselves!!
*he is not a subscriber
Also, maybe just play Vitamin String Quartet’s cover of “Thank U, Next” from the show while you read this (it has been looping as I format this letter).
If you have access to Netflix, and you haven't seen Bridgerton, you're a bit behind, as it's the platform's most watched series to date. [1] Thankfully, if you don't want to watch Bridgerton, you can keep reading. I have to force myself to write about something, so here you go!
Bridgerton is a period soap opera set in early 19th century England, and the show follows the young women of London as they vie for their well-married place in society. If this concept sounds trite, sickening, or both, it is, but the soap itself works because of this dated feel. By taking these antiquated concepts of "marriage" as necessary for a woman's success back in time, the show allows you to feel OK in being complicit in such a schema, as this clearly all happened "a long time ago,"—the same excuse we use for slavery and genocide, a happy amnesia where we forget that actions have *ramifications* and *consequences* well beyond their immediate moment.
It is in these ramifications (AKA the present day) that I had a hard time adjusting to watching this show at first. The major sticking point was the way that the show treated its female protagonists, the Bridgerton girls and the Featherington girls, whose naivete and youth allow them to be completely out of control of their own autonomy in almost mind-boggling ways. These girls are apparently not taught anything about their bodies, to the point that the first two episodes involve the young women trying to figure out where babies come from, quite literally. These women are aghast when they learn an out-of-town cousin is pregnant because she is unmarried, and they cannot conceptualize how she became pregnant without a husband and marriage having taken place first. All of this ignorance occurs against the backdrop of women who do know where babies come from, and who refuse to tell these young women: the married women around them (rich and socially respected) and the single laboring women around them (poor and socially downcast) all know the real truth that they are seemingly protecting these young girls from.
These girls are kept “protected” due to the concept of Virtue, whereby a woman's goodness is connected to her lack of sexuality, as well as her lack of carnal knowledge (i.e. any knowledge of sexual pleasures). The second that she is married, however, such virtue goes out the window, and she is able to behave (almost) as she pleases.
This virtue is completely contrasted by the men in the show, who from the jump are shown banging women—those that are poor and/or socially downcast / without title or property—without consequence (! shock !) . The men are all complicit in this behavior at social clubs, approving one another and encouraging the self-indulgent joy. Yet at the same time, they do not want to sell off themselves or their sons to these same women who lack Virtue, and any woman of good standing can easily lose their virtue through rumor of such assocations.
The inequality of agency and autonomy demonstrated throughout this show is difficult to watch and adjust to in its early episodes, as these issues still exist to this day, albeit in less extremes. Still, with the right set design, wardrobe, and accents, there is something that pulls you along through the story.
This "something" that pulls you along is the narration of an unseen, mystery arbiter: Lady Whistledown (voiced by St. Julie Andrews), a gossip columnist who takes back the power by publishing information about the Ton's denizens. (They call London "the Ton," I am pretty sure, likely a rip off of French, in an annoying British accent). Through the authority of her printing press, Lady Whistledown has the power to make or break someone's image and social standing, and she reveals as much throughout the voice over the in show. Of course, no one knows who Lady Whistledown is, but everyone knows this: they do not want to get on her bad side.
While most of the show seems quaint and soapy, I find the aspect of Lady Whistledown and gossip to be the most interesting, not just because gossip is fun and salacious, but in fact because gossip, alongside literacy, is what has historically created agency for underrepresented and oppressed populations. Throughout mid-18th and early 19th century England, gossip rags and pamphlets became one of the primary sources of news and entertainment for British denizens in real life, and it also became the subject of plays, literature, and poetry, authored by women, featuring women, and for an entirely new and burgeoning readership of fiction: women. Women of an educated class, as well as the general middle-class population of England, experienced skyrocketing literacy rates, allowing those previously excluded from narratives on social behavior and moral tales to engage and read the texts that prescribed (or critiqued) such behavior.
As consumption of texts became more widespread for a growing population of British people and women, the themes of these texts began to imitate reality, focusing on stories of how behavior could be policed through gossip and scandal, and the right ways to be a British woman at the time. As England fought to expand its empire, it was incredibly important for social codes, morals, and ethics to be replicated through such a system of texts, either directly or indirectly. These plays, books, and poems that centralized gossip or the gossip rag format were popular for scratching that itch of reading something naughty and participating in indulgent behavior that otherwise could have devastating effects on the person (woman) attempting them in the real social world. (Most famously, this time period saw the success of Jane Austen, who you can just Cliff Notes for her relationship to these themes) Of course, we all know that women are so policed throughout modern history partly because their bodies represent the future of the nation state as we understand it [2], and so the English case here is no exception.
Still, beyond the written text and the explosion of literacy, gossip continued to have power, as it is a form of information that can be spread aurally—meaning that those who cannot read (or are not allowed to read, or are prohibited from certain texts/spaces) have access to this information, too. It is what makes these period dramas so compelling: those who are sublimated to a lower status in society will always find ways to take back their power, and gossip and attacks on credibility tend to be the tried and true methods for such dissent, destruction, and attention. I have not watched any other Shondaland shows, but I’d bet that this theme applies to most of her other productions. [3]
So, Lady Whistledown leads the charge on elucidating the dirty secrets throughout the Ton, which after a while, becomes quite titillating, especially as you yourself begin to guess who this gossip/ fly-on-the-wall/ deus-ex-machina-woman might actually be. [4] After this intrigue, throw in (eventually) some great sex scenes with hot shirtless dudes, and you’ve got yourself a soap-watching experience that makes you forget that you’re living through a pandemic for the next five years of your life.
Bridgerton: ★★★★★☆ (this system will not be reprised nor consistent).
Post-script [5]
Notes
Will have to deep-dive the many academics who have written about this if you want a citation, but the general idea is this: women and people with uteruses are historically the ones who are capable of creating new generations of people, if they choose / when it is forced upon them. Therefore, they are the ones that are ultimately responsible for future generations of a nation. Because of this responsibility, they are required to only have children with moral / racially homogenous persons, to keep the idea of the Nation intact. Yes, this reads like white supremacy, but is also the general practice and ideology in many nation-states where such white supremacists groups do not exist.
Further, this theme occurs in our real lives continually (see the coverage of the horrors of Britney Spears’ life).
By episode 4 (?) I had a guess on who Lady Whistledown was, and… I was right! Send me your guess and I will lock the ballot up until you finish the series.
The racial dynamics of the show may also be at play in the “policing of women’s bodies,” and were also another weird point of viewing the show, for me. Read more in this article https://www.thewrap.com/does-bridgerton-have-a-race-problem/ because I did not want to write a secondary essay in these notes!