Black Queen: Netflix's biggest hit secret

British nobles, including Queen Charlotte, are played by black actors and actresses, and the plot raises the thorny issues of today.

Bridgerton’s costume drama has become the most watched original show on Netflix. The critically acclaimed social media project has been criticized for its historical inaccuracy, as the Lords and Ladies of England in the early 19th century are represented by both whites and blacks.

Modernity overturned in the 19th century

The Bridgerton series, based on Julia Quinn’s novels, is available in eight parts from December 25. The plot takes place in London during the Regency era, but the link to history is very conditional here.

The show set an all-time Netflix record with over 82 million viewers in the first 28 days after its premiere.

The previous record belonged to the film adaptation of fantasy books by Andrzej Sapkowski The Witcher, and was rated by 76 million Netflix users.

Thus, Bridgerton became the largest service project in history. The series entered the top 10 in all countries where Netflix is supported except Japan. In addition, in 83 countries Bridgerton took first place, including the USA, Great Britain, France, India.

However, the Witcher can still be considered a leader, since at the time of its release, Netflix’s audience was 169 million, which means that fantasy with Henry Cavill was watched by 45 percent of subscribers. Now the video service has almost 204 million viewers, of which about 40 percent have joined Bridgerton.

“I think the show really was an outlet for the audience – it was exactly what it needed. Bridgerton is the lush, flamboyant, hot love story of the Regency era. It’s about romance, passion and pleasure. I think all these things are really universal themes that people react to,” explains creator Chris Van Dusen.

The events of the series itself, unlike the books, take place in an alternative reality, and the appearance of a large number of aristocrats with African roots is even explained by a certain point of divergence in the past.

The year is 1813, and the main task of all mothers is to bring out their eldest daughters and find a profitable party for them during the season.

Marriage is the ultimate dream for most girls of that time, since this was the only way to guarantee themselves, and often their relatives, a secure future.

By and large, girls of aristocratic families were prepared from birth for marriage, and all they could dream of was getting married for love, which actually happened very rarely.

Against this background, the hot topic of today is raised – feminism. Some women in Bridgerton do not want to endure the dictates of men and are ready to make their own decisions about their lives, which they boldly declare.

The entire large Bridgerton family is preoccupied with finding a husband for the eldest Daphne. But the competition is high: the neighbors – the family of Lord Featherington – have as many as three daughters for marriage. Anyway, promising brides from all over England came to London.

Which of them will get the most handsome and richest man, duke, or maybe even a prince? And who will have to be content with a noble of a lower rank and with a lesser fortune? And who will not be able to find a spouse within the allotted time and may in the future remain an old maid?

British nobles, including Queen Charlotte, are played by black actors and actresses, and the plot raises the thorny issues of today. At the same time smartly dressed ladies and gentlemen dance to orchestral arrangements by Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande and Maroon 5.

This all caused bewilderment among many viewers. However, in the West, the cast was received more positively.

Julia Quinn herself, on whose books the plot of Bridgerton is based, said that earlier she was offended by criticism about the historical inaccuracy of her works, but later she changed her attitude.

“You know what? It’s a romantic fantasy, and I think it’s very important to show, as much as possible, that as many people as possible deserve the same happiness and dignity [as the characters on the show],” Quinn commented on the diverse cast of actors on the show. …

When asked why actors of different races are involved in the series, experts answer that this is not a historical series, but the authors are filming a story about the modern world and modern relations, just in different scenery and with more elegant costumes.

And the modern world, especially the world of Netflix viewers, which has subscribers in 190 countries, is a world in which people are not only white.

And there is a possibility that in ten years, Bridgertons will be perceived as one of the projects that democratized costumed drama – one of the most undemocratic and, of course, “white” genres.

Moreover, help is not far off: in the UK, they are now preparing another film adaptation of the biography of Anne Boleyn, where the second wife of Henry VIII and the mother of Elizabeth I is played by Jodie Turner-Smith, a black actress.

Although British historians are more skeptical.

“By flirting with a politically correct cast, Netflix missed out on a great opportunity to tell just how amazing a woman Queen Charlotte really was,” historian Andrew Roberts notes with bitterness.

However, some scholars do believe that Queen Charlotte was Britain’s first black queen and her descendants, including Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II, have African ancestors.

Charlotte, born on May 1, 1744, was the youngest daughter of Duke Karl Ludwig Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Princess Elisabeth Albertine of Sachsen-Hildburghausen.

The historian Mario de Valdes and Cocom believes that Charlotte is directly related to the black branch of the Portuguese royal family – that is, to Alfonso III and his partner Uruana, a black Mauritanian woman.

Growing up in Belize, Valdez began tackling Charlotte’s African descent in 1967 after moving to Boston.

He managed to find such a description of Charlotte, made by the royal physician Baron Christian Friedrich Stockmar: “She was short and hunched over, with a real mulatto face.”

He found other descriptions of her appearance, including Sir Walter Scott, who believed that her face was kind of ill-colored. And here is what one of the prime ministers wrote about Charlotte: “Her nose is too wide, and her lips are too thick.”

In the Bridgerton series, it is said that George’s marriage to Charlotte equaled “colored” people. That is, black actors play black characters.

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