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I finally watched Bridgerton! And it made me realize something about TV/serialized shows, my own watching habits, and why I think we need more romance series like this one. (1/?)
Background: I'm bad at watching TV shows. I don't have the attention span for long-term commitments or extended binging sessions, but I also get discouraged and have given up on shows I've started watching even when I've enjoyed them or find them intellectually interesting. (2/?)
Obviously, part of this is just the way my brain works. But it also has to do with the TV shows that I've tried to watch and abandoned, including Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, Luke Cage, Downton Abbey, and the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Here's the thing: (3/?)
Those shows (in my experience) use happiness as the necessary precursor to terrible events. If something good happens to a main character or you see a happy group of people, guess what? They're going to get murdered, possessed, or see their friends/pets die tragically. (4/?)
I'm not against dark/sad moments or events in shows. They can drive a narrative and are an important part of life. But I do object to the implicit idea that all moments of happiness are bound to be followed by something awful, which is the subtext of these narratives. (5/?)
Because, if that's the dominant narrative we subscribe to, then it's telling us that life is driven by sorrow and loss, and we should be skeptical of every moment of happiness because the other shoe is about to drop. Of course, that can happen. (6/?)
I can think of times I've had happiness cut right out from under me, and it made me skittish of happiness afterwards. But in reality, life isn't tilted like that: happiness and tragedy aren't necessarily linked, or mutually exclusive, and one doesn't have to dominate. (7/?)
To get back to Bridgerton: one of the reasons I enjoyed it is that I knew the story wouldn't only use happiness as an instrument to lead to tragedy. It's a story that is committed to happiness as a real, livable experience even in a world where sorrow exists. (8/?)
And I'd like to see more of these stories serialized: stories where there might be dark moments, but where happiness matters for itself, not just as a counterpoint to the grim selfishness and violence that US society seems to have agreed is more "realistic" than happiness. (9/?)
Because happiness is realistic, and working hard to get there is a worthwhile narrative to make and share. (10/?)
That said, there are some things Bridgerton could have done better! @JodiMcA has a great thread about how they could have rewritten Daphne/Simon's conflict to be consensual and effective: https://twitter.com/JodiMcA/status/1344449192278720513 and @O_Waite has a thread about race: https://twitter.com/O_Waite/status/1344800012891377665
Actual better link to the beginning of that thread on race here: https://twitter.com/O_Waite/status/1344776044125986816
