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Bridgerton review – Netflix's answer to Downton Abbey is a moreish treat [Austen Wanna be Series] [ed]
UK Guardian ^ | December 25, 2020 | Lucy Mangan

Posted on 12/25/2020 5:05:02 AM PST by C19fan

Preposterous and cliche-ridden, this tale of Regency intrigue – with Julie Andrews giving a Georgian Gossip Girl touch – nonetheless leaves you wanting more

It cannot be – no, most assuredly and for the good of humanity, it cannot be – that there are people out there who aspire to write like Julian Fellowes. It simply cannot be. And yet. Now has come Bridgerton (Netflix), suddenly into our lives, and as the minutes and the hours and the eight episodes of the new costume drama roll, the thought becomes ever more inescapable.

For Bridgerton is the tale, set in 1813 Bath, of the Regency rivalry between the lordly Bridgerton family and the lordly Featherington family who are each keen to be seen as the most lordly of lordly families and lord it mostly lordily over the rest of Regency Bath’s Regency high society. We are in the Regency period, btw, and Bath. I, like the writers of the show, wish to make this very clear.

Those writers – foremost among them Chris Van Dusen, who is (is “credited” the right word?) with creating the series, which is based on Jane Austen superfan Julia Quinn’s series of romance novels – show every sign of having watched one too many episodes of Downton Abbey. Like learning one too many facts before an exam and it pushing everything else out of your mind, that final, fateful hour in the company of the Crawleys has squeezed out everything the writer once knew about dialogue, language and character and left them only with the echoes of Fellowes ringing – as they might put it – round their mental ears.

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: fantasy; netflix; period; revisionisthistory
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I am not a subscriber to Netflix so I cannot watch. Of course many of the characters being played by black thespians has made the Social Justice Warrior types very happy. I do not care what the race or ethnicity as long as they get the part right. Since in today's world one keeps count of these things I did not notice Asians got a part in the trailers and clips. What only blacks are the acceptable non-whites that can play a role in a Brit period dramas? This adaptation is based on a series of Regency Era romance novels. Of course the author, as it seems to be the trend in this genre of romance novels, have to top Austen and insist the Alpha male targeted by all the ladies is a Duke. Mr. Darcy is not good enough for them. Also the source material might have played a role in the dialogue being a pale imitation of Austen.
1 posted on 12/25/2020 5:05:02 AM PST by C19fan
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To: All

Merry Christmas.


2 posted on 12/25/2020 5:05:52 AM PST by C19fan
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To: C19fan

Sounds like cultural appropriation.

Let’s riot.


3 posted on 12/25/2020 5:08:39 AM PST by Jewbacca (The residents of Iroquois territory may not determine whether Jews may live in Jerusalem)
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To: C19fan
Blacks are unlikely in Jane Austen's world, as unlikely as a Chinaman, or Hawaiian, or Mexican.

4 posted on 12/25/2020 5:13:57 AM PST by Governor Dinwiddie (Guide me, O thou great redeemer, pilgrim through this barren land.)
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To: C19fan

Sounds like another garbage program I will skip.


5 posted on 12/25/2020 5:16:51 AM PST by SkyPilot ("I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6)
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To: All

Speaking of Netflix, DON’T watch George Clooney in The Midnight Sky. It’s a mess.


6 posted on 12/25/2020 5:26:01 AM PST by JonPreston (Crash the whole thing down)
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To: Governor Dinwiddie
I find it objectionable when actors/actresses of certain race, sex or creed are cast in roles that make no historical sense simply because it "pleases" certain people's notions of diversity.

Of course, these same diversity Nazis would howl in indignation should a white actress ever be cast in the role of say Harriet Tubman.

7 posted on 12/25/2020 5:26:11 AM PST by SamAdams76
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To: C19fan

The Regency Period was in the first quarter of the 19th century. Any blacks in England at that time were probably slaves. Slavery wasn’t abolished in England until 1833, after the Regency period was over.


8 posted on 12/25/2020 5:36:11 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
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To: C19fan
the lordly Featherington family


Sir Guthrie Featherstone QC, MP.

Featherington !?! A distant relation perhaps.

9 posted on 12/25/2020 5:36:44 AM PST by csvset (tolerance becomes a crime when attached to evil)
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To: C19fan

While I don’t watch this show it reminds me of the soap operas my Grandma watched in the 50’s. She couldn’t always recognize they were not a real life family. So real was her experience she would recount it for my mom.


10 posted on 12/25/2020 5:55:59 AM PST by Cottonpatch
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To: csvset

I liked his Irish RM series.


11 posted on 12/25/2020 6:13:51 AM PST by wally_bert (I cannot be sure for certain, but in my personal opinion I am certain that I am not sure.)
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To: wally_bert

I just started watching that on Acorn t.v.


12 posted on 12/25/2020 6:22:17 AM PST by Excellence (Marine mom since April 11, 2014)
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To: SamAdams76

One of the worst episodes of that idiocy would be when the PC crowd complained there were no females (or blacks) on the beach in the latest Dunkirk movie...

Hello ??? It was WWII the soldiers were all MEN and all BRITISH...

so there were a few 100 thousand...they were still ALL men...


13 posted on 12/25/2020 6:33:54 AM PST by Tennessee Nana
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To: csvset

a Queen’s Counsel AND a Member of Parliament ???


14 posted on 12/25/2020 6:35:23 AM PST by Tennessee Nana
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To: JonPreston

“Mank” was really good and worth watching. But knowledge of a lot of things is needed to figure it out and make it enjoyable:
* the Hollywood studio system in the 30s
* William Randolph Hearst, yellow journalism, and Hearst Castle at San Simeon, CA
* Orison Welles
* the Great Depression in California and the threat of communism


15 posted on 12/25/2020 6:45:31 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom ("Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out" -- David Horowitz)
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To: C19fan

Whatever garbage Netflix is currently pitching will never make it into my home. Once they hired the Odungo crime duo, I was on the phone to Netflix, instantly cancelling my subscription. And I haven’t missed it one iota, either.


16 posted on 12/25/2020 7:22:11 AM PST by EinNYC
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To: Oshkalaboomboom
Re: "Slavery wasn't abolished in England until 1833"

That is somewhat misleading.

The English courts ruled that slavery had no legal basis in England at least as far back as Elizabeth I in 1569.

From that period forward, the number of "slaves" in England was probably less than 10,000.

In most cases, those "slaves" were indentured house servants brought into England from the Caribbean by people who worked in the plantation or slave trading business.

By the late 1700s, the English Quakers were working relentlessly to free all the Black indentured servants in England.

From memory, the slave legislation passed in 1833 simply forbade sending Black indentured servants back to the Caribbean, where they would become slaves again.

Anecdotally...

I have been watching Masterpiece Theatre and BBC programming for 50 years on my local PBS stations.

I do not recall ever seeing a program about slavery in England.

17 posted on 12/25/2020 7:34:15 AM PST by zeestephen
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To: C19fan

I love regency novels and the city of Bath. What I don’t love is British TV shoehorning multicultural historically incorrect casts into a show.

One of my favorite shows is Midsomer Murders. It started out as a small town Cotswold-set series where there were no people of color as appropriate. The powers that be dumped the main guy in charge and brought in someone who would “fix” Midsomer. Immediately there were people of color all over the place, and the scripts indicated that they had supposedly been there for many years. It was just ridiculous.


18 posted on 12/25/2020 8:08:43 AM PST by Moonmad27
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To: zeestephen

The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 abolished slavery throughout the British Empire, with the exception of India, which was constitutionally complicated because the Indian States were nominally independent though under the thumb of the East India Company. Slavery had become rare in England itself by that time and took mostly the form of indentured servitude, but it still existed in the colonies, notably in the Caribbean. The 1833 Act was the great example of compensated emancipation, which was the road unfortunately not taken in the U.S. We found a much more expensive way to abolish slavery. In the U.S., compensated emancipation was done in the District of Columbia in 1862. Elsewhere it was done through a mix of wartime self-emancipation, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Union bayonets, all ratified and regularized eventually by the 13th Amendment. The last place in the U.S. where large scale chattel slavery existed legally was actually Kentucky, which did not secede and was therefore a Union state not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation. Kentucky newspapers were still running ads for slave auctions when Lee was surrendering at Appomattox. Slavery in Kentucky only ended with the 13th amendment.


19 posted on 12/25/2020 8:18:37 AM PST by sphinx
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To: C19fan

The books are great.

I wouldn’t touch this woke crap even if wasn’t on Netflix.


20 posted on 12/25/2020 8:19:48 AM PST by mewzilla (Break out the mustard seeds. )
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