Simon Webb, historian, novelist, journalist, and producer of the
YouTube channel “History Debunked,” very recently coined a phrase or,
more properly, a label that some of us may find useful. Applied to the
recent spate over the last five years of television dramatizations, very
many from the BBC and, here, PBS, that purport to faithfully realize
the works of great British and European fiction, the label describes an
utterly ridiculous and non-historical, even anti-historical policy of
multi-racial casting in period dramas, periods in which the population
of the countries where the dramas are set were as a matter of plain fact
predominantly, overwhelmingly Caucasian. Mr. Webb’s label is the
“Bridgerton Effect,” named after the silly and trashy series
“Bridgerton,” in which black, and I think recently Asian, high-born
lords and ladies right up to the queen herself cavort naughtily and
haughtily in Georgian England.
There would be little to complain of in this tendency if it indicated
a strong taste for farce. But, as Webb has argued, the recent
appearances of a black Sophie in Tom Jones, a black Javert in Les
Misérables, and, in “Bridgerton,” a black Queen Charlotte (née Charlotte
of Mecklenburg-Strelitz) attended by black ladies-in-waiting skew
history beyond all recognition, that is, for those who know history.
That said, Webb opines that had the producers of these shows prefaced
their episodes with narrative voice-over informing the audience that the
drama rested on the premise of an alternate universe, well, viewers
might have suspended their disbelief at least long enough to learn
exactly what that universe was. He goes on to state the obvious: they
didn’t.
Of that last thought, I will disagree somewhat with Mr. Webb. The new world of televised dramatized classics is
the alternate universe. Its population consists of leftist producers,
directors, writers, and corporate boards whose constant handwringing
over their past racist and colonialist sins persuades them to distort
history and literature as a perverse act of atonement. The motive?
Perhaps they calculate that a rising generation of youths ignorant of
their past and disinclined to read will swallow whole their fabricated
“history” as 24-carat, solid-gold truth, thereby guaranteeing that they
won’t repeat the sins of their fathers.
Of course, this line of thinking flies directly in the face of logic.
If lords and ladies in England’s past really were black, they were also
privileged and, therefore, hardly objects of racism. But don’t expect
logic here. The kiddies and even adults must be schooled, and the
content of the curriculum includes as its main feature the Bridgerton
Effect.
What has happened on television has been occurring on stage for a
while. Is that also the Bridgerton Effect? Somehow casting a black
Javert on stage doesn’t fly in the face of literary sense the way it
would on television or film, possibly due to the theater’s unspoken
rule: audiences know they’re before in a theater with actors, living and
breathing one, right on the stage in front of them, but the audience
must pretend otherwise. That rule can take people only so far, and so
viewers of a play learn to wink at one another when something improbable
happens. (Read more.)
