In an early scene of Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, the title Charlotte vents in her carriage about the clothes she is wearing. She criticizes the kilos of dress that she wears on top of her and that hardly allow her to move, the rhinestones that could tear the fabrics and the corset made with whale bones, as fragile as they are pointed, which could pierce her skin at any moment. and murder her.
The outburst, in reality, is not against the fashion of the 18th century but against his brother, Adolf Frederick IV of Meclemburgo-Strelitz, who has just signed a document for which he must marry George III of the United Kingdom. Summing it up, the script turns this set into a representation of the patriarchy before which she is helpless and without the possibility of choice.
With the actress India Amarteifio reciting the lines of running, indignant, angry and cynical, you can soon understand who is behind the project: none other than Shonda Rhimes. She is the creator of Grey's Anatomy, Scandal and Who is Anna, with these last two series as standard bearers of dramatic soliloquies, who had only served as executive producer on The Bridgertons since Shondaland, her producer, who developed the project for Netflix with Chris Van Dusen as creator.
Rhimes's position as the person in charge makes it possible to understand that, despite being able to interpret Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story as an unnecessary prequel to The Bridgertons, this time focusing on the monarch's youth and a marriage that changed the conventions of the time, those behind the cameras have another conception of the work: it can be complementary but not less.
In the new Netflix series, Carlota is seventeen years old and, after the death of her father, her brother nominates her as the future queen of the United Kingdom. On her wedding day, when she plans to climb the wall while the guests wait in the church, she meets Jorge, who will be her husband. With a firm gaze, a seductive smile, declared hobbies in the arts, sciences, astronomy and even agriculture, she Carlota decides to marry him. Of course, the story takes an unexpected detour right after.
The love story is the main plot but there are two others in parallel. One is the introduction of non-whites into aristocratic circles, who until then had had to move into the background of society despite their fortunes. This allows insight into, for example, the marriage of Lady Danbury, the antithesis of the romantic ideal. The other plot is located in the future with Queen Charlotte by Golda Rosheuvel facing her greatest challenge: that one of her children, of whom she has a dozen left, finally has descendants.
Queen Charlotte drags an original sin of The Bridgertons: embracing uchronia with an astonishing arbitrariness and convenience in terms of racial themes. One could understand, for example, the choice of actors regardless of their features with the aim of not discriminating against anyone in the casting process, understanding as a spectator that royalty and the aristocracy were actually Caucasian. One could also understand a postmodern reinterpretation of the time, challenging our view of the 18th and 19th centuries by establishing a contemporary demography with its own identity, a well-thought-out operation.
Instead, Rhimes, as Van Dusen did before, creates an aristocracy with rules of convenience: Carlota arrives from German territory but at the British court the color of her skin and the texture of her hair surprise her. Are we to assume that the mainland is more anti-racist than the British Isles? At what point are the Asian and African elites supposed to have arrived in the country, taking into account that they are settled? And for what purpose is British history rewritten in an anti-racist key but the same is not done in terms of feminism or the LGBT community? Why, then, are there no socialist readings? Consequently, historical and demographic licenses are as free as they are banal.
But, having said this (which, let's face it, matters to few viewers considering the success of this fictional universe among Netflix subscribers), a virtue at the start of the season should also be recognized: his ability to draw a romance with chemistry, which generates interest in its development, and the extraordinary sense of smell in the choice of the leading lovers. When India Amarteifio and Corey Mylchreest share their first scene, they win over the audience with sparks reminiscent of Phoebe Dynevor and Regé-Jean Page in the first season of The Bridgertons. Automatically, the public is a prisoner of their relationship, which begins with a marriage of convenience and must evolve into something deeper.
Shonda Rhimes's dialogues have that overwhelming and pseudo-brilliant quality that those of Scandal already exhibited or those of How to Defend a Murderer, which she did not create but was adapted to her style; social dynamics are never emancipated from the absurdity in which they are framed, by making epochs à la carte in order to have epic romances in a period context; and Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story might as well have been spared the future Charlotte plot, an unnecessary clump to tie the two series together. Does this matter? Possibly not, since the chemistry and rhythm, which is what this fictional universe promises, has them.
