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> Bridgerton (playing on my TV right now) and observe how half the people in regency England, including the Queen, are now black. Do you also get mad when the

> Bridgerton (playing on my TV right now) and observe how half the people in regency England, including the Queen, are now black. Do you also get mad when the characters speak in modern english, or is that just fine? Is it woke, or are you sensitive to race?

baq 5y ago
what? in the history of England, the United Kingdom and the whole Commonwealth there has not been a single instance of a king or queen being anything other than - here comes the dreaded word - white. what's the point of making them black? coming from Eastern Europe, it's like you made John Paul II black - or any of the patriarchs of Eastern Christian Churches. you can do it, but it's so far offbeat it isn't even funny. in the US, I guess you could make Lincoln, Washington and Reagan black. they just weren't.
- PascLeRasc 5y ago
  It's a modern reimagining of the regency environment. If you pay attention you'll notice that most of the soundtrack are covers of pop songs.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > in the history of England, the United Kingdom and the whole Commonwealth there has not been a single instance of a king or queen being anything other than - here comes the dreaded word - white. This is, in fact, (while completely beside the point) wrong. There are several non-white Kings and Queens in the history of the Commonwealth; e.g., Mswati III of the Kingdom of Eswatini. > what's the point of making them black? What's the point of alternate history and historically-inspired fantasy? That's a kind of big question. Do you literally think every film or show should simply depict life literally exactly how it actually occurred at some time in the past? > in the US, I guess you could make Lincoln, Washington and Reagan black. Or make Lincoln a vampire hunter. (Of course, there isn't a long history of rumors that Lincoln actually was a vampire hunter taking as their starting point a too-literal reading of contemporary descriptions probably meant as throw-away insults.) The complaints about Bridgerton seem to be highly-selective blindness to the entire concept that overtly fictional entertainment is typically something other than an exact recreation of history. (And/or assertion that race is somehow a uniquely unacceptable thing to fictionalize for unspecified reasons.)
- MrMan 5y ago
  Or that terrible woke Hamilton play
zmgsabst 5y ago
Replacing White people in medieval England with black people is no different than portraying an African tribe as led by White members — the exact same racism that “woke” people pretend to care about. “Woke” racists are the usual source of such race-swapping, because they’re obsessed with race and can’t simply tell a story as it makes sense.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Replacing White people in medieval England The period in question isn't medieval England. > can’t simply tell a story as it makes sense. Using a literal historical setting unchanged doesn't make sense when the central premise of a story is taking a particular ahistorical (though historically rumored) fact proposition and dialing it to 11. It's like making a complaint about the political intent of the X-Files because it shows unrealistic FBI procedures rather than telling the “story as it makes sense”.
- kenjackson 5y ago
  The show Bridgerton is an alternate reality. I think if you wanted to do an alternate reality of slavery with white slaves captured in Africa, I don't think you'd get complaints from the "woke" except to the extent that it takes jobs. But I think you could do a script where casting whites in this role made sense.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - native_samples 4y ago
    I think if you wanted to do an alternate reality of slavery with white slaves captured in Africa, I don't think you'd get complaints from the "woke" except to the extent that it takes jobs This is so far out of touch it's unreal. Woke people are currently trying to claim that maths education is racist because too many famous mathematicians are white. And you're claiming those same people would have no issue whatsoever with making a TV show about the history of Africa in which the Africans were all depicted by white people? It's hilarious and sad that people are actually reduced to trying to claim that. And no, Bridgerton is not some fantasy or alternate reality. For goodness sake. Absolutely nothing in it is out of place in any way for the time except the races of all the actors.

baq 5y ago

what? in the history of England, the United Kingdom and the whole Commonwealth there has not been a single instance of a king or queen being anything other than - here comes the dreaded word - white. what's the point of making them black? coming from Eastern Europe, it's like you made John Paul II black - or any of the patriarchs of Eastern Christian Churches. you can do it, but it's so far offbeat it isn't even funny. in the US, I guess you could make Lincoln, Washington and Reagan black. they just weren't.

PascLeRasc 5y ago
It's a modern reimagining of the regency environment. If you pay attention you'll notice that most of the soundtrack are covers of pop songs.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> in the history of England, the United Kingdom and the whole Commonwealth there has not been a single instance of a king or queen being anything other than - here comes the dreaded word - white. This is, in fact, (while completely beside the point) wrong. There are several non-white Kings and Queens in the history of the Commonwealth; e.g., Mswati III of the Kingdom of Eswatini. > what's the point of making them black? What's the point of alternate history and historically-inspired fantasy? That's a kind of big question. Do you literally think every film or show should simply depict life literally exactly how it actually occurred at some time in the past? > in the US, I guess you could make Lincoln, Washington and Reagan black. Or make Lincoln a vampire hunter. (Of course, there isn't a long history of rumors that Lincoln actually was a vampire hunter taking as their starting point a too-literal reading of contemporary descriptions probably meant as throw-away insults.) The complaints about Bridgerton seem to be highly-selective blindness to the entire concept that overtly fictional entertainment is typically something other than an exact recreation of history. (And/or assertion that race is somehow a uniquely unacceptable thing to fictionalize for unspecified reasons.)
MrMan 5y ago
Or that terrible woke Hamilton play

zmgsabst 5y ago

Replacing White people in medieval England with black people is no different than portraying an African tribe as led by White members — the exact same racism that “woke” people pretend to care about. “Woke” racists are the usual source of such race-swapping, because they’re obsessed with race and can’t simply tell a story as it makes sense.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Replacing White people in medieval England The period in question isn't medieval England. > can’t simply tell a story as it makes sense. Using a literal historical setting unchanged doesn't make sense when the central premise of a story is taking a particular ahistorical (though historically rumored) fact proposition and dialing it to 11. It's like making a complaint about the political intent of the X-Files because it shows unrealistic FBI procedures rather than telling the “story as it makes sense”.
kenjackson 5y ago
The show Bridgerton is an alternate reality. I think if you wanted to do an alternate reality of slavery with white slaves captured in Africa, I don't think you'd get complaints from the "woke" except to the extent that it takes jobs. But I think you could do a script where casting whites in this role made sense.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- native_samples 4y ago
  I think if you wanted to do an alternate reality of slavery with white slaves captured in Africa, I don't think you'd get complaints from the "woke" except to the extent that it takes jobs This is so far out of touch it's unreal. Woke people are currently trying to claim that maths education is racist because too many famous mathematicians are white. And you're claiming those same people would have no issue whatsoever with making a TV show about the history of Africa in which the Africans were all depicted by white people? It's hilarious and sad that people are actually reduced to trying to claim that. And no, Bridgerton is not some fantasy or alternate reality. For goodness sake. Absolutely nothing in it is out of place in any way for the time except the races of all the actors.