The classic, well-made rom-com (itself descended from Austen) has faded from its prime place in the film landscape, barring an occasionally delightful exception.
The “Sanditon Sisterhood’’ expressed a yearning that many fans of onscreen romance feel.
The equation of a Regency story with a final, well-earned wedding scene helps explain why fans of Sanditon, which was based on an unfinished Austen fragment, organized so passionately for its revival after the first season closed with unexpected heartbreak. It’s hard to forget, especially in the lighter, more humorous second season. The Bridgerton team gestures at this: technicolor costumes, string quartets playing contemporary pop songs, and cheeky cutaways remind the audience that even in serious moments, this is supposed to be fun. The ideal of racial coexistence presented by these series fits in with the optimism of the Regency Romance genre, in which happy endings tend to resolve interpersonal and social tension, heroines narrowly get away with flouting convention, and heroes are always talented at satisfying their wives in bed. Sanditon‘s supporting cast features a Black heiress (as written by Austen) who is best friends with the heroine, and The Courtship gives its heroine, Miss Rémy, also a woman of color, regal authority over not just her love life, but the whole conceit. Brexit-era England, this is not.īoth The Courtship and Sanditon have racially diverse casts and characters, too, marking a departure from previous Austen-inspired efforts. They are easily welcomed, despite a few raised eyebrows about their mother’s hasty marriage.
In season 2 of Bridgerton, the heroines are the Sharmas, sisters newly arrived in England from Bombay. Yet our cultural imagination doesn’t go to these troubling places as quickly, opening the door to what Bridgerton’s creators have described as a “fantasy” Regency that, while rooted in history, is actually more tolerant and harmonious than what you might find in 2022 America-a universe where interracial relationships receive no condemnation, women speak their mind, escape to the seedy side of town, and flirt with few lasting consequences, while every good parent ultimately counsels their child to choose love over convenience. The social stratification, abject poverty, and oppression of women we might associate with the Victorian era was present in the Regency era, too. In reality, Festa says, the Regency era was built on vast “structures of exploitation.” Austen’s writing includes brief references to the way slavery’s profits fed the lifestyle of British society, a bitter truth that is examined more openly in the new season of Sanditon.
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