Reply to Bridgerton Season 4

Forum Index » Entertainment and Pop Culture

Reply to "Bridgerton Season 4"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I just finished the first episode and it seemed so rushed to me. It really did not feel believable he would change his entire life course based on that interaction! And kind of gross he had been having sex with someone else a couple hours before that.[/quote]

To me it is not that he was having sex with someone else but just that the bisexual plot line has always felt fake to me. Same as when they wanted to show that Colin was more sexually adventurous, they showed him in bed with TWO women. Like just the most basic and cliche thing possible.

I am interested to see if they address his bisexuality with Sophie as their love story progresses. Like does he tell her?

One thing that has always bugged me about it is that he obviously keeps it completely secret from his family, yet he's actually surprisingly not that careful about it when he is out at bars -- it looked pretty out in the open this season. Realistically, this would be the kind of thing that is NEVER spoken about "in society" especially not by his mother or the rest of his family. But it seems absurd it wouldn't be disclosed to Sophie, especially because of how the show likes to take a fairly modern approach to sexuality even while being set in Regency England.

If this were a real story, the truth is that Sophie would happily turn a blind eye to it even if she hated it because marrying Benedict would literally solve every problem she has whether she was into him or not. That he's actually a really nice guy from a genuinely good, not dysfunctional, not abusive family would make it a no brainer even if she was totally repulsed by his bisexuality. Though also if it was a real story, her sex life with him would likely be limited and then she'd wind up in charge of the kids and household while he continued to carry on affairs throughout their marriage. The idea that someone with Benedict's sexual history would settle down and be faithful to his wife at the age of 30 until death is silly.

So very curious how they will address it, if at all. It will be extra stupid if they just totally drop it and are like "well now that he's found 'the one' it doesn't matter." I just don't buy it. But I also would not really buy Sophie being into it or even participating in that lifestyle, unless they expand on her character in a way that would make that make sense.[/quote]

I’m guessing you’ve never read a historical romance novel. The reformed rake trope is very popular.[/quote]

The show is way more "woke" than the novels, though. Benedict is not even bi in the books, which are just straight up hetero historical romances. It's the same with Francesca's story -- they are making John's cousins a woman in order to infuse some LGBTQ diversity to the story, but that's not how it is in the books.

Which makes the "reformed rake" trope for Benedict problematic. Because in the book where he's just sleeping around a lot, the idea is that he falls in love with Sophie, his true love, and leaves that all behind him. But the show has set him up as a bisexual man where his bisexuality isn't him "being bad" the way the Benedict in the book is. It's an expression of who he is as a person. They went to great trouble to portray it that way with his whole menage a trois relationship.

So I'm curious if they even address his bisexuality with Sophie, or if any aspect of his past is ever truly "out of the closet" with her. If this were a modern story, audiences would want to see it disclosed both because of general disdain for any form of closeting and because it would feel dishonest in a modern relationship to conceal that from a romantic partner. But it's not a modern romance, and closeting is pretty essential in the time period Bradenton is set in, plus realistically disclosing to Sophie complicates the love story from her perspective, and Bridgerton is all about the feminine perspective.

This is why I wish they hadn't introduced these LGBTQ elements to the story in the show. It doesn't really work. It works great in a show like Heated Rivalry because all of these issues -- closeting, disclosure -- are an intrinsic part of the story, since the romance was conceived as a gay love story form the start. In Bridgerton it rings false. It's okay to just have a hetero romance, which is what this was. I think they mucked it up trying to be inclusive.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics