Period dramas: Historical accuracy, race, class, and all that entails
There are a lot of unspoken truths to unpack when it comes to historical fiction media
From Bridgerton to Downton Abbey, many period dramas focus on the glitz of the elite upper class. (Pexels/cottonbro studio)
For any number of reasons, we are deeply fascinated by the past. There are entire academic fields dedicated to studying it and its events, figures, fashion, literature, technologies, philosophies, social norms, politics, artistry, architecture, and so on.
And then there are those who are not, let us say “academic” when it comes to their interest. They are attracted to a shallow, nebulous, and romanticized aesthetic of the past — an idealized presentation you would find in a 19th century oil painting or a 1950s advertisement. This is where period dramas enter the scene to scratch that itch with some “pop” historical fiction.
Period dramas, and most fans thereof, do not necessarily advocate a rejection of modern values or a return to tradition, but it is still worth examining the idealization and romanization that follows the genre.
Particular attention is on the Netflix adaptation of romance novel series Bridgerton. The show is set in an alternate history where the British Regency Period achieves racial equality and opens the doors of nobility to Afro-Britons thanks to George III’s marriage to Queen Charlotte who is — in real life, apocryphally — biracial. Those who reject the casting of BIPOC actors in period pieces under the rallying-cry of “historical accuracy” will find no sympathy here.
Regency England was a racially diverse society and there is documentation of Black people being celebrated by high society or having the means to be wealthier than their, majority, working-class foils. Though this does not place Bridgerton above criticism.
The U.K. banned slave trading in 1807 and slavery itself in 1833 both by acts of Parliament. The show’s colour-blind approach has been criticized for failing to consider the challenges that Black people would face in a society that very recently saw them as property and an under class. It could be called a sanitization of the racism inherent to a society that actively built its wealth on slavery, the labour of lower-class “others,” and at the expense of Indigenous inhabitants of overseas colonies.
I want to mention Mad Men and Downton Abbey, too, because they fit the thread that I am tugging at here. The former, a prestige series by HBO, is far more honest about the regressive social norms of the 1960s, though still has its share of anachronisms and inaccuracies. The latter, by ITV, celebrates the conservatism of the early 20th century British aristocracy rather than challenge it.
That is something all three shows, and historical period dramas in general, have in common — an overfocus on the upper class as the protagonists of history. The slick-suited professional Don Draper, the blue-bloods-by-right-of-birth Crawley family, and ditto with the cast of Bridgerton with a dash of 18th century Black excellence.
It is a case of propaganda that has transcended time periods and survives into today. Stories and lifestyles of the privileged elite are well documented, whereas the lower class who toiled the fields, laid the bricks, and manned the assembly lines are largely anonymized.
While media that highlights working-class and impoverished lives does exist, they ultimately have to compete against the visual feast that comes part-and-parcel with the glitzy spectacles of dance balls, soirees, mansions, castles, tuxedos, and gowns.
While period dramas do criticize their respective eras as modes of story and character conflict, there remains an inescapable magnetism towards the upper crust because they live, and have lived, publicly viewable lives that we gawk at on one hand, but also will put on a pedestal when we compare our material conditions to their own.
