Callie Crossley: It's The Takeaway. I'm Callie Crossley in this week for Tanzina Vega. Writer and producer, Shonda Rhimes is best known for her work on a number of successful network television dramas, including Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and How To Get Away With Murder. This month, Rhimes is making the leap to streaming with her Netflix debut, “Bridgerton.” The show is a romantic drama set in the high society of early 19th century, England, but unlike so many period pieces that depict the era with nearly all-White casts, Rhimes and the show's creator, Chris Van Dusen took a largely colorblind approach to casting for Bridgerton. In the series, King George the III's wife Queen Charlotte is Black. Here's actress and Adjoa Andoh as lady Danbury in a scene from the show explaining how the marriage has changed their society.
Adjoa Andoh: Look at our queen, look at our king, look at their marriage, look at everything it is doing for us, allowing us to become, we were two separate societies divided by color until a king fell in love with one of us. Love, your grace, conquers all.
Callie: While much of the show is fictionalized, some historians do actually believe that the real Queen Charlotte had African ancestry. For more on Bridgerton, I'm joined by Aramide Tinubu, film critic and entertainment writer. Thanks for being here, Aramide.
Aramide Tinubu: Hi, Callie. Thank you so much for having me.
Callie: I'm excited. In the book series that Bridgeton is based on, the characters are White. How much do you think the speculation around Queen Charlotte's race factored into the decision to cast actors of color in the show?
Aramide: It definitely did. In Julia Queen's novels, there is no mention of Queen Charlotte. I think that was a really interesting way for Rhimes and Van Dusen to bring in race without really talking about explicitly.
Callie: Would you give us a quick plot summary for our audience members who aren't familiar with Bridgeton?
Aramide: Certainly. The series is set in 1813 during the Regency era, it's the height of the marriage market in London, and there's a young woman, Daphne Bridgerton, she's the eldest daughter of the esteemed Bridgeton family, and she's being presented on the marriage market. She does not want to just be married to any old man, so she ends up plotting the scheme with the Duke of Hastings, her brother's oldest friend, and they begin to date each other as a way for women to leave him alone and for more matches to meet her interests, but they actually fall in love with one another inadvertently.
Callie: We just saw the scene where they explained why the world of the show is racially integrated, is race discussed explicitly at other points in the series?
Aramide: Not at all. That is the only point in which race is mentioned, which I think is really interesting because if race isn't this huge backdrop or isn't a huge plot point of a narrative, you can just get into the scandal and then the narrative of things without all of that history backing up the series.
Callie: What do you think about the decision not to center the plot around race? Does it work for the story?
Aramide: I think it works really well for Bridgerton. I think it's an excellent way to just let people enjoy this period and unless Shonda and Chris Van Dusen do their thing with the series, it doesn't really take away from anything in the plot. I know so often when we look at this time period, people of color are enslaved or they're servants, but it allows everyone to just be in this really salacious grandiose time.
Callie: How does the approach to addressing race in Bridgeton compared to how race factors in some of Rhimes's other shows?
Aramide: I think it's very different. She's always been known to do this colorblind casting as we've seen with Grey's Anatomy and Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder. However, race is explicitly talked about because the leads for Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder, in particular, are Black women. For this, it's very different because it's a past time period and it's really about women. It's about misogyny. It's about sexism and the things that women had to do in order to survive back in that time.
Callie: There've been some other recent period pieces that have either used colorblind casting or address race and racism more explicitly. Now, how do some of those works compared to Bridgerton?
Aramide: Definitely, if you look at Dev Patel in The Personal History of David Copperfield, which came out recently he's an Indian-British actor and he plays Charles Dickens' fictional character and race isn't discussed in the film at all. We've seen so many depictions of David Copperfield that I think no one was really bothered and moved by it as something like Belle, which is Amma Asante's 2013 novel with Google. It's about a real-life character, a mixed-race woman during the 1700s who comes of age in London society as well. I think it's been done definitely before, but I think this is the most mainstream way that it's been seen previously.
Callie: Now, does that mean there's a growing recognition among the Hollywood producers, that there actually is an audience for period pieces with more diverse guests?
Aramide: I think so. Certainly, I think Hollywood is definitely trying to keep up with the times or at least starting to keep up with the times. I think if you don't have any sort of a race narrative in your platter, in your story, it's definitely worthwhile to see people of all colors. Even there's Asian characters in Bridgerton, White characters, Black characters, you can see a really diverse world, as long as you're not doing a disservice to actual history and what people of color have gone through in their lives.
Callie: Were you a fan of period pieces growing up?
Aramide: Definitely. I was forced to read Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, all of those for--
Callie: Forced?
Aramide: It's by my father. I grew up in a Nigerian household so he was really, really a big fan of literature. For me, I've always just imagined myself in this time period. Anything that Jane Austin wrote, I love period pieces. I love Little Women when it came out last year. I think there's definitely room for all types of people to see themselves in these time periods without being enslaved people or servants.
Callie: That means you see yourself represented in these stories?
Aramide: Definitely. I can certainly relate to the women and the things that they go through, especially because until 1970, women couldn't even have their own bank accounts. You see Daphne trying to make a way for herself and her family by marrying the best person that she can.
Callie: Are there other genres where you think it would make sense for Hollywood to take a color-blind approach to casting?
Aramide: Definitely. I think that most genres you're able to do it, as long as you're not putting Julia Roberts as Harriet Tubman or anything crazy like that, but you look at horror, what Jordan Peele has done with the horror genre, romance certainly could use a lot more people of color in it. I think people are slowly coming along. Superheroes, you see that genre start to shift and change, especially with Disney+'s announcement of all of the various series and films that they're about to debut. I think we're coming along. It's not quite as fast as I would like, but we're making a way here.
Callie: Is there excitement about Bridgeton? Are you hearing that?
Aramide: Certainly. I think it's number one, both in the UK and in the US. I think people are really enticed to see what's going to happen. I know Julia Quinn has always had a really huge robust fanbase. They're really excited to see what Shonda Rhimes has done with it.
Callie: Aramide Tinubu is a film critic and entertainment writer. Thanks, Aramide.
Aramide: Thank you.
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