Women, Agency and Public History: How Period Dramas like Bridgerton Deal in Historical Narratives

Netflix’s highly popular period drama Bridgerton returns for its second season this March. Image via Netflix

By Sasha Gordon, First Year History

With the new season of Bridgerton launching, Sasha unpacks the complicated nature of female agency in Bridgerton, as well as the role that period dramas have in informing public history.

‘Gossip Girl meets Jane Austen’ was how the first season of the Netflix original Bridgerton was sold. Although highly lacking in historical accuracy, it drew me in with the same addictive quality of a reality show. I, like many others, was entranced with the scandal, mystery and luxury that is central to the plot. 

For those of you out there who have somehow resisted or avoided one of the most-watched shows of 2021, Season 1 follows the story of the eldest Bridgerton daughter, Daphne, trying to find a husband in Regency London, and as such brings up questions about the agency of women. In honour of Women’s History Month (and certainly not as an excuse for a rewatch ahead of the release of Season 2 on 25 March), let’s examine the presentation of women in this smash-hit story.

At surface level, Bridgerton centres around women’s passivity as they are bartered like objects on the marriage market by their brothers and fathers in order to achieve the maximum social status. However, in some ways, the story is actually driven by female agency.

Taking the protagonist Daphne as an example, the plot centres around the scheme she devises to avoid marrying a man she detests. Although she needs Simon Bassett, the Duke of Hastings for her scheme to succeed, it is she who drives the plan, instructing him on what to do and how to act to guarantee success. She is shrewd and understands the nature of her social environment. In Daphne Bridgerton, we see a woman who refuses a fate she doesn’t want and does everything in her power to prevent it.

The Dowager Viscountess Violet Bridgerton exercises her agency in a similar way to her daughter. Violet’s character crystallises a pattern that has occurred throughout the centuries for noblewomen, in that widowhood was often their greatest period of independence and power. Likewise, it is no coincidence that the women in the series who wield the most agency and dictate their own lives regardless of social norms – Lady Danbury and Queen Charlotte – are both older women who do not have an actively present husband. 

Although Daphne does have some agency, it is extremely limited to a specific scope. Only within the London social scene can she exert any influence and furthermore wields that agency to achieve the traditionally feminine roles of wife and mother, choices that may feel somewhat reductive to the modern viewer. While she might make these choices freely, her inability to aspire to anything beyond heterosexual marriage undermines her agency. In this sense, her use of agency is a means to a patriarchal end. 

If the – albeit limited - personal agency of women in the social sphere is represented by Daphne and others, the restriction of agency by circumstances is highlighted by her younger sister Eloise. Her rightful critique of female confinement is dismissed as childish whining even by female characters who claim agency in their own ways, notably Daphne, Violet and Penelope. As season two quickly approaches, questions remain as to how Eloise may continue to rail against these gender norms in new and nuanced ways within the Regency era context. 

Of course, this whole discussion has a heavily classed aspect. There are few female working-class characters or even those with occupations at all, and of these, the narrative of Siena, an opera singer and ex-lover of the oldest Bridgerton brother, is driven solely by her economic reliance on men. Although this may reflect a harsh historical truth – that the intersectionality of womanhood and economic disadvantage created a double barrier – it suggests that only wealthy women were able to claim agency in any shape or form, a deeply damaging idea. 

Representations of Regency Women in History. Image via Anglotopia

Ultimately, the reality of life for women in Regency England is not accurately portrayed in Bridgerton. Although the Bridgerton family encourages love matches, very few women would have had Daphne’s degree of choice when selecting a partner, especially amongst the upper classes where political marriages were of the utmost importance.

While conversations emerged on female agency emerged in the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, and contemporaries such as Catherine Macaulay and Hannah Lawrence, this scholarship was a product of privilege. There were certainly working-class women who exercised agency in order to survive, but the current historical field still lacks the engagement with and sources of these individuals.

With 82 million households watching within the first 28 days of availability, it is clear that there is public demand for period dramas. It is also not the only one, with other major period dramas such as Downton Abbey, Peaky Blinders and Call the Midwife all attracting high viewership. Indeed, period dramas are amongst the most common ways in which the general public interact with history.  

Many period dramas reveal a different world from the ‘great man’ history often taught in schools: instead of focusing on global politics or the affairs of the aristocracy, shows like Peaky Blinders and Call the Midwife shed light on lesser-known stories of poverty, healthcare, crime and so forth, only including notable historical events as and when they are relevant.

However, whilst period dramas can often shed some light on the realities of life for the working classes and oppressed peoples, there is a very present danger of oversimplification or even over-glamourisation of their lives. After all, writers want to make compelling television and often sacrifice details for the sake of the narrative. 

Of course, not all period dramas follow the same pattern, with Bridgerton failing in providing a nuanced historical view. Nevertheless, its appeal lies in its human nature: it is about people and their stories, comparable to any modern-day soap opera. Viewers are attracted because there are characteristics onscreen that they recognise, whether it be determined Daphne, stubborn Eloise or overlooked Penelope. Whilst we should most certainly not imagine that period dramas are rooted in historical truth, they are useful in helping us visualise characters of the past as people with the same instincts and feelings as ourselves.

To sum up, period dramas deserve their place within the spectrum of historical ‘sources’. We should not look to them for knowledge, but if they spark public interest in history, this can only be a good thing. Given the invisibility of women from the majority of historical sources, period dramas can be an excellent way to represent the lives of women as present and active.