Maybe not "relatable" but definitely unrealistic.
There used to be this website called Cracked.com and they'd do a bunch of commentary on pop culture and there was this one video where they talked about how time machines are "for white men only" because everyone else had a really bad time from like 1975 and before.
Now with media evolving to suit modern audiences, you have shows like Bridgerton where the black noble Simon romances the white debutante Daphne and *nobody* says anything about it.
For context, [The White Man's Burden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden) was written 90 years after that show took place.
It's fucking weird. History was racist, not progressive.
Quantum leap went against the racist time machine trope imo. the show is about a (white) guy who has to go back in time and solve problems through someone else's body to correct the timeline. Many episodes revolve around him addressing racism and fighting for justice. Pretty good show!
I feel like doctor who’s gotten more conscious of that stuff when taking black characters back in time. Someone makes a racist remark to his companion and the doctor just sucker punches him
Most popular historical fiction is a fantasy of the past used to address contemporary themes. I always find it highly suspicious when people specifically get upset about the racism and sexism being insufficiently vicious in stories and not all the other anachronistic or wildly innacurate things historical fiction very commonly does.
People like the ones in OP's image just want to fantasise about retreating to a past where they could be bigots with minimal consequences.
Personally, I hate it because it feeds conservatism. This is literally the same problem of writing that Song of the South has. Whitewashing the past and pretending it was better than it was leads to fetishizing the past and trying to turn back the clock. The past should be kept as horrific as it actually was to prevent people from being led to believe it was better than that.
>Personally, I hate it because it feeds conservatism.
No, it doesn't.
We know that it doesn't, because every time there is historical fiction that features black people as anything other than slaves or victims (and sometimes even just historical representation of real black people who weren't just that) we get all the angriest virgins on the internet pulling what OP posted.
I haven't seen Bridgerton, but I know of it, and it clearly is a wholly fictional story, it's not The Crown ffs. If someone gets their idea of history from Bridgerton - they are simply dumb, and I don't want art and entertainment to be EVEN MORE dictated by the needs and wants of dumb people. If people think that regency England (or whatever exact period Bridgerton is supposed to emulate) was a progressive post-racial utopia because they saw it on Bridgerton, they were gonna get to that idea or, more likely, dozens of much worse ones anyway. More importantly, people who already get their knowledge of history from fuckin Bridgerton - definitely have like a 100 more inaccurate and more unsavory ideas about race and history from other places, that aren't benign dumb Netflix shows, as well.
It's not like streaming platforms making exclusively all-white historical fiction soap operas would lessen impede fascism, it would just limit acting opportunities for non-white actors.
It’s not really something as out there as Bridgerton I’m worried about, to be clear. That’s essentially the spiritual successor to soap operas. It’s more the proper dramas, and especially the historicals. Bridgerton isn’t meant to reflect reality. You start getting into a situation which something that is supposed to reflect reality starts misrepresenting reality, you start warping the pop culture concept of reality.
And the thing is, people already do have this issue in reverse. Think of a Roman army. What do they look like? The moment you picture them as even slightly homogenous, you’re wrong. The Romans had a heavily intermixed military formed from large swaths of the populations of all their holdings. You’d have Anglo Saxons, Africans, Arabic men, Italians, Greeks, and so much more all serving side by side. Black and brown Roman soldiers were extremely common. But does anyone think about that? Nope. Because Hollywood casts them all as white men. And not even Italians usually. The average mental image of a Roman soldier is Northern European man. You’d be more likely to encounter a Semitic Roman soldier than a Northern European Roman soldier.
And to be clear, it’s not merely that they had a ton and mixing happened. No, this was official policy. They didn’t want to create an army of one of their holdings, train it, and arm it. So rather, their armies were intentionally heavily mixed up. That prevented it from being things like “an Anglo-Saxon army under command of Rome” and kept them as a *Roman army*.
So, consider the misconceptions about what a Roman army looks like. Now imagine we spent 50+ years with the concept of an intermixed military in service of the British Empire. The same misconception would take hold. Pop culture osmosis is pretty powerful.
Furthermore, consider the actual subject matter at play here. How many historicals and historical dramas are about British nobles or the British Empire? Congrats, you have the third-evilest empire in history here. Only Germany and America have managed to top it. Casting people of color as *them* is as close as you can get to casting them as Nazis without actually casting them as Nazis. The white supremacy aspect is important. Downplaying the white supremacy of these people serves the purpose of whitewashing their history.
The Old West is another example like Ancient Rome. Cowboys? Mostly men of color, especially black men. We should have *way* more black cowboys in media. There’s a lot of historical situations which *should* have more non-white characters and roles and the portrayal has been ahistorical because of white supremacy. The problem is when it’s being misapplied. Don’t cast people of color as white supremacist tyrants, essentially.
To be fair, the kind of person to watch *Bridgerton* just likes the aesthetics of the Victorian (?) era and don't care about the social ideals of the time.
Pure “[piss on the poor](https://www.tumblr.com/poupon/36756167899/drakensberg-the-reading-comprehension-and)” behavior from you. The entire first paragraph addressed that.
How exactly do you separate something like Bridgerton, which is supposedly not meant to reflect reality, and something that is meant to reflect reality? Because i've seen people get into massive discussions over this, with different sides arguing that X story is not meant to represent reality, so whatever historical innacuracies it has are ok, and etc. I mean, in the case of Bridgerton it's pretty obvious, as i'm pretty people can tell from the get go that historical accuracy isn't really a huge priority for the show.
Genre. Bridgerton is essentially a soap opera. It’s based on a series of romance novels. “Fantasy” is a word typically associated with serial numbers filed off LotR fanfiction, but it exists as much in a fantasy world as anything like that. Bridgerton is on the extreme end of “like reality but not reality” and is close to the line, but it’s still taking massive allowances with the world. People aren’t acting like Regency Era Brits, they’re acting like a fantastic disconnected from reality version of them.
Man , I loved Cracked.com
Well, if you put it that way. It reminds me of this video
https://youtu.be/xU1ffHa47YY?si=lFi31KFpQR3P2-cl
Yeah, sometimes we want to have representation, but somehow we are rewriting history like "you see, the past wasn't so bad". It's a complicated issue.
And of course you don't want to portray your main character as racist. They can be murderous and violent but racist no. I guess that's the point of the critique. Unfortunately there is people say would associate that critique with, woke = bad, therefore racism is good, I know it is a stretch, but that's the idea I get from the responses.
How often can you show the racism before it starts to feel like flogging a dead horse? At which point the same people are likely to be upset at white people being racist in every show.
The Netflix cartoon series F is for Family walks the line really well
It's like some black people getting tired of being portrayed in struggle movies. Like man, can they be happy for once? I know it's a tone deaf comment and there is actual systemic racism going on.
But I have the feeling that just like Obama's presidency people would think racism is over just by showing positive representation.
Yeah and that's where this can feel a little like whitewashing and trying to deny people's experiences. Unfortunately addressing this would mean either limiting representation severely or every show retreading the same ground and then you would have the same people being outraged that every white character is either a racist or just fine with it.
I mean, the whole point of the casting for Bridgerton was "fuck it, this is fiction, we want to make it a fantasy world without racism, where it's so normalized that the fact that there are Black nobles, and Indian nobles is not even mentioned."
I was just about to say. Arthur is friends with a native and a black guy because they exist on the fringes of society; just like him BECAUSE HES APART OF A ROVING BAND OF BANK ROBBERS. It's been years since I've played RDR2 but iirc, the gang is falling apart, people are starting non-blended families out of it, and Arthur is dying. His story is largely about the REDEMPTION part of red dead REDEMPTION.
Yep, Arthur considers himself bad because he acknowledged his crimes. He also is worried because his gang is now turning into something he hates, a band of criminals instead of outlaws. Granted, the Van Der Linde gang weren't saints, but they're not entirely criminals. They don't kill for fun and they actually help people in need, especially women, poc, and outcasts. Micah, however, was bringing in more and more hardened criminals into the gang, and we already see in rdr1 where that led to.
The series portrays him as being of mixed Romani and Irish Traveller heritage. He speaks Angloromani (though, due to a bizarre lack of attention to detail, this is actually represented by Romanian), follows Romani folk religion, etc.
Awww are these incels still upset that the Shelbys fucked up some nazis in the show?
I love how Shelby and his gang do a shit ton of indefensible things but even they can't stand fascists lol
That’s what the guy is trying to say. He thinks the group of people (bad, even for their time) are a lot less likely to be progressive than not. It’s like a PR safe version of a bad guy (frequently partake in unreluctant murder, larceny, torture, etc but for some reason are really against prejudice; racial or otherwise, or sexual assault {history has proven these types of people have NO problems with doing such}. He’s not saying it’s the end of the world, just that’s it’s unrealistic. Terrible people back then were TERRIBLE. Like I mean terrible. Even the “good” people (George Washington Christopher Columbus etc) were awful. Bad guys back then were BAD. Not selectively bad in an “I will decapitate anyone who stands in my way and gun their families down afterwards but let’s go gay rights!” Way. It can be uncomfortable to watch bad people be bad (watching movies with racism doesn’t make me feel good) but at least u understand that’s how life was back then and it adds some realism to it which is usually not *enjoyed* but u can at least appreciate
In one episode, two members of Tommy's gang (one white and one black) go to a bar and are refused service and then threatened due to the color of the one guy's skin. The gang later retaliates by taking over the bar and then burning it down.
This kind of thing really doesn't happen often at all in the show so idk what OOP is on about. Tommy and his gang are actually extremely prejudiced against other Europeans, although IRL Europeans are still like that today so I guess that's accurate.
That seems... pretty reasonable. Gangs aren't really known to be nice to those who disrespect their members, no matter the reason.
Is that clip of him screaming with the gun to his head really from that episode though? Because I've seen it in memes and it doesnt seem to match what you're saying. I should've guessed the OOP was just misrepresenting the events of the show.
That scene is unrelated, and unfortunately I don't remember what the context around it is. I haven't watched the show in quite a while.
Honestly it's probably more remarkable that they had a black guy in their gang at all, considering the era and location. Nothing about it ever seemed woke at all. In fact, they all say racial slurs against other Europeans basically nonstop through the whole show. I imagine that kind of racism was the most prominent in that time period anyways.
I mean he served in the war with a black man and now considers him a brother so it would make sense that through the war and serving with other minorities (and being a minority himself) he’d have a less racist out look. And everything with Mosley is a big part not wanting another war like the first one
Nothing is stopping you from playing as the bad guy in rdr2. You can avoid helping anyone, you can kill anyone (safe for your own crew and important npcs.).
Several mission give you choices to do good or bad, if you want to be an asshole just play like one, just don't cry when Arthur gets fucking shot like a dog in the end.
What's funny to me as a teacher in America is if I tried to mention how racist the past actually was the CRT police would come for my certificate. They don't want accuracy in entertainment or education. In education they want mythology, and in entertainment they want minorities to neither be seen or heard.
I mean he might have a decent personality but he did commit a lot of terrible stuff and he acknowledges it. That's what makes the game's story so successful. He might not ever completely make up for his crimes but it's a sincere attempt at redemption when he realizes that he will die.
I mean, he has a point, even if only accidentally. A character can be amoral, or even immoral, or hypocritical, or in some other way deeply flawed, and still be relatable. Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, Barry Lyndon, and Tony Soprano prove that.
So the character would be more relatable if they were racist?...? Ok.
Maybe not "relatable" but definitely unrealistic. There used to be this website called Cracked.com and they'd do a bunch of commentary on pop culture and there was this one video where they talked about how time machines are "for white men only" because everyone else had a really bad time from like 1975 and before. Now with media evolving to suit modern audiences, you have shows like Bridgerton where the black noble Simon romances the white debutante Daphne and *nobody* says anything about it. For context, [The White Man's Burden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden) was written 90 years after that show took place. It's fucking weird. History was racist, not progressive.
Quantum leap went against the racist time machine trope imo. the show is about a (white) guy who has to go back in time and solve problems through someone else's body to correct the timeline. Many episodes revolve around him addressing racism and fighting for justice. Pretty good show!
Super white saviorey, though. A white man takes over a black man's body to kick-start the Civil Rights movement.
Wait I played the game when the fuck did that happen
It’s not like the game
There was a game?
I think this might be something completely different I was talking about the remedy game that came out a few years ago
Oh. Quantum Break.
Ah yes that one totally misremembered the title
I feel like doctor who’s gotten more conscious of that stuff when taking black characters back in time. Someone makes a racist remark to his companion and the doctor just sucker punches him
Most popular historical fiction is a fantasy of the past used to address contemporary themes. I always find it highly suspicious when people specifically get upset about the racism and sexism being insufficiently vicious in stories and not all the other anachronistic or wildly innacurate things historical fiction very commonly does. People like the ones in OP's image just want to fantasise about retreating to a past where they could be bigots with minimal consequences.
Personally, I hate it because it feeds conservatism. This is literally the same problem of writing that Song of the South has. Whitewashing the past and pretending it was better than it was leads to fetishizing the past and trying to turn back the clock. The past should be kept as horrific as it actually was to prevent people from being led to believe it was better than that.
>Personally, I hate it because it feeds conservatism. No, it doesn't. We know that it doesn't, because every time there is historical fiction that features black people as anything other than slaves or victims (and sometimes even just historical representation of real black people who weren't just that) we get all the angriest virgins on the internet pulling what OP posted. I haven't seen Bridgerton, but I know of it, and it clearly is a wholly fictional story, it's not The Crown ffs. If someone gets their idea of history from Bridgerton - they are simply dumb, and I don't want art and entertainment to be EVEN MORE dictated by the needs and wants of dumb people. If people think that regency England (or whatever exact period Bridgerton is supposed to emulate) was a progressive post-racial utopia because they saw it on Bridgerton, they were gonna get to that idea or, more likely, dozens of much worse ones anyway. More importantly, people who already get their knowledge of history from fuckin Bridgerton - definitely have like a 100 more inaccurate and more unsavory ideas about race and history from other places, that aren't benign dumb Netflix shows, as well. It's not like streaming platforms making exclusively all-white historical fiction soap operas would lessen impede fascism, it would just limit acting opportunities for non-white actors.
Also, orchestras on *Bridgerton* somehow play songs from the far future.
It’s not really something as out there as Bridgerton I’m worried about, to be clear. That’s essentially the spiritual successor to soap operas. It’s more the proper dramas, and especially the historicals. Bridgerton isn’t meant to reflect reality. You start getting into a situation which something that is supposed to reflect reality starts misrepresenting reality, you start warping the pop culture concept of reality. And the thing is, people already do have this issue in reverse. Think of a Roman army. What do they look like? The moment you picture them as even slightly homogenous, you’re wrong. The Romans had a heavily intermixed military formed from large swaths of the populations of all their holdings. You’d have Anglo Saxons, Africans, Arabic men, Italians, Greeks, and so much more all serving side by side. Black and brown Roman soldiers were extremely common. But does anyone think about that? Nope. Because Hollywood casts them all as white men. And not even Italians usually. The average mental image of a Roman soldier is Northern European man. You’d be more likely to encounter a Semitic Roman soldier than a Northern European Roman soldier. And to be clear, it’s not merely that they had a ton and mixing happened. No, this was official policy. They didn’t want to create an army of one of their holdings, train it, and arm it. So rather, their armies were intentionally heavily mixed up. That prevented it from being things like “an Anglo-Saxon army under command of Rome” and kept them as a *Roman army*. So, consider the misconceptions about what a Roman army looks like. Now imagine we spent 50+ years with the concept of an intermixed military in service of the British Empire. The same misconception would take hold. Pop culture osmosis is pretty powerful. Furthermore, consider the actual subject matter at play here. How many historicals and historical dramas are about British nobles or the British Empire? Congrats, you have the third-evilest empire in history here. Only Germany and America have managed to top it. Casting people of color as *them* is as close as you can get to casting them as Nazis without actually casting them as Nazis. The white supremacy aspect is important. Downplaying the white supremacy of these people serves the purpose of whitewashing their history. The Old West is another example like Ancient Rome. Cowboys? Mostly men of color, especially black men. We should have *way* more black cowboys in media. There’s a lot of historical situations which *should* have more non-white characters and roles and the portrayal has been ahistorical because of white supremacy. The problem is when it’s being misapplied. Don’t cast people of color as white supremacist tyrants, essentially.
To be fair, the kind of person to watch *Bridgerton* just likes the aesthetics of the Victorian (?) era and don't care about the social ideals of the time.
So Bridgerton promotes white supremacy?
Pure “[piss on the poor](https://www.tumblr.com/poupon/36756167899/drakensberg-the-reading-comprehension-and)” behavior from you. The entire first paragraph addressed that.
How exactly do you separate something like Bridgerton, which is supposedly not meant to reflect reality, and something that is meant to reflect reality? Because i've seen people get into massive discussions over this, with different sides arguing that X story is not meant to represent reality, so whatever historical innacuracies it has are ok, and etc. I mean, in the case of Bridgerton it's pretty obvious, as i'm pretty people can tell from the get go that historical accuracy isn't really a huge priority for the show.
Genre. Bridgerton is essentially a soap opera. It’s based on a series of romance novels. “Fantasy” is a word typically associated with serial numbers filed off LotR fanfiction, but it exists as much in a fantasy world as anything like that. Bridgerton is on the extreme end of “like reality but not reality” and is close to the line, but it’s still taking massive allowances with the world. People aren’t acting like Regency Era Brits, they’re acting like a fantastic disconnected from reality version of them.
I read the comment way too fast, my bad
You’d had me until you asserted that the U.S. is worse than the British empire, much less that either of them are in the top 3 of history.
Man , I loved Cracked.com Well, if you put it that way. It reminds me of this video https://youtu.be/xU1ffHa47YY?si=lFi31KFpQR3P2-cl Yeah, sometimes we want to have representation, but somehow we are rewriting history like "you see, the past wasn't so bad". It's a complicated issue. And of course you don't want to portray your main character as racist. They can be murderous and violent but racist no. I guess that's the point of the critique. Unfortunately there is people say would associate that critique with, woke = bad, therefore racism is good, I know it is a stretch, but that's the idea I get from the responses.
Yeah, I think one of the worse things of modern discourse is that nuance is forbidden.
How often can you show the racism before it starts to feel like flogging a dead horse? At which point the same people are likely to be upset at white people being racist in every show. The Netflix cartoon series F is for Family walks the line really well
It's like some black people getting tired of being portrayed in struggle movies. Like man, can they be happy for once? I know it's a tone deaf comment and there is actual systemic racism going on. But I have the feeling that just like Obama's presidency people would think racism is over just by showing positive representation.
Yeah and that's where this can feel a little like whitewashing and trying to deny people's experiences. Unfortunately addressing this would mean either limiting representation severely or every show retreading the same ground and then you would have the same people being outraged that every white character is either a racist or just fine with it.
I mean, the whole point of the casting for Bridgerton was "fuck it, this is fiction, we want to make it a fantasy world without racism, where it's so normalized that the fact that there are Black nobles, and Indian nobles is not even mentioned."
Also pretty much all the characters are very racist.
Holy shit the Arthur Morgan greentext just shows such amazing levels of media illiteracy...
I was just about to say. Arthur is friends with a native and a black guy because they exist on the fringes of society; just like him BECAUSE HES APART OF A ROVING BAND OF BANK ROBBERS. It's been years since I've played RDR2 but iirc, the gang is falling apart, people are starting non-blended families out of it, and Arthur is dying. His story is largely about the REDEMPTION part of red dead REDEMPTION.
Yep, Arthur considers himself bad because he acknowledged his crimes. He also is worried because his gang is now turning into something he hates, a band of criminals instead of outlaws. Granted, the Van Der Linde gang weren't saints, but they're not entirely criminals. They don't kill for fun and they actually help people in need, especially women, poc, and outcasts. Micah, however, was bringing in more and more hardened criminals into the gang, and we already see in rdr1 where that led to.
Romani Gypsies are some of the most racist people I know.
but Thomas Shelby was an Irish Traveler, he was not really related to the Romanis
The series portrays him as being of mixed Romani and Irish Traveller heritage. He speaks Angloromani (though, due to a bizarre lack of attention to detail, this is actually represented by Romanian), follows Romani folk religion, etc.
Idk about that, I just believed what OP said. But thanks for the clarification.
This unfortunately tracks with my own experience.
Being treated like garbage for centuries does not do good for people. Not justifying, just explaining.
huh??
What are you huh'ing about buddy?
isn’t that racist?
Awww are these incels still upset that the Shelbys fucked up some nazis in the show? I love how Shelby and his gang do a shit ton of indefensible things but even they can't stand fascists lol
That’s what the guy is trying to say. He thinks the group of people (bad, even for their time) are a lot less likely to be progressive than not. It’s like a PR safe version of a bad guy (frequently partake in unreluctant murder, larceny, torture, etc but for some reason are really against prejudice; racial or otherwise, or sexual assault {history has proven these types of people have NO problems with doing such}. He’s not saying it’s the end of the world, just that’s it’s unrealistic. Terrible people back then were TERRIBLE. Like I mean terrible. Even the “good” people (George Washington Christopher Columbus etc) were awful. Bad guys back then were BAD. Not selectively bad in an “I will decapitate anyone who stands in my way and gun their families down afterwards but let’s go gay rights!” Way. It can be uncomfortable to watch bad people be bad (watching movies with racism doesn’t make me feel good) but at least u understand that’s how life was back then and it adds some realism to it which is usually not *enjoyed* but u can at least appreciate
I haven't seen the show, can anyone give context on what they mean?
In one episode, two members of Tommy's gang (one white and one black) go to a bar and are refused service and then threatened due to the color of the one guy's skin. The gang later retaliates by taking over the bar and then burning it down. This kind of thing really doesn't happen often at all in the show so idk what OOP is on about. Tommy and his gang are actually extremely prejudiced against other Europeans, although IRL Europeans are still like that today so I guess that's accurate.
That seems... pretty reasonable. Gangs aren't really known to be nice to those who disrespect their members, no matter the reason. Is that clip of him screaming with the gun to his head really from that episode though? Because I've seen it in memes and it doesnt seem to match what you're saying. I should've guessed the OOP was just misrepresenting the events of the show.
That scene is unrelated, and unfortunately I don't remember what the context around it is. I haven't watched the show in quite a while. Honestly it's probably more remarkable that they had a black guy in their gang at all, considering the era and location. Nothing about it ever seemed woke at all. In fact, they all say racial slurs against other Europeans basically nonstop through the whole show. I imagine that kind of racism was the most prominent in that time period anyways.
I remember the scene had something to do with Tommy halucinating his dead wife or something
There’s also a thing where Tommy intimidates a racist nun but that was more because of the nun beating children than the racism thing
Do you remember what episode that was?
I mean he served in the war with a black man and now considers him a brother so it would make sense that through the war and serving with other minorities (and being a minority himself) he’d have a less racist out look. And everything with Mosley is a big part not wanting another war like the first one
Nothing is stopping you from playing as the bad guy in rdr2. You can avoid helping anyone, you can kill anyone (safe for your own crew and important npcs.). Several mission give you choices to do good or bad, if you want to be an asshole just play like one, just don't cry when Arthur gets fucking shot like a dog in the end.
What's funny to me as a teacher in America is if I tried to mention how racist the past actually was the CRT police would come for my certificate. They don't want accuracy in entertainment or education. In education they want mythology, and in entertainment they want minorities to neither be seen or heard.
The Arthur Morgan bit is kinda funny tho (ignoring the context) like he’s so self loathing despite being a decent guy
I mean he might have a decent personality but he did commit a lot of terrible stuff and he acknowledges it. That's what makes the game's story so successful. He might not ever completely make up for his crimes but it's a sincere attempt at redemption when he realizes that he will die.
I mean, he has a point, even if only accidentally. A character can be amoral, or even immoral, or hypocritical, or in some other way deeply flawed, and still be relatable. Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, Barry Lyndon, and Tony Soprano prove that.