March Madness

Did it come in like a lion or a lamb for you? For me, it came in like a lion. On March 7, 2021, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, aka Harry and Meghan, gave an interview with Oprah on CBS. That interview became a portal by which people discussed race and racism in the royal family, their firm, and their Commonwealth. To people of color, historians, and more, the allegations and actions of racism is nothing new. However, it is a reminder of the colonization and horrors that come with it, to wit: patriarchy, capitalism, imperialism, commodity and more. In terms of romanticism and imagination, the treatment of Meghan was an interruption to my escapism when reading Regency romance or watching Bridgerton. Can an American with Black blood be loved for who she is or is it in spite of who she is? Can she be loved at all?

While Britain had the spotlight shown on their outdated institutions, in America, the Bachelor got similar treatment. The Bachelor franchise will recognize twenty-five years on television within the next year. However, it wasn't until 2017 that the Bachelor franchise had their first Black lead-a bachelorette- called Rachel Lindsay. Rachel was stellar in the ways that Duchess Meghan was stellar and suffered similar misogynoir because of it-in the press and social media. Both were equally adored and scorned, depending on how your ideologies presented itself. That said, Rachel often gave critique about the Bachelor franchise and how it is managed: from the lack of diversity behind and in front of the screen. In 2021, the Bachelor franchise responded by casting their first Black bachelor-Matt James. I won't spoil the ending for you, but let's just say that the host (Chris Harrison)-one might call him the king of Bachelor nation- stepped back from hosting duties after he went on an interview with Rachel and defended the racist actions of a contestant on Matt James's season. Here, different questions emerge: can one find love with a person of a different race in America when America hasn't truly reckoned with race? What else can we learn if we put Rachel Lindsay and Meghan Markle in conversation with each other?

This leads me back to Bridgerton, and the Shondaland adaptation of Julia Quinn's ultra-white novels, which intends to colorize their world with the true residents of Britain, many of whom came from their colonies. I welcome that impulse: it is historically correct. In the first season, we saw love realized with a white woman and a Black man. In season two, a white man will find love with a South Asian woman. Knowing that the aristocrats of today and yesteryear had troubling understanding and actions around race, will the world be able to suspend disbelief and escape into what could be or has the reality robbed us of our imagination? Should we imagine at all? Will there be places safe for us to escape?

We plan on hosting a podcast where we plan to think through these topics through the lens of romance, and I ask you: has your impression of Bridgerton changed since you first watched it? Will you tune in for the second season? You can let me know by leaving a message here, on twitter, or voice mail. And if you would like to be a guest for this recording, please let us know.