The Regency era meets the modern world in Netflix’s Bridgerton

Bridgerton meshes the excessive Regency era and the diverse modern age

Netflix will release Bridgerton, a Shondaland production, on December 25. Christmas Day!

The Netflix original series is based on the New York Times bestselling book series written by Julia Quinn. The books and series are set in the Regency era.

According to Shondaland, Shonda Rhimes gave showrunner Chris Van Dusen a set of the eight-book series and asked what he thought about developing the series. Van Dusen couldn’t put the books down, and the rest is history.

In the report, Van Dusen said he has always loved period pieces as they are full of conflict and rooted in tradition and often conservative.

Adapting this series of books was no easy task. Quinn’s novel’s fanbase is enormous, and the books have been on the New York Times bestsellers list many times. Fans know these stories well and will expect something marvelous.

When is Bridgerton set?

The Regency era was exquisite, very refined, rigid in its etiquette and steeped in culture. When one thinks of this era, high fashion, romance and elegance all come to mind. The Prince Regent was handsome and gave into his extravagant lust for life and his subjects followed his lead. This made for a very romanticized time period and people are drawn to it for its escapism.

In the report, Van Dusen said he wanted to make Bridgerton more of an escape than a history lesson. Everyone knows there is a proper side to the Regency period, how things were expected to be, and the other side, where people knew what was considered proper but actually did the opposite. He wanted to explore both sides to keep things interesting.

When I first saw the video below, I thought of how Lady Whistledown (Julie Andrews) was the social media of London High Society. She was the girl who loves to post the gossip first and gets the reaction for doing so. Lady Whistledown is the narrator of the series and can change public opinion with her newsletter Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers, a Regency tabloid if you will.

As mentioned in the report, another way Van Dusen wanted to tie the Regency to the modern age was in the casting diversity. Race is never discussed in the books, so this is an excellent way to modernize the cast and give it a more modern feel.

Gone are the drab-colored dresses you see in many period pieces. Bridgerton takes the colors and textures and styles and pushes them to a new height. The hairstyles and makeup with a backdrop of beautiful architecture make for a stunning visual.

Bridgerton is an exciting new venture as it is the first time a mass-market romance novel has been adapted for the screen. Could this be an opening to more romance novel series or movies? I guess we will see.