I’m generally a supporter of blind casting — love it in much Shakespeare — but am having trouble with it in Bridgerton. If slavery and colonialism is to a considerable extent what funded this class of people and their lifestyle it seems dodgy to me to cast people of colour as Dukes etc in in the series, somehow making black people not only complicit in but actual beneficiaries of the slavery and oppression of their like.
I did end up watching the whole series and very much enjoyed it in the way that I enjoy the rest of Shondaland. But this aspect remans a niggle and I plan to read Kristen J Warner’s The Cultural Politics of Colorblind TV Casting, which I’ve been told is excellent.
José Arroyo
