I’ve been in a weird headspace since early October, partially due to the world’s events, partially due to home life. For a long time I just didn’t have the literal physical time or space to dedicate to Hollywood & Lit, and then for a bit of that time even when I found small pockets, my burnout from parenting or teaching through COVID overwhelmed the genuine enthusiasm I had when I started this whole endeavor. BUT I’ve been feeling the natural interest, passion, and curiosity again over the last month or so. It started with finally watching Past Lives with my partner, which I’m hoping to revisit and write about at some point soon. But this past week as I was searching back through my eBook library for something to read on my phone while around my kiddos, Pride by Ibi Zoboi finally grabbed me.

I halted my reading after a few pages, as I usually do when I feel the creative passion begin to bubble up when I don’t have the kid-free time to dedicate my focus in a productive way, knowing that I want to save that first journey into the text when I have a few moments to also pair it with the opening of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Maybe I’ll finally have that time tonight, we’ll see. But in the meantime, my brain has been running with ideas - one of which is pairing these two texts with the show, Bridgerton. I’ve been rewatching Bridgerton very, very casually over the last few nights as these loose ideas have been brewing. Today, that brought me to knitting in the car and listening to The Duke and I as the toddler naps for 40 minutes before we would pick up the first sibling.

Every time I’ve paired a book and a film, I can’t help but note the similarities and differences as I watch and read.

When I notice them, I wonder about the decision making behind the changes. Some I understand come from the nature of reading prose versus telling a visual story, or telling a story within the structure of a one hour episode in the season of a series. But when there are other changes, I think it leads to wonderful opportunities for discussion.

Some of the differences or things I noticed after the epilogue and listening to chapter 1:

• There is no mention of race when it comes to the character descriptions in the book so far (thinking of Simon and his father, in particular). This reminds me of something I read in Letting Go of Literary Whiteness: “In other words, because literature has been dominated by Whiteness, readers assume that characters are White unless they are explicitly named as otherwise; and White readers steeped in dominant White racial ideology bring their own assumptions and expectations to texts (e.g., McCormick, 1994)”. What an interesting flip, for me, having watched the show first. It gives me a certain lens / criticism as I read after watching first. This point deserves an entire post of its own, which I’ll get to at some point. Immediately below are some of the articles I’ll peruse as I gather some other resources, materials, and thoughts to share:
  • The Black Casting Choices in Bridgerton Were… A Choice (Book Riot)
  • Black Like Me? “Bridgerton” and the Fantasy of a Non-Racist Past (The Nation)
  • Is Bridgerton’s Diverse Casting Colorblind or Color Conscious? (Tufts Theater Professor)
• There is a Lady Danbury in the book, but she does not seem to be Simon’s aunt. In the book, Simon’s nurse seems to take on the coaching of Simon in the way that Lady Danbury is shown to in the Netflix series. 
• Simon’s father seems more “business” or “society man of the times” than he does in the show. In the show, he seems to turn on Simon and be angry with him because he acts as though Simon killed his mother, since she died in childbirth. This weight seems to continue to impact Simon in the show, as he seems to also believe that he killed his mother, so I notice the way that the duke “mourn[s] his wife. He truly d[oes]. He hadn’t loved her, of course, and she hadn’t loved him, but they’d been friends in an oddly distant sort of way” (7) in the book. If the duke doesn’t care as much about his wife’s death and remove himself from Simon’s life because he’s overcome with grief and misplaced anger, then he’s… kind of just an asshole for wanting an heir, berating him for having a stutter, and then pretending he doesn’t exist after the fact. Simon’s internal conflict changes drastically, for me, then.
  • An edit added on May 24, 2024: I'm rewatching Season 1 of Bridgerton with the release of Season 3 upon us, and I mis-remembered this about the show. Or, perhaps I was extending what I might have imagined for Simon in a moment when he's viewing his mother's bedroom (shame, sadness - possibly that his birth killed her) to his father. BUT in the show, Simon's father equates the uselessness of Simon (he can't be an heir if he stutters) with the uselessness of Simon's mother (she couldn't bear a viable male heir... in the father's eyes). So, there doesn't seem to be much remorse on Simon's father's part, nor a love for the mother.
• Daphne seems… silly? She seems innocent in both the show and the book, and perhaps I wasn’t listening closely enough, but she seems into the gossip rather than unbothered by but not minding its praises of her as I recall her being in the series (and again, my memory may be off). Updated after skimming the text → No, it is her mother, Violet, who is silly. Daphne comes across as calm (but I blended them as I listened for the first time because I made the assumption that the screen-Daphne was book-Violet and screen-Eloise was book-Daphne ). Did that explanation not really make sense? Nope, but sometimes that’s how the mind works, or at least, my mind 🥴.
• Is Daphne blonde in the book? Brunette? The description by Lady Whistledown describes the “similar coloring” of all the Bridgerton children, I think. This point stands out to me, because in the show, all of the siblings are brunette while Daphne has more strawberry blonde/auburn hair.
  • Found it in chapter 1: “Although This Author has never taken the time to record eye color, all eight possess similar bone structure and the same thick, chestnut hair. One must pity the viscountess as she seeks advantageous marriages for her brood that she did not produce a single child of more fashionable coloring…” (17).
  • “Deuce, take it, Daff, you’re just not like regular females. You’re positively normal.’ / Which she might have managed to consider a compliment if he hadn’t proceeded to wander off in search of the latest blond beauty” (19). 
• Daphne has been trying to get married for two courting seasons in the book, whereas the Netflix series begins with Daphne’s first season.
  • In screenwriting, we learned to “arrive late, leave early”.
• Lady Whistledown seems to describe Daphne as ordinary or much like her siblings in the book, whereas she’s the “diamond of the first water” in the show.
• Daphne describes herself as “easy to talk to” (19) in the book, and we see this with Simon in the show. I think we see that she plays this role for her siblings in the show, though she describes herself as kind of being “in the friend zone” or “one of the guys” for “being so easy to talk to” in the book.
• She seems aware of childbirth in the book? She makes a comment to her mother that she is “happy to follow in [her] footsteps when it comes to marriage and children… just so long as I don’t have to have eight” (24), yet one of the jokes of the first episode for Daphne and Eloise, and that that becomes a real anxiety for Daphne later on is not knowing how children are conceived and what those relations are all about. Perhaps I just need to read/listen further though and I’m overthinking the comment she makes.
• There’s no Queen Charlotte / presentation of Daphne in chapter 1 of the book. “The brighter a lady shines, the faster she may burn” is how she’s described in the show.

While I’m enjoying poking around a bit in the openings of a few different books and the Bridgerton show right now, I can’t help but imagine a few different ideas for how I might use this to spark discussion in a book club or in a high school classroom.

Perhaps the clearest theme to highlight my primary lens might be: the feminist lens.

Some of the ways I think about this or questions I might ask if I want to get the minds going:

• What does it mean to be “a feminist”? 
• What are the characteristics of feminism?
• How can you tell if a story is feminist or not?
• How are the female characters depicted? What are they like? How are they treated?
  • Are the depictions of women respectful? Honorable? Complex and nuanced?
  • Are the women characters archetypes and thereby underdeveloped or cliche and stereotypical? Or are they stereotypical for a meaningful purpose? A satirical or creative one?

Characterization of Women in Bridgerton and The Duke and I:

In the first chapter of the book and the first 15 minutes of the series, the most notable differences to me were regarding Daphne and her mother, Violet.

First - Violet Bridgerton shocked me in the book. The way she behaves in the book reminds me of Mrs. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice (parallels of which I gathered when I first watched the series). In the book she is highly concerned with Lady Whistledown’s papers and gossip, and she is worked up and anxious about marrying all of her daughters. All of which is quite similar, if not an exact parallel to the anxieties and concerns of Mrs. Bennet. Both women seem to be somewhat infantilized in their characterizations, reminiscent of younger girls. In fact, I only logically put together that Violet must be the mother, and not one of the younger Bridgerton daughters when I went to revisit the passage in the text and the logic of Lady Whistledown’s condescending description of the “banal” Bridgerton choice of alphabetical child naming meant a name beginning with a V couldn’t have been for one of the children.

A brief snippet from chapter one for you to consider the characterization of Violet and Daphne, as well as their relationship dynamic:

“She shouldn’t have even brought it up,” Violet sniffed.

“Mother, she’s the author of a scandal sheet. It’s her job to bring such things up.”

“She isn’t even a real person,” Violet added angrily. She planted her hands on her slim hips, then changed her mind and shook her finger in the air. ‘Whistledown, ha! I’ve never heard of any Whistledowns. Whoever this depraved woman is, I doubt she’s one of us. As if anyone of breeding would write such wicked lies.”

“Of course she’s one of us,” Daphne said, ehr brown eyes filling with amusement. “If she weren’t a member of the ton, there is no way she’d be privy to the sort of news she reports. Did you think she was some sort of impostor, peeking in windows and listening at doors?”

“I don’t like your tone, Daphne Bridgerton,” Violet said, her eyes narrowing.

Daphne bit back another smile. “I don’t like your tone” was Violet’s standard answer when one of her children was winning an argument.

But it was too much fun to tease her mother. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” she said, cocking her head to the side, “if Lady Whistledown was one of your friends.”

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn (chapter 1)

This passage is definitely comparable with the opening scene of Pride & Prejudice, the conversation between Mr. & Mrs. Bennet! Mrs. Bennet is as worked up as Violet Bridgerton is in the book about marrying her daughters, and Daphne’s calm and sense of humor / affection for teasing her mother mirrors that of Mr. Bennet toward his wife:

“Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.”

“You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.”

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (chapter 1)

While I think I need to keep reading to make a fair judgment of the way Daphne’s depicted in the book, so far she does seem very calm, smart, and accepting, as she is in the series. In the book, she seems level-headed like Mr. Bennet and Lizzy Bennet in some ways:

“Daphne calmly set down her embroidery and reached under the end table. She smoothed the sheet of paper out on her lap and read the paragraph about her family. Blinking, she looked up. ‘This isn’t so bad, Mother. In fact, it’s a veritable benediction compared to what she wrote about the Featheringtons last week.’

‘How am I supposed to find you a husband while that woman is slandering your name?’

Daphne forced herself to exhale. After nearly two seasons in London, the mere mention of the word husband was enough to set her temples pounding. She wanted to marry, truly she did, and she wasn’t even holding out for a true love match. But was it really too much to hope for a husband for whom one had at least some affection?”

The Duke and I, chapter 1

Some ELA / High School English Lesson Plan Ideas for Bridgerton and The Duke and I:

• As an activator / loosely fun activity:
  • Read the epilogue and a bit of chapter 1 (at least through Daphne’s discussion with her mother) first
  • Characterize Simon, the nurse, and the Duke
  • Characterize Daphne and Violet
  • Watch the first 15 minutes of the first episode of the series, “Diamond of the First Water” (if you stop at 15 minutes as Lady Danbury walks off and we begin to hear the singing scales, you stop before a scene that lingers in female nudity. There is a moment with Anthony having sex 3 minutes in just after his mother inquires where he is though.)
    • At about 8 minutes, after the opening credits, Daphne’s getting ready with her sisters and Violet and Daphne are discussing Lady Whistledown’s paper, where she calls Daphne a “Diamond of the First Water”

• Draw a venn diagram or compare/contrast table and note the similarities and differences as you watch
• After viewing:
  • Simply: Compare the characterizations (I’d stop here as the activator / loosely fun activity)
  • With a some priming thoughts and pointed questions: Compare the way Daphne and her mother interact in chapter 1 with the way they interact in the first fifteen minutes of the show. Who’s calm? In what way? Who’s upset or making larger displays of emotion over Lady Whistledown’s papers?

• Take it a step further: 
  • Compare who and what is included in the show and what’s not included and/or saved for later (if you have students that have already watched the show or the episode) - discuss why you think these changes are made
  • With a some priming thoughts and pointed questions: Why do you think the show begins with Daphne rather Simon and his backstory from the epilogue? What does this emphasize? How does this frame our focus? What does it suggest about the world? Characters? Dynamics?
• Take it another step further / into additional lessons:
  • Work with text evidence from the book to compare with depictions in the show. Work on descriptive writing as you note visual / “cinematic” evidence from the show in your comparisons. To keep it simple, have students find their own evidence.
  • If you want to scaffold this part and have students work on drawing inferences from the text and their descriptive writing, then you might use this ELA activity for compare/contrasting The Duke and I and Bridgerton.
  • If you want to take it another step further, or challenge students with different texts - I would also bring in the first few pages of Pride by Ibi Zoboi, and chapter 1 of Pride and Prejudice. I’ll update this post with a lesson plan/activity for that as soon as I can put it together. Feel free to subscribe for an update if you’re interested (it’ll encourage me to get it done sooner).

And here's my anticlimactic end to this post! I may keep journaling my way through The Duke and I, but I imagine some level of comparison with the series will continue to be inescapable to me 😅.