Released on December 25 2020, Bridgerton is a series decked out in tulle and anxiety about finding a husband in Regency-era London before the end of the social season. Despite the endlessly bingeable gentry drama and schemes to attract suitors, Bridgerton lacks an understanding of consent and racial dynamics. These problems effectively taint the series’ escapist purpose, leaving viewers more troubled than entertained.

Bridgerton is based on an eight-book romance series by Julia Quinn, and it was written and created by Chris Van Dusen and produced by the iconic Shonda Rhimes. The series is a socialite drama filled with eligible bachelors and young ladies all vying for one thing: marriage. The first season focuses mainly on the first instalment of the book series, The Duke and I, which follows the tempestuous romance between the demure Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor) and the dark and stormy Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page). 

As Lady Daphne navigates her second season in the ton (le bon ton was the colloquial name for British high society in late Regency-era London, translated to mean “good manners”), the dashing Duke returns from his years-long travels abroad after the death of his father. The Duke and Daphne’s chemistry is so magnetic that they crash into each other at a ball, and so the enemies-to-lovers tale begins. In a predictable turn of events, they couple up so that Daphne can attract jealous suitors with the charming Duke by her side, and so that he can keep young socialites and their clawing mothers at bay. 

The show is essentially eight hours of romance literature you could find at your local airport. There’s romance, there’s raunch, and just when you think Lady Daphne and the Duke of Hastings are headed for Splitsville, they return to each other, because of course love conquers all. In a time where all we do is wander around in our sweatpants, a couple of hours in this world of pomp and circumstance is a nice change of pace. Beyond the fact that Bridgerton is set in the late-seventeenth and early eighteenth century, the dancing, the schmoozing, and the being all-dolled-up-in-public feel unfamiliar to homebound viewers. 

But the series’ escapist world also raises concerns about consent and racial representation, which distracts viewers from the glitzy romance that the show tries so hard to focus on. One of Bridgerton’s standout features is that it includes a racially diverse cast within an aristocratic society, a social class that is historically hallmarked by white homogeneity. Yet, critics have accused the writers of Bridgerton of glossing over the rampant racism present in the time period it represents, and of only burdening its Black characters with an awareness of racism. 

The Duke of Hastings and his mentor, Lady Danbury, have several conversations referencing “us” versus “them,” and how they must conduct themselves in this new world. Meanwhile, the white characters of Bridgerton prance around looking for their ideal mates, without ever speaking about race. The presence of Black characters amid the upper echelons of London society is explained by the fact that the leader of the ton, Queen Charlotte, has recently decreed that Black people can now become members of the gentry. Bridgerton makes this attempt to sidestep the issue of race, and fails; the majority of villains in Bridgerton are Black, and white characters monopolize almost all the speaking roles. Though Bridgerton contorts itself as a colour-blind show, it’s hard to escape the fundamental truth that the society it parallels was created because of slavery and oppression. 

Equally disturbing is the attitude Bridgerton presents towards consent. Once the Duke and Daphne marry, the show mainly focuses on her lack of sexual education, as well as the Duke’s refusal to have children. The show goes even so far as to include a scene where Daphne sexually assaults the Duke. This act is effectively never resolved, and the couple lives happily ever after. Bridgerton’s final episodes cast a shadow over the entire season, complicating a series that tries so hard to provide viewers with a break from reality. Though the series presents itself as a light-weight fantasy, the way it contends with issues of race and consent never reaches any semblance of a conclusion. 

Despite the backlash, Netflix has announced that Bridgerton has been renewed for a second season, and production for the show will start this spring. The endless content factory whirrs away, the series only a cog in a machine meant to distract from the world around us. It seems Bridgerton doesn’t remove us from reality at all, instead gesturing clumsily toward systemic issues. The show can’t help but pop its own bubble of whirlwind romance and Regency-era finery.

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“The truth about stories is that it is all we are. So you have to be careful about the stories you tell; once they are set loose in the world, they cannot be called back.”

His cab rolls along, shadows of buildings stretch along his face. And with a twinkle in his eye, he carries viewers off into the night – the story has just begun.

Inconvenient Indian (2020) is one of 11 films featured in this year’s “Disrupting History” section of the Montreal International Documentary Festival. Adapted from Thomas King’s award-winning book, The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America, the film sheds the traditional documentary format and instead offers a powerful snapshot of Indigenous peoples in 2020. The project is a poetic expression of pain, frustration, and the opportunity for new beginnings. King narrates the documentary and guides the audience on a ride through Toronto, stopping at different landmarks, including the Fox Theatre and the Royal Ontario Museum.

Director Michelle Latimer intersperses the film with dance performances, visual art, and media representations of Indigenous peoples, as well as traditional cultural practices such as tattooing and hunting. The film also includes interviews with visual artists Kent Monkman and Christi Belcourt, digital creator Jason Edward Lewis, filmmakers Althea Arnaquq-Baril, Gail Maurice, Nyla Innukshuk, and Jamie Whitecrow, producer Jesse Wente, and music group A Tribe Called Red – all Indigenous peoples attempting to redefine their own narratives through their work. 

Inconvenient Indian’s thesis is clear: ignorance is destructive. The documentary challenges archaic ideas and renderings of Indigenous people – what King refers to as “Dead Indians” – and contrasts these images of a bygone era with the vibrant and active communities that have lived in so-called Canada for hundreds of years, creating a powerful story of self-mobilization. 

The film’s spotlight on Indigenous creators, activists, and community leaders demonstrates just how false and damaging Canadian “history” remains in its depiction of Indigenous peoples. As King posits, mainstream history’s conscious and systemic relegation of Indigenous accounts to the white colonial point-of-view is an act of material violence. The subjects of the film, trailblazers in their respective communities, indicate that the continual propagation of detrimental ideas about Indigenous people benefits the societal systems that seek to repress them. 

With a razor-sharp tone and swift cadence, Thomas King narrates the history of colonization in Canada – this time with the help of Indigenous peoples living and creating here in the present. Juxtaposing close-ups of Indigenous power and self-determinism with images and quotes from our colonial history, Inconvenient Indian incites discomfort in its non-Indigenous viewers. The film takes specific aim at how non-Indigenous Canadian society justifies its past actions, arguing that the mindset of being “unable to judge the past by the present” allows settlers to shove Canada’s history of violence and oppression under the rug. That same logic renders them blameless for the decisions they make today. As King muses in the dark taxi, “Perhaps it’s unfair to judge the past by the present, but it’s also necessary.” 

 In December 2020, director Latimer’s Indigenous ancestry was called in question in an investigation by CBC News, revealing that members of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation refute Latimer’s claims of “Algonquin, Métis and French heritage, from Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg (Maniwaki), Quebec.” After Latimer’s lies came to light, she returned numerous awards, including the BMO-DOC Vanguard Award, and announced her resignation from CBC’s series Trickster. Inconvenient Indian has not been above the fray; the documentary has been pulled from Sundance 2021, and the National Film Board (NFB) released a statement saying they are looking to “explore an accountable path forward for the film.”

Though the allegations against Michelle Latimer are nothing short of appalling, the people taking the brunt of the fall are the voices and stories highlighted within the documentary. Without the existence of a concrete plan for its distribution from the NFB, and because of its subsequent removal from Sundance, Inconvenient Indian’s prospects look bleak. Many of the artists featured in the film spoke out against Latimer; filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril stated, “She’s thrown years of work and beautiful, thoughtful craft down the tubes because she didn’t have the nerve to be honest about her heritage.” Gitz Derange, an author, actor, and former colleague of Latimer’s commented that, “We want to see ourselves succeed. When this happens it robs us of that. They just take our stories and they’ve always done that. They rob us of these moments.” And Indigenous playwright Drew Hayden Taylor argues that Latimer has appropriated funding that was specifically allotted to the development of Indigenous talent and enterprise. This is made worse by the fact that, as Taylor writes, “In the big musical-chairs game of funding, there are precious few chairs available already.” Michelle Latimer took a seat that wasn’t hers to begin with and received numerous opportunities at the expense of Indigenous creators.

Stuck under the subterfuge of Michelle Latimer’s falsified heritage, the people featured in Inconvenient Indian may never receive the attention that they deserve. While the backlash from various film and media institutions against Latimer is appropriate, her deception may have very well relegated the film to the shadows, when the voices it features deserve to be thrust out into the light. Inconvenient Indian seeks to capture an authentic depiction of Indigenous peoples not just surviving in the wake of colonialism, but thriving. Michelle Latimer has extinguished her own credibility through her lies, but in doing so, she has underscored the power of Indigenous resilience. The Indigenous voices within the film will continue to change the world for the better – with or without Latimer’s name in the credits.

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