What Bridgerton 3 can teach us about screen representation, body positivity and healthy masculinity
And why Penelope and Colin may be the most endearing couple of the whole series so far.
Dearest gentle readers,
Here I am typing away, head full of thoughts, heart bursting with excitement and rest of bodily self wondering what I am going to do until the second half of Bridgerton season 3 is out in June. Rewatch the first four episodes seems the logical answer.
However, conquering my natural tendency towards idleness, especially on a Sunday, I’ve taken to the keyboard to share with you all some interesting insights that I’ve gathered from these first half of Bridgerton season 3, which seems to imitate life more closely than the two previous seasons ever did.
For those of you not familiar with Bridgerton, the Netflix hit series is the adaptation of the eight romance novels created by Julia Quinn, each of which follows the lives of the aristocratic Bridgerton siblings (Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory and Hyacinth) as they try to find love in Regency England.
Season 1 centred around Daphne and the Duke of Hastings and kicked off Bridgertonmania; season 2 followed the primogenit and heir to the Bridgerton estate and aristocratic title Anthony as he fell in love for Miss Kathani Sharma, the sister of his fiancée. It toped viewings of Season 1 and produced one of the most memorable scenes of the series:
After the record-breaking Season 2, there was a lot of anticipation and excitement about Season 3, which has reaffirmed Bridgerton as possibly Netflix’s most successful franchise. Perhaps that’s why the show runners have decided to split it into two parts and lengthen a bit more the momentum that a new season always brings with it.
For season 3 the show creators have also decided to move forward the love story of Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington (who also happens to be Ton-Gossiper-in-Chief Lady Whistledown) instead of following the order of Quinn’s novels and bring to audiences the journey of Benedict Bridgerton towards his beloved. Maybe a natural move as Benedict is along with Eloise one of the characters that provides a much refreshing comic relief and the moment he ties the knot, he’s out of the series as the raison d’être of Bridgerton revolves around people marrying other people. Instead, Season 3 presents us a classic “friends to lovers” trope that is making the delights of fervent fans and Netflix onlookers who for the past two seasons have witnessed Colin’s obliviousness to Penelope’s affections.
While there’ll be extremely juicy bits in the second half as Colin and Penelope consolidate their relationship publicly, the first instalment has already let us get a good look into how these characters approach the marriage mart (the Regency equivalent to modern dating apps) and its many unspoken rules, whose breaking can bring disgrace not only upon one but also upon eligible relatives.
The following lines contain spoilers so if you are in possession of a strong will and are waiting for the whole series to be available before you watch it (congratulations, I could never), I invite you to pause your reading at this point. Although if you’ve read the books (I haven’t) you probably have more information than I do anyway.
And now, dear readers, time to get down to business.
Bridgerton 3 keeps proving why it’s such a loved show.
And no, it’s not because of that carriage scene or that off-the-charts charming and nonchalant marriage proposal that brings episode 4 to an end as we finally rejoice in Penelope and Colin officially becoming an item. The ton -and hopefully Lady Wishtledown- will have some things to say about her being the fiancée of Lord Debling when she left the party and being engaged to Colin the morning after.
The reason Bridgerton remains such an event when a new season is out is because it has provided something new for us all to watch and feel part of as it keeps using fiction as an excellent vehicle to champion diversity and inclusion in ways that don’t feel tokenistic or serving tired tropes. And that is extremely refreshing to watch.
That Bridgerton is a diverse show is perhaps no surprise to anyone aware of the fact that Shonda Rhimes, of Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder fame, is behind it.
After having Regé-Jean Page incarnate a dashing and highly desired Duke of Hastings in Season 1; Simone Ashley in the role of a strong-willed woman being a worthy match to Viscount Bridgerton played by Jonathan Bailey in Season 2; and of course the fantastic duo of supreme ton meddlers that are Ajdoa Andoh as Lady Danbury and Golda Rousheuvel as Queen Charlotte, I was very pleased to see that Bridgerton’s diversity has gone beyond race this season.
“On-screen representation can play a transformative role in society, provided it is understood as more than a niche issue, of interest only to marginalised communities and so-called ‘ethnic minorities’” as journalist Ellen E. Jones argues in her latest book “Screen Deep: How Film and TV can solve Racism and Save the World”
In recent times, shows like Love on the Spectrum have been a welcomed addition to screen representation as we follow real neurodivergent people in their quest to finding a romantic partner and open our eyes to the challenges they face but also to how much easier some things could be without all the codes and rules that govern neurotypical dating and make it as complicated as navigating unscathed the London social season in Bridgerton.
The fictionalised world of Bridgerton, benefitting from a consolidated global audience, has a bigger responsibility to be a vehicle to help shatter prejudices and preconceived ideas about love -and by extension who is worthy of receiving it- by introducing an array of characters that have previously not been the centre of a mainstream production. This season we have seen characters with disabilities that have been presented to us as regular members of society without fixating on the trait that makes them different in the same way characters in previous seasons were themselves and not their race.
For instance, in the first episode of Season 3 we see how Lady Stowell, one of the new debutantes, communicates in British Sign Language with her mother after having being introduced to Queen Charlotte, and Lord Remington, one of the eligible bachelors courting Penelope Featherington and getting reciprocated attention, is presented to us on a wheelchair. The fans have made it clear they loved both of them.
And in a wink to Love on the Spectrum, it seems that Francesca and John Stirling, Earl of Kilmartin, whose preferred love language is quiet time together, are neurodivergent-coded characters who nonetheless find alternative ways to communicate their affection for each other.
In a triple mortal jump of inclusion Lord Debling, Penelope’s most prominent suitor, who besides being in possession of an enviable fortune holds a great love for nature and animals, is a vegetarian. A vegetarian! In Regency England! Where people went hunting like they go for a run! If that’s not pushing boundaries of screen representation at its best, I don’t know what is.
And let’s not forget the demisexual sisters of Penelope. Yes, demisexuals because they don’t know what their other half is supposed to do in bed. As much as they were insufferable in previous seasons, they’re completely hilarious in S3.
While Rhimes’ shows have always taken diversity seriously, something changed in the way audiences approached the discourse on representation, both off and on screen, when Bridgerton landed on Netflix at the end of 2020, a year that highlighted inequality and injustice around us in every way.
For Ellen E. Jones:
“Bridgerton arrived at the end of a long, difficult year in which, subsequent to the police killing of George Floyd, racism had dominated the public agenda. It was intended as an escape and the cast had to be racially diverse, not because it was making a comment about societal racism, but because it absolutely wasn’t. The period drama genre -in all its delightful connection - can survive no amount of engagement with the brutal truth of the slavery-based economy that sustained these upper class lifestyles of endless leisure. A Bridgerton that really grappled with race in seventeenth and eighteenth century Britain would be the kind of scratchy jumper of a Christmas treat that you take back to exchange in the Boxing Day sales.”1
The same principle of diversity and inclusion that has made Bridgerton such a beloved show had to be applied to body positive representation for female leads to prove the show is still in tune with the times.
While the fictional London of Bridgerton has eradicated racism on screen, sexism is very much present at its core as reflected on the treatment of women, especially those who are still unmarried after having debuted in society a couple of seasons ago.
Which is the case of Cressida Cowper - and in Season 3 we discover this is something that pains her greatly perhaps because she’s trying to fulfil someone else’s aspirations instead of hers- as well as Penelope, who starts her third season on the marriage mart with slim prospects of marrying but who is determined to make it happen no matter what.
Season 3 of Bridgerton ignores the original book plot, where Penelope’s glow up is the result of her losing weight, and instead focuses on how the character decides to ditch her old gowns (all in an unflattering shade of yellow) and find her own style, embracing who she is and what she wants, which ultimately are the underlying reasons for her surge of confidence and self-love, which will make her more attractive to the eyes of Colin Bridgerton. A make-over that takes inspiration from the film She’s All That.
This departure from the source material has been saluted as a win for body positivity especially in the age of Instagram face and the millennial body curse. Those of us who watched Bridget Jones at cinemas grew up with our perceptions of a healthy body image and sense of self-worth unforgivably messed up by those who insisted on presenting Bridget as a fat, undesirable, pathetic spinster (the cheek!) whose life was meaningless as she was still single at 33. All of which would ultimately lead to her tragic dying alone devoured by Alsatians.
As a new Bridget Jones film has been announced, the fourth in the series, some argue whether we need her back as she is hardly the role model women in the XXI century need considering the toxic, internalised mysogistic views the character had about her own body image.
And while we can argue that Bridget Jones is a fictional character, she nonetheless reflected the cruel reality of her time and the crippling body shaming women were subject to without anyone questioning it or calling it out. A shameful reality that actress Kate Winslet experienced in first person after Titanic catapulted her to global fame.
In a podcast interview with Josh Horowitz for the 25th anniversary of the release of the film, Winslet set the record straight and finally responded to the awful media treatment she was object to as a young woman, reflecting on how she would use her voice differently today, as she actually does, to call out the awful practice of objectifying women’s bodies and associating their worth and attractiveness with their thinness.
That’s why, dear readers, having a character like Penelope Featherington being the protagonist of Bridgerton 3 as the luscious object of desire of Colin Bridgerton, one of the most desirable bachelors of this season, has caused such a wave of delight and muffled screams in viewers as we couldn’t contain our enthusiasm nor keep our eyes off from that carriage scene.
After years of unrequited love for her friend, who in the previous season had let on that he would never date her (hinting perhaps at a lack of sexual attraction?), we finally see Colin admitting his feelings for Penelope in no uncertain terms after the realisation that she is the only person he could ever want clicks. It’s taken for Penelope to almost marry someone else, partially aided by Colin himself, but better late than never.
Likewise, we see how Penelope allows herself to be cherished, sexually desired, devoured with loving devotion, genuinely appreciated and taken care of by Colin -that rearranging of the hair and the sleeve were chef’s kiss- as the woman she is, just the way she is (Bridget Jones did give us some good moments, after all)
That, dear readers, is a huge breakthrough for how female desire is portrayed on screen and by whom as we’ve had enough of fat phobic tropes already.
However, its significance can’t be overlooked especially in light of the treatment Kate Winslet was subject to as the object of desire of Leonardo di Caprio in Titanic and the ensuing attacks to her body and how she was meant to look and how much she should weight if we were to believe she could entice anyone’s romantic attention, especially from any actually attractive suitors. The jokes about how if only she had been thinner the two of them would have fitted on the floating door still reverberate two decades later.
For all of the above, we should rejoice about how Nicola Coughlan has embraced the role of Penelope wholeheartedly, a character whose representation as a desirable woman has attracted new viewers. More importantly, it’s great to see Nicola celebrating her own body and feminity. She has been very open about how being body positive is essential to feel good in your own skin as someone in the public eye and how fashion has also helped her play with different versions of herself.
In several interviews to promote the show, Coughlan has also stated that she specifically asked for scenes from the book to be included in the screen adaptation, with one upcoming nude scene involving a mirror and sending fans wild in the second half of episodes being her choice.
Unlike Winslet in her youth, Coughlan has been vocal in calling out trolls who feel the need to proclaim their unwanted opinion on her body. In fact, Coughlan has shared that “there’s one scene where I’m very naked on camera, and that was my idea, my choice. It just felt like the biggest ‘fuck you’ to all the conversation surrounding my body; it was amazingly empowering. I felt beautiful in the moment, and I thought: ‘When I’m 80, I want to look back on this and remember how fucking hot I looked!’”
The fictional world of Bridgerton is there to support Coughlan and remind everyone that a woman’s body, real or fictional, is no one else’s business. And to prove it, when Penelope attends the first ball of the season and reveals her new look to a captivated audience that can’t stop looking at her in awe as she descends the stairs to the ball floor with a newfound confidence, the song that plays in the background, albeit dressed in a veneer of classical music respectability, is Gayle's 'abcdefu'
I’m sure this is how people in Regency England said “Depart copulate with yourself”
And we can’t talk about Penelope without talking about Colin, interpreted by Luke Newton, and how his character too contributes to Penelope’s glow up by hyping her up at every opportunity he gets. Particularly since he starts helping Penelope with her marriage prospects and reminds her that she has a lot to bring to the table and shouldn’t feel intimidated by nobility titles or being judged by others.
Colin has finally learned the trick to embracing who he truly is: a sensitive soul that doesn’t care about society’s expectations, and someone who values love and friendship and it’s not afraid to show it. However, despite all his preaching to his dear friend Penelope about how she too should forget about what society expects her to be, it’ll take a bit for him to fully shed the mask he’s put on this season after his travels. And the lack of news from his dear friend Penelope while he was away, as she hasn’t responded to a single letter he’s sent her. Ouch.
Sweet Colin is not strange to the machinations of love himself either.
In Season 1 he was willing to sacrifice himself to defend the honour of his love interest Marina Thompson, who was expecting a child from another man. But after his plans were cut short by the marriage of Marina to yet another suitor, Colin decided to stay away from love for a bit and travelled to Greece to find himself as a man, the XIX century equivalent to going to India today.
While he has never been a rake like his older brothers, and therefore like most men out and about the ton who spend their days trying to seduce anything that moves and it’s not going to have their Mamas demand a marriage proposal in return, we see that some changes start taking place in his good-natured disposition the more he travels to escape the constraints of society.
In fact, fans were a bit taken aback by how Colin seemed to have become another predictable rake and aspiring Don Juan after coming back from a summer of travelling across Europe at the end of Season 2.
Penelope herself seems surprised by how changed her friend is, and perhaps as a result of her newfound determination to marry this season and escape the life with an overbearing mother she’s destined to as a spinster, she is rather indifferent when Colin admits that he misses her as she hasn’t written back to him during his travels. Penelope responds to his confession in an unusual way and in fact confronts his friend by revealing how hurt she was when last season she overheard him say that he would never date her. Both characters leave the conversation with a piece of information that reveals a lot about how they feel about the other.
This is one of the first times where we see the mask drop and the real Colin emerge as he is mortified that his dear friend has been feeling this way because of an insensitive remark he made. In order to restore their relationship, he visits her the following day and offers to help her find a husband. Little does he know he’ll end up being the one proposing, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
All of the above context about Colin is key to show how healthy masculinity and male representation are also important on screen, especially on a show where the more of a fuckboy, sorry, I meant unattainable a bachelor a man is, the more desirable he becomes to the eyes of available ladies in want of a husband. Yes, it can be fun to watch that trope but we already had our share of good girls converting immature bad boys who spent their time never admitting their feelings or being wrong into mature men in Seasons 1 and 2.
In Season 3 we have Colin, a man who doesn’t try to fight or manipulate how his friend feels nor forces her to talk about it when she doesn’t want to. He simply listens to her and takes it in and to prove he’s paid attention and that he cares, he goes to see her to apologise in person, repeat how important her friendship is for him (something which he’s stated in previous seasons by the way) and offers his help in her quest to find a husband.
Now, those are some actually sexy qualities in a man.
To be fair all those social rules in Bridgerton are a minefield for men as well and they risk making a faux pas at any minute. All it took for Benedict to be chased by a potential marriage match was to dance with her once and pretend to enjoy it.
I feel for Colin, whose only mistake was making an unfortunate comment when asked about Penelope, but then made amends the moment he knew how that had affected his friend. Benedict, on the other hand, is not interested in dancing you, yet arranges the first dance, fakes having a good time and then treats you like crazy for suggesting a second one. If he wasn’t so funny and damn cute, we would have married him off already (which in Bridgerton speak it means he’d be out of the show). And if Bridgerton wasn’t a total fictional series I would be tempted to say that much of the dynamics around love between the characters in Season 3 could have been perfectly set in our current days.
Colin, however, lacks such flaky disposition but for all his good intentions and sensitive nature, Colin is after all son of the Rakearchy (patriarchy in Bridgerton speak) and so whether he is aware of not, he too has grown up conditioned to believe that a man showing no concern or real interest in the matters of the heart, and actually avoiding them for as long as he can, is the ideal any rake worth of that name should want to become. Luckily for us, Colin couldn’t disagree more with such absurd aspiration and his new act as dashing, flirty bachelor seems rather forced and him quite uncomfortable in such disguise.
So when Penelope is alone in Colin’s study, hiding from Eloise, and gets to read a passage of his diary, she confirms that all that glitters is not gold. In fact, while his dear Colin has been with many women during his recent travels, the experiences of the flesh have proven to be quite empty and unfulfilling.
This pose as a rake, despite the admiration it generates among his fellow bachelors, is bringing him little happiness and distancing him from his true self.
To the point that during a game of cards with the real deal rakes of the ton he wonders about “the necessity imposed on us to remain cavalier about the one thing in life that holds genuine meaning.” And in that moment audiences around the globe clapped and cheered as he decided to return to his true sensitive and sensible self and ditched whatever ridiculous ideas society has about the kind of man he is expected to become.
What’s refreshing in Colin is that we don’t have a character that is a rebel with a cause, like the Duke of Hastings was in Season 1, or someone battling his desire for a person he shouldn’t feel attracted to like Anthony in Season 2. Colin is an open book when it comes to his affections, and that has often been the cause of mockery by his older brothers. He is someone who is attentive, sensitive, a bit of a nerd, quite uninterested in good society rules, and above all a man with a great heart and big sense of loyalty for his friends.
It follows that he finds himself at odds with the idea of masculinity imposed on him by which he can’t show love or care for the genuine affection of a woman. Except he does, and he shows it every time in his interactions with Penelope, which are perhaps the only time where he feels he can be fully himself without fear of being judged.
And in fact, when he decides to stop pretending being someone he’s not, in a similar trajectory to his dear friend Penelope, he finds the confidence that he needs to admit his romantic feelings for her, which have been growing since the night Penelope asked him to kiss her as she was sure she’d die a spinster after a dramatic turn of events where people find out Colin is helping her to secure a husband.
Which apparently in Bridgerton’s world is a sin as unforgivable as wearing the same dress twice in a London season but equally an irrefutable reason to demand some tongue action from a friend when they unexpectedly visit you at midnight in case you die tomorrow without having ever being kissed.
And thank societal conventions for that stupid scrutiny as it forced a kiss that made Colin realise how he truly feels about Penelope. Oh boy, he is crushing hard after it, and what a delight it is to see him become slightly obsessed, jealous and protective.
Cut to the carriage scene where he declares without any ambiguity how he’s been feeling for Penelope for some weeks now. Quite an endearing moment where we see all the hesitation melting away as words flow from Colin’s mouth. After all, he wanted to be a writer so this couple is truly a match made in heaven.
After the initial shock of the revelation, we see a gleeful Penelope welcoming him in her embrace and we are treated to a hot makeout session that concludes with a new word that I’m curious to see if Lady Whistledown will use in her report of this incident: Orgasm. Just when Penelope was sure she’d die surrounded by Alsatians à la Bridget Jones, a Great Dane comes along.
When the carriage finally reaches its destination, Colin wastes no time and asks her whether she’s going to marry him or not. Why should he? He and Penelope have known each other for years and they have been there for each other on many occasions, setting the foundation of their friendship with a bit of gossip here and a bit of cheeky comments there. The only thing that was missing was for that sexual tension to be unleashed. But we don’t need to worry about that anymore.
That, dear readers, is a man who communicates clearly, treats you like you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him, doesn’t make you guess whether he’s going to call you or not after you sleep together, doesn’t comment on your enormous pants (another one for Bridget Jones fans) and on top of that puts your pleasure first without expecting anything in return. Seriously, this season of Bridgerton should be recommended watching for any straight man between the ages of 18 and 90.
For in the same way we need more Penelopes on screen to convey that there is more than one way and shape to be attractive and desirable as a woman, we also need more Colins that can show how being in touch with your feelings, showing them in no unclear way, caring for the people you love and value in your life and questioning the dictates of the patriarchy is the best way a man can be.
Hopefully the second half of the show will give us even more moments to celebrate the work of Nicola Coughlan and Luke Newton as the love story of Penelope and Colin unfolds and the mysterious identity of Lady Whistledown risks being revealed.
I’ll have to wait for the next four episodes to judge for myself what the excitement about that mirror is all about, but I can’t wait to see these two again frolicking about ton as two best friends who are fortunate enough to also be in love with each other and the shock the ton will be in when they announce their engagement.
I’m sure Lady Whistledown won’t miss the opportunity to comment on it. Neither will I.
Abroad is an independent publication about identity and belonging, living in between cultures and languages, the love of books, music, films, creativity, life in London, and being human in the age of artificial intelligence.
Ellen E. Jones, “Screen Deep: How Film and TV can solve racism and save the world” (London, Faber, 2024), p. 66.
What a smart, lively analysis of the Ultimate in Bodice-Ripper Regency TV: Bridgerton, season 3. Because of this we can get all our Bridgerton analysis needs right here on Substack! Thank you for this thoughtful, engaging commentary. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts after June 13th! 💮
I haven't seen it, but I'm THRILLED that there is a vegetarian character. Absolutely thrilled. We never get to see vegans or vegetarians on TV or in film, unless they are some "weirdo extremist" side-character that we only see for three seconds, and they are always very unpleasant. If there are any exceptions to this, someone please let me know. But I have failed to see any. So well done Bridgerton!