Bridgerton has been bold in its progressive treatment of many social issues, but with season 2 now out, it seems much of that messaging has come at the expense of animal justice. Claire Hamlett puts forward an alternative storyline.

Netflix’s 2020 hit Bridgerton has returned for a second season, and I’m not ashamed to say I have been leaning into its lavish escapism to give my brain a rest from the constant state of crisis the world is currently in. While some were critical of the first season’s colourblind version of Regency-era (early 19th century) high society, the show clearly aimed to position itself as a more progressive and diverse alternative to the endlessly white period dramas that have been on television forever. In season two, it expands its modern outlook on the feminist front, having Bridgerton sibling Eloise starting to explore the nascent women’s rights literature of the time and publicly objecting to the limitations on women’s choices.

But as ever with shows that aim to challenge problematic societal norms and promote messages of equality, I can’t help noticing how utterly blinkered and problematic Bridgerton is when it comes to animals. Take this season’s central love plot between elder Bridgerton brother Anthony and newly arrived Kate Sharma, which focuses in part on how Kate’s independence of mind and competence are what make her such a good match for Anthony. One of the ways that these traits are conveyed is through her domination over animals. She is presented as a superior horse rider and hunter to Anthony and other men, with better instincts for how to track an animal in order to kill it for sport. The trope of the woman gaining the respect and admiration of a man because she bests him physically is present across fictional genres. The idea that a woman needs to be ‘one of the guys’ to prove herself is depressing enough as it is - haven’t we moved on in 2022? - and worse still when animals are considered to be acceptable sacrifices in these sexual contests.

The second episode of the season features a scene at a horse race, where Kate’s superiority is also shown by how well she can interpret the conditions that will determine which horse will win. She explains to Anthony why the favourite to win and his chosen horse, Nectar, is going to lose. Her prediction proves correct. After the race, Anthony takes Kate’s sister Edwina - who he is ostensibly courting - to meet the horse. When Edwina exclaims “Kate, it is dreadful, they say Nectar is to be sent to the knacker’s yard,” meaning he will be slaughtered for losing the race, Kate doesn’t bat an eyelid, nor does anyone else present express dismay at the horse’s fate. This bald disinterest in how quickly humans can turn against animals who they use for their own ends may be a realistic reflection of how most people actually think, but I found it disturbing nonetheless.

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Though the younger Sharma sister did find Nectar’s impending death upsetting, she too had clearly forgotten all about it by the next scene. When Anthony turned up with a horse as a gift for her, she admitted she didn’t like horses that much and made no effort to consider what would happen to the horse next. Through the rest of the episode and the subsequent ones that I’ve watched so far, I’ve had an alternate plotline playing out in my head. This is how I think they should have gone…

In the deafening silence that follows Edwina telling Kate about Nectar going to the knacker’s yard, Edwina can’t stop thinking about the poor horse. It is most unjust, she thinks, that a horse who served his masters so well should be thanked in this brutal way for losing one race, especially when it was due to conditions - which Kate described to Anthony - outside of his control. Later in the episode, when Lady Danbury takes the Sharmas to see the Queen, who shows off her new collection of zebras in her menagerie, shortly before Anthony brings her a horse as a gift, she starts to wonder at how cruelly disposable animals are thought of in the supposedly genteel society she inhabits. The next time she sits down to dinner with other denizens of ‘the ton’ (London’s high society), the sight of venison being served up - a Regency-era status symbol - turns her stomach. 

That evening, at a soiree organised by Lady Danbury for the men of the ton to showcase their talents in a bid to woo Edwina, Edwina leaves them to make fools of themselves while she slips out and has a servant take her to the knacker’s yard, where she tries to bargain for Nectar’s life. But with no money of her own, her words of compassion fall on deaf ears. With the slaughter of Nectar weighing on her, Edwina starts scandalising everyone around her by suggesting that animals might have a right to live without humans using and killing them as they please. Instead of boasting to Anthony about Kate’s hunting skills in the hope of thawing the ice between her sister and her prospective husband, Edwina lambasts them both for their bloodlust and then proceeds to sab the hunt.

There is one person who is intrigued rather than shocked by Edwina’s animal advocacy: Eloise Bridgerton, who has just read some Mary Wollstonecraft and is feeling her mind expand in ways she scarcely could have imagined. She and Edwina begin talking of the rights of women and animals and soon realise that animals are victims of the same harmful system that objectifies and oppresses women, and that men were the main beneficiaries of maintaining a social order that refuses to see either women or animals as having intelligence or inner lives.

Anthony tries to talk Edwina down from her new way of seeing the world, sure it is just some kind of hysteria brought on by her being a delicate woman. But Edwina will not be swayed. Anthony gives up and instead marries Kate, who he is actually into anyway, but because Kate loves her sister she insists they must provide for her financially too even though everyone considers her to be fit for the madhouse. Eloise refuses to marry anyone and together she and Edwina use what they are entitled to of the Bridgerton money to campaign for rights for women and animals. Edwina, who is now vegan, eventually joins other animal advocates in founding the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1924.

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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