Bridgerton Season 2: Flipping the Script on South Asian Stereotypes

Pastel hues, gilded décor and delicate debutantes have adorned the ornate sets of Bridgerton since season one. But in the latest installment of this two-season TV show, the splash of azure and sprinkle of culture not only warms hearts but also reinvents the portrayal of diversity in a period piece. Because of its outstanding South Asian representation through the Sharma sisters who uplift a culture constantly relegated to pop culture purgatory, Bridgerton has recently been the talk of the ton. By embracing traditional pre-wedding ceremonies and incorporating endearing honorifics used in South Asian culture into the episodes, the show not only made me, a fellow Mumbaikar just like Kate Sharma, feel proud of my ethnicity but has also given me a chance to vicariously live my Disney princess dreams through her. 

Being a melanin gal from India, growing up and seeing virtually no ounce of representation or inclusion of Brown culture outside Bollywood was a huge hit to my self-esteem. It taught me early on that there was no place for a Desi in an acting role on the global stage. Additionally, being a third culture kid, I felt even more disconnected from my heritage and seeing no role models that I could identify with, in Hollywood made me effectively a coconut (a whitewashed brown person). My earliest memory of feeling represented in cinema dates back to the time I watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Seeing the Patil sisters in their ethnic wear dancing at the Yule Ball filled my 9-year-old heart with joy but that ended after their fleeting fifteen seconds of screen time.

Eventually, Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) from Big Bang Theory came along. It was the first time I saw a Brown person in a leading role on a predominantly White TV show and teenage me was secretly rejoicing and rooting for him. But it was also the first time I felt ashamed and embarrassed to call myself an Indian. It was evident right from the start that Raj was every South Asian stereotype bottled up in the husk of an emasculated Indian man who was untethered to his culture. His role as a scientist from Cambridge University who had selective mutism around women strengthened the stereotypes of Brown people being viewed as nerdy, class A geeks who speak with a “weird” accent and can’t talk to anyone with a vagina. Hating Indian food and not knowing anything about Hinduism only showed his disdain for his culture, as pointed out by Nikesh Shukla in his essay “The wanking foreigner from The Big Bang Theory”. Additionally, Raj was also the butt of all jokes and sardonic comments including the only man who didn’t have a girlfriend for the majority of the show. The smart yet unattractive, unlikeable, and under-appreciated Brown person is an unfortunate Hollywood trope every South Asian is all too familiar with and it reflects in the way we perceive ourselves too. There’s no representation and then there’s bad representation - Raj was definitely the latter.

However, Bridgerton flipped the script. It took the most intimate parts of South Asian culture and uplifted it on a global stage through strong, confident, and beautiful Brown leads who were proud of their heritage. It also refused to engage in the silly South Asian sidekick trope but rather gave our community a main character moment through Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley). Through the ethnically South Asian leading ladies Kate and Edwina (Charithra Chandran), executive producer Shonda Rhimes effortlessly showed Hollywood how cultural appreciation and inclusion could be done right. She included endearing honorifics that every older sister in South Asia is familiar with in the form of Edwina calling her older sister ‘Didi’. The auspicious pre-wedding ‘Haldi’ ceremony where turmeric is applied on the hands, legs, and face of the bride as it is a symbol of purity and to ensure the bride is glowing on her wedding day was yet another Hindu tradition which was embraced and incorporated into the season. This was done just before Edwina’s betrothal to Anthony. The most moving scene to me, however, was the one where Kate applies oil on her younger sister’s hair and braids her own. It’s a seemingly meagre detail in the greater landscape of the show but one that truly encapsulated the beauty of the representation in Bridgerton. Growing up Brown meant coconut oil was a staple in your hair care routine. It would usually entail your mother applying oil to your scalp whenever you stepped out the door. However, at the time I was in school, everyone wanted to be like the Caucasian teenagers in Hollywood TV shows. Unfortunately, those TV shows neither had much diversity nor depicted people oiling their hair or braiding it. Therefore, using oil was seen as repulsive because it was foreign and not “Western enough”. But seeing the executive producer take something as menial as a South Asian hair care regimen and incorporate it into the show to embrace my culture truly showed me that Kate and Edwina were not being used for their exotism and that she actually cared about the way my culture was included. 

This also speaks to the way the hard-headed yet dashing Viscount, Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) loves Kate. He doesn’t see color or race but rather sees her for the fiercely confident, gorgeous, and intellectual woman she is. In Netflix TV shows like Never Have I Ever, Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), an ethnically Indian high schooler is defined by her ethnicity even though she hates her culture. In Bridgerton however, the leading ladies’ ethnicities are not their whole personalities but rather add to their multifaceted persona’s as they are defined by internal attributes.

I’m not one that’s going to argue about the historical accuracy of this fictional drama because that’s exactly what it is - fiction. Just for once, I’d like to steer away from the trauma porn of colonization and imagine what my culture would have looked like in Mayfair among the upper echelon of high society without worrying about racism and sexism.

Having no South Asian Disney princess that has graced the silver screen to date, Kate is the closest thing that comes to a Hollywood princess from my culture. Her ability to be stunning yet smart showed us South Asian women that we don’t have to sacrifice beauty for brains but can rather have both. Watching this small-screen TV show truly left a big impact. It was the first time I saw a South Asian lead yearned for, loved, and became the object of all the protagonist’s desires. *Cue the instrumental version of the Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham soundtrack playing in the background. Loosely quoting from Queen Charlotte herself, among so many flowers this season of Bridgerton was truly a gem. I only wish teenage me had seen more representation and inclusion of my culture in Hollywood like I did in Bridgerton so I could have spared myself some of the internalized prejudice and self-loathing.