Bridgerton Introduced a Queer Black Woman — Of Course People Are Mad

When Bridgerton premiered on Netflix on December 25, 2020, it immediately made waves for its interpretation of regency-era London. The Shondaland series — in a departure from the Julia Quinn book series it's based on — presented a revisionist history in which Queen Charlotte's Black ancestry made way for beautiful, brooding BIPOC landed gentry like Regé-Jean Page's Duke Simon Basset. It was utopian, if somewhat confusing. For example, is Kate Bridgerton's (Simone Ashley) native India still under colonial rule in this alternate universe? Is there still slavery in the United States? Unclear! But that's okay, because Bridgerton is not here to solve the world's most gruesome problems; its purpose is to entertain us with yearny, gorgeous, lavishly-dressed aristocracy who can't help but fall in love with and fuck all the wrong people. As the show's creator Chris Van Dusen told USA Today, "we set out to create a period piece that we hadn't seen before…we wanted this show to reflect the world that we live in today." 

There's no reason, then, for people to be as surprised as they are that Bridgerton Season 3 embraced queer stories in not one but two major instances. 

The first sign of a sea change for the series — which, unlike its prequel Queen Charlotte, had yet to feature any queer characters — happened when Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) realized his own bisexuality and entered into a throuple. The second came during the season finale, when the newly married Francesca Bridgerton (Hannah Dodd) grew tongue-tied meeting husband John Stirling's (Victor Alli) cousin, Michaela Stirling (Masali Baduza).

Fans of Julia Quinn's original book series immediately knew what this meant. (Warning: We're about to get into Bridgerton book spoilers.) In When He Was Wicked, the novel following Francesca, Michael Stirling — a white man in the books — fell for Francesca at first sight. He was forced to push down these feelings for his cousin's wife, only for a love story to bloom slowly between them when Francesca is tragically widowed. 

Bridgerton's adaptation is a reinterpretation in more ways than one. Perhaps most notably: Michael is now Michaela, and she is played by a Black woman. Quite a few Bridgerton viewers  took to social media to protest the change. Variations of "Justice for Michael!" appeared dozens of times under Shonda Rhimes' recent Instagram posts, including several completely unrelated to Bridgerton. "Please go back to following the books, you are destroying stories," user bah.vilela wrote. Bridgerton's producers "ruined the best series that Netflix had with its forced inclusion" according to user Gg_lu2398. "What they did to Benedict and Francesca is disappointing," Gg_lu2398 argued. "Their stories were the most anticipated and beautiful. If they wanted diversity, they [could have] invented new stories like in Queen Charlotte. Why change something that was going so well. You ruined everything Shonda." 

The reaction is disappointing, if unsurprising. There is a storied, ugly history of people reacting badly to Black actresses stepping into roles audiences thought of as white. When 12-year-old Amandla Stenberg played Rue in The Hunger Games they faced virulently racist backlash, despite the fact that the book character Stenberg was playing was heavily coded as Black. Things didn't go any more smoothly for Zendaya when she stepped into the role of MJ in Spider-Man: Homecoming, or Halle Bailey when she was cast as Ariel in The Little Mermaid. More recently, Francesca Amewudah-Rivers faced major misogynoir when she was cast as Juliet in the West End production of Romeo & Juliet. The harassment against Amewudah-Rivers got so bad that 800 Black actors signed an open letter in solidarity. 

All of those were already female characters in the public's mind. Baduza, as Michaela Stirling, is not only playing a race-bent character but also one whose sexuality and gender have been altered in adapting the story for television. Comments under the actress's recent Instagram posts range from harassing outcries ("You will never be my Michael. Good luck on securing the cancellation.") to fans rushing to her defense ("Thank you for saving us from another boring hetero story."). All this after only thirty seconds of screentime. 

It's worth noting, however, that not every complaint about the changes to Michael Stirling is a racist and/or homophobic dog whistle. Some viewers have pointed out that Michaela's introduction has ripple effects. In the books, Francesca is genuinely romantically in love with John, and is devastated for years by his death. But while there's love between John and Francesca in Season 3 of Bridgerton, Francesca's mother Violet (the sage arbiter of all things true love) repeatedly expresses doubts that she's in love with John. Whether Francesca is or isn't is left up to interpretation — that is, until the Season 3 finale. 

"When I first met your father I could barely speak my own name, I was so taken by him," Violet tells Francesca in the episode. To Violet that's what love looked like — and, later in the same episode, it's what Francesca experiences when she meets Michaela. 

"Making Francesca fall first, making Francesca interested in Michaela while she is still married to John, has completely changed the entire story," TikTok user finepressedition said in a video praising the writers for turning Michael into Michaela but critiquing the scene in which the character was introduced. "There's a reason that it's Michael, now Michaela, who falls first, and not Francesca." For some, the change undercuts the relationship between Francesca and John, who viewers (and book readers) fell hard for in the first part of Season 3. That's not because the moment reveals Francesca as queer, but because in the Bridgerton world, the message of that final moment is clear: Michaela is the true love Violet was waiting for her daughter to find, and those same butterflies are notably absent with John. 

Adapting a beloved book series is a tricky thing. Novels and TV series are fundamentally different beasts, and changes are not only necessary but can actually deepen the viewers' experience. Still, it's not an exact science; there are inevitably casualties, just as there are massive gains. It is, frankly, far too soon to tell how Francesca's story will play out. Season 4 will likely focus on Benedict (the lead has yet to be confirmed), adapting Quinn's novel An Offer From a Gentleman. When we next see Francesca and John, they might very well be rapturously in love, with Francesca not having thought about Michaela for years. We really don't know. 

Here's what we do know: It was about damn time that Bridgerton included queer characters in its trademark epic love stories. From its soundtrack to its "color blind" casting, the entire concept of Bridgerton is the blending of modern sensibilities with the constraints of an era during which being caught in an unwed kiss could ruin a life. Queen Charlotte teased us with a love story between Brimsley (Sam Clemmett), the queen's right hand man, and Reynolds (Freddie Dennis), the king's secretary. But theirs was exactly the kind of queer period story we've seen before: the kind with a tragic ending. If Bridgerton's aim is to reinvent the period drama, to "reflect the world we live in today," as Van Dusen put it during the show's first season, then the mission is not complete without major queer characters allowed to live out major queer love stories. That is not, as the trolls in Rhimes' Instagram comments have suggested, as simple as inventing new fringe characters. The show is called Bridgerton; each season focuses on a Bridgerton sibling. If a queer story is going to get serious screentime, it has to be part of a Bridgerton love story. And not for nothing? There are eight Bridgerton siblings. A few of them were bound to be queer. 

Bridgerton might not treat queerness with the same utopian lens with which they address race. It seems, for the time being, that hetero pairings and biological heirs still rule the Ton. But there's a certain freedom in Francesca's future as a widow; Bridgerton proved as much with Lady Tilly Arnold (Hannah New) this season. That may very well be the show's opening to a happy ending for Francesca and Michaela. Francesca's already won in the marriage mart; there won't be pressure to remarry. Francesca and Michaela's promised queer love story won't be free of tragedy — they will, after all, find each other in grief. 

Still, a queer love story with a future? True love, with queer characters and the possibility of a happily ever after, and in a period drama? It's almost unheard of — and still very much needed.