![]() There were between 10,000 and 20,000 Black people in Britain in the 18th century, but vanishingly few were wealthy. It wasn’t quite like that in the real world. “With one party,” George tells Charlotte, “we have created more change, stepped forward more than Britain has in the last century.” Racism is vanquished overnight, within the space of a formal dance to a string arrangement of an Alicia Keys track. These rich Black Britons went to Eton and Oxford, we’re told, but are excluded from white aristocratic society.Ĭharlotte and George’s union prompts what is dubbed “the great experiment” – bestowing upper-class titles and acceptance upon these posh people of colour, and thereby bridging Britain’s racial divide. ![]() This parallel 18th-century Britain contains many wealthy Black people, such as the young Lady Danbury and her older, buffoonish, darker-skinned husband (who some have condemned as a racial caricature). The Bridgerton extended universe has always taken a curious approach to race, but in Queen Charlotte it reaches bizarre levels. ![]() This prequel chronicles Charlotte’s arranged marriage to George III in 1761, which blossoms into real love and ushers in a new era of racial unity in Britain – just like Harry and Meghan didn’t. There turn out to be quite a lot of liberties. Queen Charlotte begins with the disclaimer that it is “fiction inspired by fact” and that “all liberties taken by the author are quite intentional”. “The idea that that would make her their first Black royal was very interesting to me.” “I know there are a lot of people who believe it’s absolutely fact that she’s from Black Portuguese royalty,” said the show’s creator, Shonda Rhimes. Thus, young Charlotte is portrayed by British actor India Amarteifio, who has Ghanaian and German ancestry. Queen Charlotte, the latest Bridgerton instalment, hangs on a similar scrap of historical speculation: the theory that German-born Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz had African ancestry. “And why do some people need Cleopatra to be white? Her proximity to whiteness seems to give her value, and for some Egyptians it seems to really matter.” “Why shouldn’t Cleopatra be a melanated sister?” asked Tina Gharavi, the show’s director. But, the show’s makers argue, the dynasty may have intermarried with local Egyptians over the preceding 250 years, at a time when no one was classified as “black” or “white” anyway. Photograph: NetflixĬleopatra’s precise pigmentation is up for debate: she was descended from the Greek-Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty. View image in fullscreen ‘Why shouldn’t Cleopatra be a melanated sister?’ … Adele James as Queen Cleopatra.
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