Period Drama Research Articles

Quasi‐color consciousness: Casting, race, and sexual violence in Netflix's Bridgerton

AbstractThe hit Netflix series Bridgerton (2020–) updates the period drama for the twenty‐first century with its racially diverse cast. Despite the series' potential for subverting racial hierarchies, this article argues that Bridgerton does not fully account for racist social structures, replicates racial stereotypes, and, most crucially, delegitimizes Black men as victims of sexual violence. These representational quandaries stem from Bridgerton's use of the casting and narrative practice “quasi‐color consciousness.” Quasi‐color consciousness provides more nuanced language beyond colorblind casting to account for television producers' efforts (and shortcomings) to create racially diverse contemporary television programming.

Mainstreaming anti-Semitism on Turkey’s public broadcaster TRT: ExaminingPayitaht: Abdülhamid

While conspiracy theories have traditionally received attention from the Turkish public and political elite, recently, however, they have proliferated when explaining complex situations. This paper examines conspiracy theories in Turkey and the role of entertainment media, specifically the popular period drama, Payitaht: Abdülhamid, in mainstreaming conspiracy theories. Payitaht: Abdülhamid, as an ideological state apparatus, repurposes anti-Semitism as salient conspiracy theories by creating scapegoats and existential others. This paper argues that the state uses entertainment media to disseminate conspiracy theories and, in effect, endorses anti-Semitism. As a result, anti-Semitism has transformed from a marginal movement to a mainstream movement.

Book Review: Period Drama

Book Review: Period Drama

Treading on the Tiger’s Tail: Chinese Wuxia and Japanese Jidaigeki Action Films Reacting to State Censorship in the 1930s and 1940s

This article highlights the relationship between wuxia (martial heroes) and jidaigeki (period drama) action films and state censorship in the 1930s and 1940s. I first introduce readers to key East-Asian literary conventions that portray righteous warriors who incarnate their moral codes with swords. I then illustrate the political contexts in 1930s China and 1940s Japan which caused the popular film genres of wuxia and jidaigeki to become politically problematic and therefore strictly censored. I closely examine director Bu Wancang’s 1931 wuxia film A Spray of Plum Blossoms and Kurosawa Akira’s jidaigeki 1945 film Treading on the Tiger’s Tail, investigating creative solutions each director found in order to release their respective films despite censorship pressures. There are three inventions both directors pioneered in their work, namely “ostensible exactness” in setting; “patriotic warriors” in characterization; and “swordless fights” in presenting spectacular action scenes. I argue that although these solutions failed to restore both genres back to their former popularity, Kurosawa’s film paved the way for the success of his world-class jidaigeki in the 1950s, and Bu’s wuxia led to the emergence of kung fu films in the 1960s. My critical analysis underscores the innovative creativity of Chinese wuxia and Japanese jidaigeki films while calling attention to the artistic and cultural legacies of these two popular cinematic genres. The comparison demonstrates how film censorship may undermine or even destroy traditions that have a long history and deep cultural roots.

The presence of source viewership in fansub paratexts

Abstract Online viewers’ paratextual activities when watching video content include rating, commenting and reviewing. These have received greater attention in audiovisual translation studies, since viewers’ paratexts can provide clues as to how the subtitled product is understood and what elements capture viewers’ attention. This paper examines the English fansubs of a Chinese period drama, to explore Chinese viewers’ motives for watching the show with English subtitles. Special attention is paid to the roles they play in the meaning-making processes of the online community. The paratextual elements include selected timed comments (comments synchronised to the video timeline), forum comments and reviews. The results show that although Chinese viewers are critical of the subtitles, they are highly aware of the fansubbers’ efforts and are enthusiastic about promoting Chinese culture to the wider world. Further, Chinese viewers participate in conversations with non-Chinese online viewers, bringing novel interpretations and circulating creative pleasure.

‘Distorting the history’: Padmaavat and the performative production of history in Indian popular culture

ABSTRACT Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat, a Bollywood period drama, engendered a variety of conversations about identity, history, etc. in India. This article examines the ways in which the reception of the film performatively produced a genre of history in the Indian public sphere. Such performative productions of history as a genre runs counter to the prevalent notion of history as pre-given with concrete referents and past incidents. The allegation of “distortion” (of “history”) is mobilized as a psychoanalytic resource to demonstrate this point. In the process, I note how the existing approaches to Hindu nationalism are inadequate in their critical clarity.

Rape in Period Drama Television: Consent, Myth, and Fantasy by Katherine Byrne and Julie Anne Taddeo (review)

Rape in Period Drama Television: Consent, Myth, and Fantasy by Katherine Byrne and Julie Anne Taddeo (review)

Spare the rod and spoil the pervert: Corporal punishment and the nineteenth century in popular culture

This article compares corporal punishment in nineteenth-century fiction with corporal punishment in the fictional recreation of the nineteenth century in twentieth-century film and television. It locates in the literature of the actual nineteenth century two creative impulses influencing the dramatic representation of Victorian schooling in modern adaptations. One is the evocation of schools in Victorian works of fiction, which became television and film adaptations. Another impulse is the subversive and covert flagellation literature of the fin de siècle. Both the respectable and the illicit literatures adduce core elements of corporal punishment: the formation of tableaux of bodies; the importance of access to the body; the subversion of what should be an act of correction because the subversion becomes permanent; and the way the restorative becomes aberrant. This article proposes that the popular culture of the twentieth century made overt what had been covert in the nineteenth century. Surveying period drama on British television and film using the 1971 adaptation of Tom Brown’s School Days as a focal point, this article proposes the fusion of the overt and covert of the preceding century. Close readings of popular culture productions show, as do the reactions of contemporary viewers, that they presented corporal punishment which subverted rather than chastised and which perverted rather than restored. These twentieth-century evocations of the previous century were contiguous with debate on the use and abolition of corporal punishment in modern schools. This article weaves together the past and the present, suggesting that classic works made by modern interpreters evoked the past in ways that subverted the present.

“A Darker Story”: Two Shakespeares, Art, and History in Emmerich’s Anonymous

Emmerich’s Anonymous (2011) infamously splits the character of Shakespeare into two disparate figures. In its alternative Tudor past, the ‘real’ Shakespeare – the Earl of Oxford – and Elizabeth I embark on a lifelong relationship that has shocking consequences for history and literature. The film’s other Shakespeare is the actor Will, who acts as the front for Oxford. Over the course of the film, Will is revealed to be a dangerous buffoon; he is boorish, near-illiterate, fame-hungry, and homicidal. While the film packages itself as a fresh take on Shakespeare’s biography, for all its revolutionary fervour it borrows much from Shakespeare in Love, and draws on the conspiracy thriller, period drama, blockbuster, and biopic. The film presents itself as conscious not only of its cinematic ancestry, but of dramatic and theatrical history. In this article, I demonstrate that Anonymous projects a coherent trajectory for Elizabeth’s reign that is mapped onto Shakespeare’s creative process and his plays – from the youthful magic of Dream to the decayed tragedy of Hamlet – and in doing so adapts and appropriates the Tudor past to serve a range of socio-political aims. Finally, I will connect the film’s author-hero to the film’s director through an examination of the film trailer and poster, and especially Emmerich’s propagandist video “Ten Reasons Why William Shakespeare is a Fraud”. Like the film, these paratexts aim to unseat Shakespeare as literary god, but they also reveal how Anonymous is deeply invested in appropriating Shakespeare’s authority, as well as his economic and cultural capital. Ultimately, I argue that Anonymous and its paratexts seek to deconstruct Shakespeare as icon in order to reshape our present and stimulate debate over the value and meaning of art in the twenty-first century.

Classicist Drama in Digital Times

This article begins with an overview of the rise of internet drama, or web drama, in China in the past fifteen years. The new platform boasts several advantages, which accounts for its rapid development. Web drama has become so popular that it is replacing television drama series as the mainstream. The article then examines a major genre of web drama: stories set in traditional China. While costume drama or period drama, whether based on history or fiction, has always been popular, classicist web drama series in recent years stand out for their authenticity and creativity. Based on two case studies, the article explores two distinct themes. The first is Royal Nirvana (2019), a pseudo-historical drama that integrates Song-dynasty culture into the plot. In doing so, it beautifully demonstrates the appeal of “Chinese style” or “Asian aesthetics” in popular imagination. The second case study is The Untamed (2019), a fantasy martial arts tale that features two male protagonists who start out as diametrically opposed but end up as soul mates and loyal allies. The drama series skillfully transforms danmei or BL (boys’ love) in the original story into a subtly titillating relationship between two men. The article concludes with a discussion of the new business model that web drama has successfully introduced into the entertainment industry in contemporary China.

시대극에서의 빅토리안 복식의 표현효과

시대극에서의 빅토리안 복식의 표현효과

The untold story of the first Italian-Turinese female lawyer: Netflix’s The Law According to Lidia Poet

ABSTRACT The Netflix nineteenth-century period drama The Law According to Lidia Poet presents the adventures of a young Italian law graduate in her pursuit of solving murder cases. Lidia Poet is not a fictional character, but very little is known about her journey to become a lawyer- and the series only adds a little to this knowledge. This review has several aims. First, it will reconsider the implications of reel history. Second, it will add some context to Netflix’s introduction of Lidia Poet and compare her experiences accessing the legal profession with her English colleagues, such as Bertha Cave and Gwyneth Bebb. Attention will be paid to the courts’ rejections of their appeals.

Reading will not find you a husband: Eloise Bridgerton, accomplishment and the ‘thinking woman’ in the early nineteenth-century period drama

From the very opening scenes of Bridgerton (), Eloise Bridgerton, the second-eldest daughter, takes centre stage as a character entrenched in a Regency London world, yet immediately identifiable to a modern audience. Her desire to learn and live beyond a conventional path sets her apart in a way that provides hope to a viewing audience that desires from her a myriad of things, including the intertwining of her reticence to marry, her close friendship with Penelope Featherington and intellectual aspirations with longed-for queer representation. This article will explore how the building of Eloise’s character allows for the exploration of the gendering of intellectual freedom on-screen at a place where fact, fiction and audience desires meet. In examining the translation of the complicated nature of the ‘thinking woman’ and ‘accomplishment’ onto screen through the lens of Eloise, and the references and language used, in particular those to Wollstonecraft, as well as audience responses to and desires for Eloise, this article will demonstrate how a conflation of historical reference and modern outlook both re-energizes and often polarizes feminist tropes of the scholarly woman.

After the duke: Reflections on how Bridgerton has changed the period drama conversation

Academics and journalists alike have written extensively on how Bridgerton () has portrayed BIPOC characters and history in the Regency era. Few writers however have attempted to analyse these questions with both academic and non-academic readers in mind. This article is a self-reflection, based analysis of how the conversation around Bridgerton has evolved over the three years since it was first released.

The Bridgerton effect: Introduction to a Special Issue on Netflix’s TV series

This special mini-issue on Netflix’s TV series, Bridgerton (2020–present), highlights the power of period drama television in its interrogation of historical and contemporary issues. The authors represent different disciplines, from literature and history to communications and media studies, and the formal and reflective essays that follow, combine our perspectives as both academics and fans of the period romance genre. Lastly, this issue describes how the ‘Bridgerton experience’ represents the multiple ways in which fans consume this series as it continues to shape our fantasies about the past.

Rape in Period Drama Television: Consent, Myth, and Fantasy. KatherineByrne and Julie AnneTaddeo. Lexington Books, 2022. 143 pp. $95.00 hardcover.

Rape in Period Drama Television: Consent, Myth, and Fantasy. KatherineByrne and Julie AnneTaddeo. Lexington Books, 2022. 143 pp. $95.00 hardcover.

An Analysis of Narrative Art in the Period Drama The Sea in the Dream

An Analysis of Narrative Art in the Period Drama The Sea in the Dream

William Oldroyd’s “Lady Macbeth”: An Exercise in Storytelling and Boredom

William Oldroyd’s film Lady Macbeth (2016 release from the UK) is a dark and disturbing portrait of a young woman, Katherine Lester, set in the bleak context of nineteenth-century provincial Scotland. The film offers a transmedia re-reading of Nikolai Leskov’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” (1865), a novella roughly appropriating and involving the eponymous Shakespearean character. Avoiding the poetics of period drama á la Belgravia (2020) or Downton Abbey (2010–2015), which offers global audiences shortbread-tin versions of British literature and culture as windswept and white, Oldroyd’s film introduces colour-blind casting to reveal the less-known facts of Britain’s provincial life—astounding numbers of Black people in nineteenth-century north-east England and a complex system of race, class, and gender oppression. The film’s poetics aligns itself with Leskov’s naturalism and thus with the post-heritage darker, dirtier, and more brutal images of the past defined by Andrew Higson as “dirty realism”. This article argues that Lady Macbeth is more interested in the experience of boredom that precedes storytelling than in the story’s well-constructed plot, employs slow cinema strategies, and is influenced by Vilhelm Hammershøi’s art. The film reproduces both Hammershøi’s aesthetics and atmosphere. Rather than consider Oldroyd’s work politically in terms of oppressive white privilege and patriarchy, this article tries to read the adaptation through the lens of a less-conspicuous undercurrent of storytelling, which foregrounds experience instead of scenarios focusing on narratives where moral judgment matters, and where the storyteller assumes responsibility for the life they are retelling.

시대극 ‘Cheri’에 표현된 벨 에포크 시대 조형예술의 특징

The purpose of this study was to analyze characteristics of formative art of costumes, architecture, crafts through the period drama in the Belle Epoque. As a research method, this study investigated theoretical background of in the Belle Epoque fist, and analyzed after capturing images in ‘Cheri’ focusing on the women

Doubled brothers: misfitted male bodies and minoritized Basque culture in Handia (2017)

ABSTRACT This article examines the critically acclaimed Basque-language period drama Handia (The Giant, 2017), directed by Aitor Arregi and Jon Garaño. Handia, which won 10 Goyas, is the most viewed Basque film in history. Based on the true story of Miguel Joaquín Eleizegui Arteaga (1818–1861), a man with acromegaly who traveled throughout Spain and Europe as a freak show attraction, Handia centers on the complicated relationship between brothers Joaquín (the titular “giant”) and Martín, who are raised in a farmhouse near the tiny Gipuzkoan village of Altzo. Handia documents the brothers’ struggle to come to terms with the liberal victory in the First Carlist War and the overturning of the Ancien Régime. Martín seeks to escape the agrarian lifestyle of his upbringing, while Joaquín longs to remain on the homestead. I interpret the brothers as doubles who narratively and visually separate and merge throughout the film. As Martín strives to blend into urban settings by adopting the trappings of the European bourgeois man, the reluctant Joaquín’s body grows increasingly large, peculiar and conspicuous. Through the lenses of disability and gender theory, I contend that Joaquín’s nonstandard body represents an othered, agrarian Basque culture facing extinction within a modernizing Europe, and that the resolution of the conflict between Martín and Joaquín models a minority culture’s survival by embracing change without erasing its essential difference. To do this, I will illustrate how the portrayal of fitting and misfitting bodies in Handia articulates an alternative way of being characterized by interdependency, vulnerability, non-heteronormativity and stubborn resistance to homogenizing external forces. I conclude that Handia exemplifies how the Basques may continually redefine themselves – through strategic misfitting – in a way that merges the dichotomies of change and tradition, universality and particularity and wanderlust and rootedness.