what penelope's glow-up in 'bridgerton' says about desirability
when will women be seen as romantically and sexually desirable JUST AS THEY ARE?
**CONTAINS SPOILERS! DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU!**
Bridgerton is beloved for many reasons, one of the main ones being how it handles diversity by simply not making a spectacle of it. Throughout the last three seasons, we’ve seen actors of all races, body types, ages and abilities seamlessly integrated into the Regency-era show without asking for a standing ovation. Producer and multi-hyphenate extraordinaire Shonda Rhimes has made inclusion a matter of fact—because this shit shouldn’t be revolutionary anymore; it should be the status quo. And that’s how we condition the world to see all people as deserving of nuanced stories. Period.
So when we all found out that this recent season would focus on Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan), we were salivating. Up until now, Penelope was seen as a spinster—an overlooked and underestimated wallflower taunted for her lack of male prospects for reasons we can only assume were about her appearance and her desire to be alone with her literature (relatable). She also just so happens to be Lady Whistledown, the anonymous gossip columnist who’s had the town of Mayfair by the fucking throat for years. Now Penelope was finally getting her moment to shine, to fall in love with longtime crush Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton), to be realized by everyone as a full person, and we were ready for it.
What I wasn’t ready for was how much Penelope would have to change.
In the beginning of episode one, Penelope is still wearing her familiar citrus-hued outfits and super tight curls that gave her the illusion of being child-like. By the middle of the episode, she’s taken her hard-earned, gossip-slinging money to her local seamstress and confidant Genevieve Delacroix (Kathryn Drysdale) for a total fashion makeover. She enters the first ball of the season in a cape, removing it to reveal the new Penelope: loose romantic curls, a smouldering eye and a dress in a whole new silhouette.
Let me just out myself here for a moment: I lost my damn mind at the big reveal, too. I also had the same thoughts and relief that they finally put her in outfits that showed off her body and made her look grown-up and sexy. But I couldn’t shake the icky feeling that this had to happen for her to be seen as desirable by Colin. She had to throw away her frumpy outfits in exchange for waist-snatching gowns to be noticed by other suitors. And more importantly, Penelope seemingly had to change her entire look to feel confident in herself. It’s all very What Not To Wear, and I don’t know how to feel about it.
Now as someone who lived through the Scene era (XD rawr), I’m intimately familiar with the power of a style overhaul and the confidence it can provide. I know that the glow-up trope is digestible and relatable and the simplest way to visually express a dramatic change in confidence. Colin had a bit of a glow-up on his return from his travels, too, but it means something different when it’s a woman—especially one who exists outside conventional beauty standards of the show’s high society; someone who, in the original books, actually lost weight as part of her transformation (!!!).
While watching part one and experiencing these conflicting thoughts, I figured maybe I was actually being the superficial one. Was noticing this just exposing my own internalized beliefs about desirability? Am I the problem!? Probably, but… I shared these thoughts on my Instagram Stories and was met with resounding “yups” from all sorts of people. After my thorough research including all of 13 respondents was finished, I could reasonably conclude that I wasn’t crazy in the way I was perceiving this. Regardless of what was intended, the impact was clear: smaller = hotter = desirable.
And the impact remains the same for many despite the fact that there are, to the show’s credit, other larger-bodied people represented who didn’t suffer in the way Penelope did. Still the same, despite the fact that one of the show’s most undesirable women (the conniving Cressida Cowper, played by Jessica Madsen) is, by today’s standards, the standard of beauty. And the same still, despite the fact that Penelope’s quick wit and intelligence is what truly wooed Colin this entire time. For a show in which costume and appearance is such a focal point, of course we would focus on Penelope’s aesthetic change and what it really meant, even if it was subconscious. But did she have to change how she looked to find the confidence to pursue Colin?
I have a lot of respect for Nicola Coughlan who is, of course, not stupid and understands the craze around her role in the show. She knows what she represents to people, and to women especially. There’s a reason she specifically asked to be “very naked” in her first sex scene with Colin—as a fuck you to all the conversation around her body (some of which claimed her waist was photoshopped). And though she’s rejected the idea that she’s any poster girl for body positivity, there are hundreds of X posts expressing how healing it was to see a “plus-size” (FYI, Coughlan is not technically plus-size, but reads that way so we’ll go with it) actor be romantically and sexually desired. For many viewers, this was or will be their first time ever seeing that. (I remember what Lena Dunham in Girls did to my brain chemistry back in 2012, and I’ll remember what seeing Penelope getting finger banged by Colin in a carriage to a violin rendition of Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything” did to my brain, too.)
What I find most conflicting is how awfully important it seemed for the show to drive home the fact that Penelope didn’t have to change anything about herself to win the affection of Colin, or to be respected by her peers and her family. It seemed equally important for the show to put women’s sexuality in the driver’s seat, too, which they did so well.
Perhaps Penelope’s truth is that she had to get some new clothes to give herself a confidence boost, but I wished more for a story that could’ve seen her find the love she deserves—completely unchanged.
things I can’t STFU about this week:
Chappell Roan turning down a White House invite to perform at Pride and the absolutely bananas turnout for her Gov Ball performance last weekend. I am obsessed with slow-burn fame stories. Apparently she’d been a year away from giving up on music and just going back to school before her career sky rocketed and that’s iconic.
I started getting acne on my neck like a literal teenage boy, wtf? And this serum that has completely healed my skin. If you’re acne prone and haven’t tried it, do so.
Charli XCX’s new album Brat, specifically this song.