Telling us it’s raining

There is a reason I don’t watch TV much. No. Seriously, there is a reason I don’t watch TV much. Because when I do, I start threatening to throw shoes at the TV or … or write rants at my blog about it.

Stop popping popcorn right this minute. You’re all BAD people. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Besides most o you will say that I got what I deserved for watching a romance series. Guilty as charged, but you have to remember I read EVERYTHING including regency romances. It’s just I tend to read regency romances when I’m on low brain-effort mode. This doesn’t mean, btw, I’m calling people who read regencies preferentially stupid. People like what they like and it has nothing to do with how smart they are. I’m saying I, personally, read them on low effort or low-emotional-give mode, because they are predictable. I know they are going to end in HEA (Happily Ever After) and usually nothing too terrible will happen. It’s the equivalent of putting on something in the background when I’m cleaning that I know is not going to make some jump-scare sound and upset me. Mysteries (depending on the level of mystery) and science fiction require more engagement because the formulas are more complex, and have the potential to do things that really upset me. For me, Romance is my easy-listening. I prefer them clean, or I flip past the sex, as written sex doesn’t do much for me, and it rarely advances the plot.

Oh, the other thing is that I don’t usually read what I’m writing at that time. I’m not even sure why, but if I’m on a scifi writing jag, like now, I read mystery for fun. And vice versa. And if I’m cycling fast between sf/f and mystery for writing (which I did for much of my writing career, due to contract commitments) I STILL have to read SOMETHING. So I spent years on end reading romances, and of those mostly regencies.

Anyway, when the Bridgertons was being talked about, I watched a show, was mildly baffled at the racial thing and thought it must take place in a parallel world, which actually made it sort of cool, even if I grumphed at their not giving me the world building for how we’d got here. (I have the same complaint against 90% of Urban fantasy, so… I think I’m more of a world building geek than other people.) I asked if the racial thing was in the books and someone (I think older DIL) told me they were bog standard regencies. So I looked them up, and realized I’d read them during one of my binge-reading regencies… Well, when we still lived in downtown Colorado Springs.

It was from there that I followed through to the gobsmacking realization that the mentally impaired producer of the show (sorry, but the truth must be told) had decided Queen Charlotte was black due to two bad portraits and a rumored MOORISH ancestress FIVE HUNDRED YEARS IN THE PAST. Chilluns and babies, Moors ain’t black. Most of them are Mediterranean looking. Since this was a Portuguese “Moor” she was likely redheaded because uh… both sides kidnapped women from the other side and the Moors really liked Germanic and Celtic blonds, okay? But sure, let’s play along and pretend Moors were black from the deepest Africa. FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. That’s seventeen generations. I have black ancestry from Africa much closer than that, and look bog-standard Mediterranean. Because that’s I presume what most of my ancestors looked like. In a Northern European country a black ancestor can disappear into the background in three or four generations. Our neighbor who was in fact black and married a blond man had very light children of “undefinable race” and her grandkids look “light Portuguese.” FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. Only an idiot who believes in one-drop would believe that someone with a black ancestor five hundred years in the past would still be “black” even by the standards that Americans consider people black.

Five hundred years an ancestor from Africa might not even show up in your 23 and me. And if he does it will be in the less than 2% range.

But the producer is obviously mentally impaired by racial notions and obsession, so she decided that there must have been secret black nobility and gentry around England at that time, and that the Queen was outright black. And then ran with it.

As annoying as I found this — and I did find it annoying — I could enjoy it at the level of “this is a parallel world where things are very weird.” I still wished she had given more alternate history to go on, something that made sense. And I resented the fact that people who tend to think what they see on TV is true — mostly because of our appalling educational system — would believe that there was always parallel white and black nobility in Europe, but what the heck. The costumes aren’t realistic. The society isn’t realistic. The dances, instead of being the synchronized walking of British Regency (seriously what is with Northern Europeans and inability to dance), are this strange, beautifully choreographed thing to modern music. As a fantasy it was visually gorgeous and the male love interest for the first season, sure, was black but also gorgeous. So low brain power eye candy. And besides Dan was watching it, and I could watch with one eye (on eyestalk) while I wrote the blogs at night.

The second season was actually more believable, since the female love interest was Indian (dot) which did happen in British families at the time (particularly if the girl was only half Indian and had a considerable dowry.)

But now we’re in whatever this season is, and I’m getting p*ssed off. Why? Oh, I’ll tell you why. It’s like this, it’s okay if there’s a few drops on your neck, and they tell you it’s raining. You try to believe it and go along.

BUT when there’s a stream on your neck, and you look back and there’s some grinning bastage with his pizzer out and telling you “Nah, dude, it’s raining.” you’re liable to get upset.

The first thing to piss me off came on gradually. At some point it dawned on me that EVERY couple — except the one in which the girl is morbidly obese! — is bi-racial.

Do I disapprove of bi-racial couples? Brother! If I did, and depending on how you counted it, husband and I would have to get a divorce. Also, I wouldn’t be here if my ancestors had had that attitude.

No. What I disapprove of is contrived and unnatural emphasis on race. The first one was okay. The couple had chemistry, and were both very good looking. After that it started slowly impinging on my consciousness that a-historicity aside, this was neither casual nor aesthetic, but fetishism. Race fetishism. And not even for sexy reasons. Just because someone has racial rats in their heads and wants to inflict them on others.

And then there’s the ridiculous. I’d be willing to pretend that there was a parallel world in which somehow there was a parallel British gentry that was black and that there had been some sort of apartheid that was broken by the Queen marrying the white king. (Except that of course, in the other miniseries they make the king black also? I think?)

Anyway, fine, whatever. But now there’s apparently also a parallel Chinese Gentry. All in England, which frankly was the size of a tea-tray. And among the gentry which were also known as the “upper ten thousand” because they were more or less ten thousand people, or the size of a small town.

Look, I’ll suspend my disbelief, but you don’t have permission to leave it dangling there till dead.

Then there comes the throw away stupid that one of the grand-dames of the show — who happens to be black — is retiring and going back to Africa. Africa! in the late 18th century! Someone who is the highest of the British court! I ASK YOU. My poor disbelief might not come back, even with the paddles of life. Also, I think we could kill the producer of the show by sneaking a general history of the world into her room and leaving it near her for the night. Because it’s obviously kryptonite to her.

And then comes the crowning insanity which hasn’t happened yet, but I could see them preparing for, and apparently Dan has found the producer bragging about what they’re doing and I’m right.

So, stop reading here if you are following the show and don’t want spoilers. But having read the novels… One of the daughters, the shy, bookish one, marries a man who is much like her. He then dies of brain hemorrhage and she feels guilty, because by then she was attracted to his male cousin, who is a bluff soldier and lives with them.

The romance with the cousin is one of the last books.

When this season the cousin was introduced and was female my hackles rose. For one, because the male character being really close to this cousin gave it a completely different aspect.

But there were other clues, like the cousin getting really upset at match making her with some guy, etc.

I told Dan “they’re going to make that a lesbian romance”. He didn’t believe me, till he read the producer bragging about it.

So, do I have anything against lesbians? No. There is only one person in the world whose orientation means anything to me, and as long as he likes me, other people are free to sleep with whomever they want. It’s not how I relate to other people. I relate to them as individuals. If I like them i will be nice to their significant others. If I like both of them, it’s a bonus. If Dan and I like both of them, it’s a miracle. (Those of you who are married know how rare that is. We have maybe four couples where we like both members of the couple equally. Wait, eight if you count kids young enough to be our kids.)

I am however way beyond sick and tired tv shows making the bookish, introverted girl a lesbian. It wasn’t cute or edgy when they did it to Willow on Buffy and it’s even less so now.

This might not be obvious to the grand-poobahs of Hollyweird, but here in the real world, even back in my day, any girl who was awkward, bookish, or not particularly into makeup and clothes, was ASSUMED to be a lesbian. I suspect these days it’s lesbian-or-trans. And if you’ve attended public school, you know that being one of the best students is already hell on Earth. If the kids have another way you’re obviously different to fasten onto, you will be tortured at least psychologically and often physically too. I suspect nowadays being tortured by telling you how accepting they are and how you MUST come out to their idea of who you are the most exquisite torture.

Please stop. Stop it already. Stop pissing down our neck and pretending it’s raining.

If you want to do all interracial romances? Set it in the present day in a college town. Or if you absolutely must put it in the past, tell us it’s an alternate history. Or at the very least, stop claiming that you’re telling the “real” history.

And, hey, why not? Make the quiet bookish girl, or the tomboy REALLY heterosexual every once in a while. Heck, have some of them be in happy heterosexual marriages. Because I am here to tell you it can happen.

Yes, I do realize that in your bizarre tiltawhirl circles all this bs seems realistic and inevitable. But do strive to look in on reality every once in a while. Or at least send it a postcard.

Because I’m really, really, really tired of your stilted lack of imagination combined with attempt to shock people who have been seeing this stuff since they were kids and are now grandmothers.

Have an original idea. I beg you for the love of Bob. Because I can’t afford to put a shoe through the TV.