I spent some time over the weekend devouring the newest episodes of BRIDGERTON, the wholly smutty Jane Austen meets Downtown Abbey series based on some kinda crappy novels that create delightful television that I have watched the earlier seasons of at least thrice. They are usually filled with heat and swirling balls and exquisite set pieces and dresses that set my little pretty-obsessed heart aflutter. (Not to mention an awesome soundtrack that mixes swing quartets with pop music renditions.) On the whole, this season doesn't feel as wrought in the chemistry department, it being focused on wallflower Penelope and her long-time neighbor crush Colin Bridgerton (as well as her falling out with her bestie Eloise).
In many ways, Penelope is the center of the whole BRIDGERTON universe...the infamous and secret Lady Whistledown, who spreads the noble class' gossip succinctly and on the regular. Socially awkward, plumper than other girls, dressed in bright canary or orange, and mistreated/often overlooked by her mother and sisters, Pen has ambled through two seasons of unrequited affections and season 3 is finally her turn.
Much has been said in the media over the body of the actress, Nicola Coughlin, who plays her. One one hand, she is not exactly a larger body-positivity champion, her actual short frame being at most a size 10-12 in a world of actresses that are 4-6.. Part of it may be the costuming up until this season, which favored empire dresses she looked like her top half was stuffed into with little to no waist definition. Or maybe her red hair, pinned up and girlish vs. the long red tendrils of this season. She actually has a pretty standard-shaped body, but her voluptuousness and chubby cheeks read as an unusual representation of the female form on screen and in Hollywood.
Either way, like Eloise, Pen had a spot not among the husband-hunting crowds, but along the borders of the room, watching and taking notes. Some have suggested her physique is the thing that kept her at bay, though this is not mentioned in the show, but anyone who feels that she doesn't fit in among the "ideal body" likely has felt the same. When Pen puts herself out there, in the show, her spinsterhood after three available seasons is commented on, though it could just as easily be that her family is scandal ridden, her mother kind of horrible (but very interesting) and her conversations awkward. No one says it, but you can feel her body may be part of it, even in an era that likely would have historically cared less about slenderness.
Nevertheless, body-laden or not, she is a popular identifiable figure among chunky, bookish girls who feel like they don't quite fit in, and I think that is where the genius of her portrayal lies. Penelope tries to check all the boxes, to keep her secret identity as London's Gossip Girl hidden (which of course we expect will all come tumbling down in part two of the season in a few weeks.) While I wasn't sure the Colin/Pen seasons had the heat (particularly of the Anthony/Kate pairing of S. 2), even with the tryst in the back of carriage ending this batch, but maybe the last episodes will make that happen.
