New 'Bridgerton' Season 4 Images Introduces Downstairs

Period costume escapist television has undergone a renaissance in the 2020s. Thanks to shows like Bridgerton and Sanditon, there's been a real movement in the last five years to be more honest about the past, with productions choosing to both write about Black history along with the typical tropes of the 19th and 20th centuries as well as being far more willing to consider diverse casting. However, one thing all these shows have in common, from The Gilded Age's Black middle-class characters to Hallmark's recent remake of Sense & Sensibility, is that none play serving-class characters who live and work exclusively below stairs.

No one fantasizes about returning to the past to be a scullery maid. (My own grandmother worked as a Daisy-type underage servant in a big house when she was a teenager in the 1920s; it was, in her words, "not pleasant.") When these fantasies do crop up, it's always in a Cinderella-type story, where rich, powerful men swoop in and save the day, either walking away from society or simply forcing society to accept their new partner by sheer force of being wealthy, white, and male. The same is true for period dramas; most people do not tune in to see the adventures of the servants; they want the Lady Marys and Countess Violets, and they want them dressed fabulously and ignorant of such things as weekends.

Bridgerton has been facing this issue since it launched — book readers know the third novel (Benedict's) is a Cinderella riff where he does not realize the housemaid and the "lady in silver" are one and the same and thinks he can just slake his lust over the latter with the former, who he assumes will be all too happy to climb out of poverty and live a life of luxury in exchange for her body.