It’s been over 18 months since the summer of 2024, so you know what that means! Netflix has managed to produce another eight hours of television! Bridgerton’s fourth season is almost here, with the first four episodes out January 29th. Casual fans, it’s time to awaken from your slumber. Diehards, come back into your full power. I think this season, based on the third book in the Bridgerton series, An Offer From a Gentleman, is going to be something special — Luke Thompson’s Benedict Bridgerton has been oozing leading man status for the entire run of the show with nowhere for it to really go; our newest leading lady, Yerin Ha’s Sophie Baek, is too beautiful for words; and I refuse to believe that anyone with a pulse doesn’t have a soft spot for forbidden love.
And it’s not just any forbidden love. Each season tackles a well-loved romance trope, and in Season 4, Bridgerton is tackling Cinderella. I’ve come away from each trailer and preview with the feeling that this is exactly the kind of story a lot of people need and will respond really positively to at this moment in time, but then I wondered to myself why I thought so, and did an internal deep dive about the lasting appeal of the Cinderella fairytale, what its enduring popularity says about our culture at large, and how this season of Bridgerton will make us feel. I mean, what else am I gonna think about? Life? Walk the path of this mental journey with me, please, Benophie nation.
You’ve probably seen that awful trend going around social media where a bunch of people are engaging in mass psychosis by pretending like the world in 2016 was some kind of utopia. I’m afraid it may have gotten to me a bit, because the first thing I did was look at this through the lens of The Discourse. You can probably guess how it went: “Is the Cinderella trope inherently and unavoidably regressive? A poor, downtrodden woman keeps her head bowed and doesn’t complain about being mistreated, so her reward is an impossibly handsome and rich man sweeping her off her feet and taking her away from the drudgery. A bit convenient that the man gets to be the hero, no?
Women are more than capable of saving themselves. Isn’t it playing into patriarchy to send the message that good things will come to women who tolerate being doormats?” But that didn’t feel right to me. It not only lacks nuance, but the idea that all female-oriented media needs some girlboss makeover is, in fact, very ten years ago. What’s more, absolutely none of the women I know who love An Offer from a Gentleman and have been waiting with excitement for Benedict and Sophie’s season of Bridgerton are champions for any kind of tradwife or “traditional gender roles” nonsense. Quite the opposite. So let’s use our critical thinking skills, shall we?
The fact that Sophie remains kind and won’t allow herself to be stripped of her good-heartedness is a show of endurance and strength, not martyrdom. She’s unhappy, of course, but she still has the courage to leap at the chance to go to the Bridgerton masquerade. Sophie has been hurt by life, but she’s tough. Just like a lot of women. The thing is, that can be lonely. And exhausting. It’s hard to be a woman. Sometimes it feels like it’s getting more difficult by the day, and it would be nice, just once, if it didn’t have to be so bad. Benedict Bridgerton isn’t our “prince” because he’ll vault Sophie into a higher economic and social status, but because he truly sees and values her when she’s otherwise overlooked.
The pretty dresses and fancy balls of a Cinderella story are just a bonus, and enjoying that bonus is not shallow or frivolous. Look around at the world — it’s impossible to be inundated with nothing but horrors devoid of all humanity and not feel the instinct to reach for something that reminds you what joy feels like. It’s just that when women do it, the things they find comfort in are viewed as embarrassing. Media embraced by a largely female fanbase always finds itself held up to a level of scrutiny at a laughably disproportionate rate to things that men like. It’s heartening to see that more and more women are vocally refusing to accept the narrative that they should be ashamed of their own existence. We will watch Sophie Baek reign as the People’s Princess, and we will be obsessed with Benedict Bridgerton becoming a pathetic loser over her, and we will NOT be apologizing for it in any way.
So, dearest gentle readers, maybe it does make me sad that the world is in such a state that Cinderella stories are still relevant enough to women’s lives to be appealing. But it is, and they are, so I’m glad that we have them. Ursula K. Le Guin said, “Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?” Leave it to her to put it perfectly.
A story about a spirited maid and a dashing artist falling in love is better than whatever the hell is going on in far too many of the interactions women are having with men in the real world these days. Whether we like it or not, we have a sincere need for some good escapism, and if Bridgerton is going to attempt to fulfill that need, it has a responsibility to do all it can to try and get it right. I watched the first episode of the season during Netflix’s live premiere event, and by every indication, we’re off to an incredibly promising start. I won’t spoil too much for the people who didn’t get to see it, but… Luke Thompson and Yerin Ha have this thing on lockdown. Benedict and Sophie had me getting misty-eyed and making tea kettle squee noises. I can’t wait to watch the rest of this season, and maybe even more than that, I’m so looking forward to experiencing the sense of community with fans excited to gush about these characters and their fairytale love story. It’ll do us all a lot of good.
Bridgerton Season 4, Part 1 will premiere on Netflix on January 29th.
First Featured Image Credit: ©LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIX