AI and I

Lately, I’ve been getting a tad obsessed about the whole AI thing. (Can you be “a tad” obsessed? I’m not sure, but somehow it feels right; I’m thinking it’s somewhere between “interested” and “frantic.”) I originally thought that I could ignore the infiltration of AI into the world of writing. By pure luck, I retired from my position as an English professor just before AI transformed the world of teaching, so I wasn’t subject to the potential catastrophe it’s introduced there. And the writing I now do is pretty much risk-free, given its lack of any necessary or even useful purpose. Then too, I haven’t actually been using chatbots for anything, at least not intentionally. I do often “ask The Google,” and that, I realize—as Google politely informs me—does involve the use of AI. But online searches have always used forms of artificial intelligence, well before anyone thought to give them first names. In any case, I haven’t signed up for it, paid for it, tested it, or experimented with it. (Well, maybe once or twice I did ask Google something I suspected would lead it to give me a wrong answer, just to make a point. It didn’t disappoint me.) On the other hand, what I have been doing is reading about AI—a lot.^[1] My reading has primarily been focused on non-specialist but serious articles and essays in publications along the lines of The Atlantic, Quillette, and Persuasion—that is, publications that focus on serious articles and essays for non-specialists. The views I’ve encountered have ranged from the wildly (and naively) optimistic to the deeply (and depressingly) apocalyptic.

I was somewhat alarmed to read an essay in The Atlantic by one of its staff writers, who freely, even proudly, admitted to her use of Claude as a co-writer for her Substack posts—though not for the essay I was reading, given that The Atlantic, rightly in my view, doesn’t allow it. Considering that the writer’s field is emerging technology, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. Along the same lines, as I was writing this essay, I saw an announcement for a newly published book about AI—co-written by Chat GPT-5. On the other hand, I’ve also read several AI specialists proclaiming that they will not, under any circumstances, enlist AI for their own writing. As someone who writes—and who cares deeply about writing—I now believe that I should be concerned. So I’ve decided to add my own voice to the chorus—before it’s too late.

I’ve noticed that my friends’, acquaintances’, and family members’ views vary as much as those I find in print—from a close friend’s cheery announcement that ChatGPT was of invaluable help in determining the ideal peacock blue to paint her bathroom to our software-engineer nephew’s predictions (in his darker moments) of Claude-Mythos-instigated doom. For many of them, as for me, it’s a dizzying see-saw between amazement at what AI is already doing and consternation at what it might soon be doing. Claude and its fellow AI companions have already proved their ability to mimic and, yes, surpass humans in producing (I refuse to say “writing” or “creating”) numerous types of written texts. Still, since my Jewish nature and heritage always prompt me to find the joke in the darkest corner, I can’t help but be amused as well. AI’s much-publicized errors and hallucinations have been hilarious, from Google Gemini’s female Asian popes and Nazis of color to an AI-invented summer reading list, complete with authors and brief descriptions of non-existent books, that unintentionally provided a true example of metafiction—a fictional list of recommended fiction.^[2] I was also quite amused to learn that AI models, while they can closely imitate individual writers’ styles, do have a signature style of their own. Several perceptive readers have noted Claude’s tendency to use lots of em dashes; to overuse the “rule of three”: three examples, three cases, three sources (yes, that’s an example as well as a brief explanation); to frame a large number of its responses in a “not this, but that” construction; and to rely on annoyingly punchy one or two-word sentence fragments, also presented in groups of three, for emotional effect. Thanks to these clues, the august New York Times itself was recently exposed for publishing what was apparently a largely Claude-produced essay in its most human of features, the “Modern Love” column. Most tellingly, though, Claude indulges in a heavy, cloying use of obsequious flattery, constantly informing its human interlocutors of how smart, insightful, absolutely right, and cute and stylish in that new outfit they are. (Okay, I made up that last one.)

I have had one direct experience with Claude’s work. When a friend sent his fairly complex question in the field of linguistics and lexicography along with Claude’s impressive response to demonstrate its amazing ability, I was far more interested in discovering that nearly all of those stylistic quirks were in fact present—and then in writing a response that shamelessly imitated them. As I said at the time, my parody took a lot longer than Claude’s would have—but I’m sure I had more fun.

It’s true that the gaffes are becoming less frequent as well as less funny (and less “creative”) as the AI models are fed more and more data and learn from more and more users.^[3] I am aware as well that users can ask Claude to eschew specific stylistic devices (no sentence fragments, please!) and tone down (or tune out) the praise. The trick of course is that far from deleting these features, most users will prefer to have them—and come back for more. Like social media, AI already has the recipe for its increasing use embedded in it.

A huge part of the AI appeal is, ironically, its imitation of humanness. It was, after all, created by humans. And while some anthropomorphism is inevitable, at least as much is clearly intentional. In spite of their owners’ protestations to the contrary, no one would think to give an LLM or a robot—or a chimpanzee for that matter—a human name without intending and expecting us to respond to it as a fellow human. In my earlier referenced rejoinder to an AI-generated text, I included a question about Claude’s preferred pronouns. Would Claude rather be referred to by it/it/its or he/him/his? My nephew indulged me by asking Claude directly. Here’s what came back:

So Claude openly admits that it is not human and has no gender identity—but then goes on to add that it can be made happy? Really? You can make a non-sentient, non-living thing happy? If so, I wonder if my computer is happier when I put it to work as I’m doing now or just leave it alone and go wash the (soon to be clean and happy) dishes.

Still more concerning is the tendency of AI to provide opinions, even when users don’t ask for them. In its response to the linguistics question, Claude did not only provide a lot of specific and reliable information my friend had requested. The chatbot went on to draw conclusions my friend had not requested. True to form, those conclusions were presented in three short paragraphs, each one employing a “not this, but that” construction. But they were also notable for their entirely sanguine, all-manner-of things-will-be-well approach to an issue that many human thinkers have presented as far more concerning, more ambiguous, and even more threatening to human wellbeing. None of that was mentioned in the AI-produced response. Claude’s metaphorical glass is clearly half full. It appears that chatbots want us to feel good about ourselves as we give up our autonomy to them.

I, naturally, can do nothing at all to stop or slow the AI onslaught. But I can think about my relationship with it, make at least some of my own decisions about using it, and try not to become a tool of the tool. Very recently, speaking to a friend who is a prominent academic writer, I found that she and I agreed on how best to do that. So I’m going to use HI (I’m sure you can figure that one out) to put forward two major guidelines for writing with (and without) AI. These are also the guidelines I would like to see other writers and publishers adopt.

1. I will accept and make use of AI for information-gathering and (in my case, non-specialist) research. But I will check and check again before accepting or making use of any information I’ve thereby obtained by going to actual, original sources, looking for supporting evidence, doing whatever it takes to ensure the information is reliable. Even ChatGPT, Gemini, and their ilk remind us that they are AI and subject to error. (See the fine print in Claude’s response regarding gender identity above.) But that’s pretty obviously just CYAI. It’s up to us to remind ourselves. As it turned out, I used only human knowledge and experience in writing this essay. Of course, human knowledge and experience are also prone to error—something the techies love to point out. I do follow the same policy for ascertaining correctness no matter what the source. But while in this instance I didn’t, I might have checked in with AI to, say, help me recall where I first read about the Gemini slip-ups or provide an explanation from Anthropic on the significance of its name.^[4]

2. I will not use AI to write or assist in my writing in any way: generating topics, planning, drafting, reviewing, revising, editing, etc. I can understand its draw for people who aren’t writers but who, for whatever personal, job-related, or other reason, want to produce something in writing. Instead of a ghost writer they can now use a ghost LLM (an LLG?). But I don’t see why people who are actual writers would enlist someone or something else to do the writing for them—even something that can perfectly imitate their personal style. The process of writing is at least as important to me as the product. Why else would writers so often write things they don’t plan to publish or even share? (Looking at you, Emily Dickinson.) Besides, we’re the ones AI is learning (and has stolen) from. That unauthorized use has been confirmed both by The Atlantic’s ambitious but far-from-exhaustive attempt to hold AI companies responsible and by the legal settlement involving Anthropic that is expected, in fact, to result in some payment to the writers whose works it downloaded and used without permission. Thanks to those sources, most of my writer friends, my husband, and I know that we have books on the ever-growing list of written works ingested by the insatiable maws of LLMs. I guess some might see it as a tit-for-tat thing: you used me, now I’ll use you. But I don’t want to write—or to read—what some conglomerate of human and non-human “thinking” has to say on a subject. I want to hear what I think and to discover my own way of saying it—and to read what other individual writers have come up with on their own.

I realize that for many people, writing is a source of income or the only way up the corporate or academic-tenure ladder. Maybe for writers in those situations, such artificial assistance is now de rigueur. And at this point, we are pretty much on an honor system: AI use has become harder and harder to detect or trace. (Anyone who’s been involved with an honor system in a university setting probably knows how scandalously unreliable they are.) But I still think these two principles might help stave off some of the current AI-created issues for readers and writers. For myself, I’ll be limiting my reading to those publications that follow them and those writers I trust to do the same.

In any case, whether I’m reading, writing, or trying to figure out what to wear to an outdoor ranch wedding, I will try to be aware and vigilant regarding the use of AI. I know I will have to make a conscious effort to avoid what I’m designating as AI Creep—including those algorithms that constantly track our every screen-related movement. I do find it humorous that Netflix frequently suggests shows based on my nine-year-old great-niece’s tastes; I am not in fact the person who watched Gabby’s Dollhouse or K-Pop Demon Hunters. (Oh wait, I did watch that one…) And, thanks largely to my teaching and gift-giving, Amazon lists a wildly eclectic assortment of potential reads selected especially for me. But whatever they know or don’t know about me, I have hope that I will continue to know—and to be—myself.

^[1] Please understand that I’m not talking here about the use of AI in software coding, medical diagnosis, or divining the creation of the universe. I’m focusing on the areas of most interest to me, that is, reading and writing.

^[2] We humans, of course, provide our own opportunities for unintentional humor, some of which AI has, as an unintended consequence, now deprived us of. Think, for example, of those delightful instructions that used to come with Asian-made products suggesting to please, madam, to remove the plastic covering before to apply the leggings to your body. (Let me apologize if that sounds unkind—I am aware that any Chinese speaker’s English language skills are far superior to my Chinese. Still, I can’t pretend that I didn’t enjoy the results of those efforts.)

^[3] I can’t help noticing a comparison to Covid vaccine research. In both cases, the studies have proceeded far more quickly than might have been expected due to the huge amount of immediately available data we’re providing, willingly or not. But in the case of Covid research, I’m entirely grateful.

^[4] The word anthropic, as I know from my long-ago study of ancient Greek, means related or pertaining to humans. I recently read an article explaining that Anthropic’s name relates to its original purpose; it broke off from OpenAI with the laudable intention of being more sensitive and responsive to human concerns. The article also suggested that in spite of such noble beginnings, the urge to go as far as possible in the tech world consistently gets the better of the urge to resist. In that light, the name might end up having far darker implications. But please don’t think I’m suggesting anyone should therefore threaten any AI CEO’s health and safety…

Quillette’s publication guidelines allow me to post the first three paragraphs here and to provide links to the full piece. (Just click on the underlined titles at the bottom, and the links will show up.) The complete essay is behind a paywall, so if you are a subscriber, the first link will work. If not, you can go to the second link for Quillette’s Substack and claim the essay as a free post. Or if you want to read it and prefer to get it directly from me, I’ll be happy to email you a Word version (only slightly under-the-table). Once again, thanks for reading!

Shakespeare in Love and Grief

It appears that people now find comfort in the idea that the life of even the greatest of writers is no more satisfying than their own.

11 FEB 2026 · 9 MIN READ

In popular media, the presentation of Shakespeare has become a clue to the cultural leanings of the time. A great number of variations on his plays have come and gone, including those with modern reworkings like Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, revisionist performances featuring all-female casts, and popular retellings like She’s the Man and Ten Things I Hate about You. But writers and directors have also taken an interest in the life and experiences of Shakespeare himself, a shift from the dramas to the dramatist, from plays to biography—or rather pseudo-biography. One enticement, it appears, is not how much but rather how little is actually known of the person who created the greatest dramatic corpus in English—and very likely any language.

The paucity of information about Shakespeare’s life still inspires those who try to find someone else to credit for his accomplishments. These imaginative revisionists always manage to find someone who embodies their own idea of genius. In Shakespeare’s day, the real author was presumed to be one of the upper-crust, Oxbridge-educated intellectuals of the period—Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, or any of a number of more or less prominent earls. (The 2011 film Anonymous egregiously picked up on that tradition.) In more recent times, the faux-laurel crown has passed to Emilia Lanier, the first woman in England to claim the title of poet. Here we find the original literary conspiracy theory that just won’t die: I expect that the honour will next be bestowed upon a person of colour, very likely one of Islamic heritage.

I’m grateful that the cinematic works I’m focusing on here do at least allow Shakespeare to be Shakespeare. Still, they tend to tell us considerably more about ourselves than about the Bard. The playful and witty Golden-Globe-and-Academy-Award-winning 1998 film Shakespeare in Love, directed by John Madden from a screenplay co-written by the late great Tom Stoppard, could hardly differ more from last year’s lugubrious Hamnet, directed by Chloé Zhao and based on the 2020 novel by Maggie O’Farrell. Both films are fictionalised presentations of a limited part of Shakespeare’s life. And in both, the fictional experiences undergone by the protagonist lead directly to the creation of one or more of his actual plays. But there the similarity ends.

Shakespeare in Love and Grief (Quillette)

Shakespeare in Love and Grief (Quillette Substack)

P.S. I include a few spoilers here, so if you’re just watching the first three seasons of Bridgerton now, you might want to do that before reading further.

The Full, Unvarnished Truth about Why I Love Bridgerton and Other Ideas about Representing Racial Diversity, Aesthetic Conventions, the Portrayal of Older Women, and the Power of Writing

(Hint: It has nothing to do with Colinope*)

When I started watching the Bridgerton series, it was all about a guilty pleasure. Not one that I would hide, mind you; I may be guilty, but I’m not secretive. Most of my reading, my writing, and my academic professional life has been quite serious. I feel I’ve earned the right to indulge openly in frothy pop-culture desserts. I expected Bridgerton to take its place right up (down?) there with Barbie and Emily in Paris (oh, come on, don’t pretend you haven’t been tempted, if only to see the over-the-top costumes and idealized view of Parisian life). From the outset, the series was being unabashedly billed as popularized Jane Austen with sex. Successive starry-eyed romances, exaggerated-but-still-posh Regency fashions, fully uncorseted, yep, sex: true to its promise, Bridgerton has, over the past three seasons, delivered all of that. (And what could be more satisfying than catching on when Emily’s best friend Mindy, in an episode of Emily in Paris, refers to a couple “living out their horny Bridgerton coach fantasy”? Pure postmodern fun: a character in a fantasy invoking the fantasy of another fantasy.)

The surprise for me has been that the show has delivered a lot more. And it’s the lot more that I want to talk about.

*This is my shameless mash-up of the names of the romantic duo featured in Season 3, Colin and Penelope.

The Race Card

Even more important than the dance card in this alternate Regency world is the race card—and in my view the Bridgerton creators have played their hand successfully. They’ve taken a real historical setting and society where the only people on view were white, and introduced a whole new group of players into the game. Or maybe it’s a whole new game: what in the Bridgerton-adjacent series, Queen Charlotte, is dubbed “The Great Experiment.” Grant me a bit of time to back up and talk about a current issue regarding the presentation of racial diversity in pop culture offerings that’s been on my mind: the issue of color-blind casting in historically based TV shows and movies.

You don’t need me to tell you that the inclusion of non-white races and diverse ethnicities in the Western media world was a major and essential development, one that was long overdue. We know that our popular media has a huge effect on how we see the world—and the people in it. For TV series and movies set in recent and current times to omit that kind of diversity would, and should, be unacceptable.

What I am concerned about though is what happens when that kind of racial diversity is inserted into otherwise historically realistic times and places where it didn’t—and couldn’t—exist. In those cases, some pesky theoretical problems do come up. For viewers with some knowledge of unrevised history, it can be jarring—even unintentionally comic. An extreme case of this disjunction appeared in the Google Gemini gaffe when the hugely influential company’s shiny new AI imaging tool responded to prompts for pictures of historical figures by producing, among others, black medieval knights, a female South Asian pope, Vikings of color—and racially diverse Nazi officers. I, like multitudes of others, thought it was highly amusing. But it did raise some interesting questions—besides the obvious one about who’s minding the Google store. If nothing else, it revealed the limits, not only of AI, but of this kind of revisionism. No black Nazis, please. So artificial intelligence aside, which characters, among historically white populations, are being or should be portrayed in movies and TV series by people of other races? Can only those characters deemed to be good, residing on the “right side” of history, be represented by people of color—while all negatively portrayed characters remain white? (For a recent example of that approach in a fictional setting, see the adult characters in the 2022 film Matilda the Musical.) Are we, on the other hand, creating a false history where the actual lack of racial diversity is erased? Is it a problem at all, as popular media productions have never been a reliable source for legitimate history, and it makes no sense to expect them to be? I know I’m walking on controversial ground here, but I believe the injudicious insertion of racial diversity in historically based media entertainment could be as wrong-minded as the Google fiasco.

I am aware of the influence and importance of artistic convention in this context. Without the willing (or sometimes unconscious) suspension of disbelief, none of our popular media entertainments would be possible. That’s always been true. The most obvious case from earlier times is the unquestionably weird and entirely accepted convention of boys playing the roles of women in the theatre of Shakespeare’s day. The British TV series Upstart Crow, a brilliant comedy focused on Will and his circle of friends, family, and fellow playwrights, has endless fun with it. Each time the idea of women playing the roles of women comes up, the dumbfounded males ask where the acting talent would be in that—and even more, “Where would they put the coconuts?” As fans of the Bard know, the actual Shakespeare had his share of fun with gender-bending too, regularly turning the situation inside out and upside down in his comedies and romances. But to be fair, our own accepted conventions would seem equally odd to someone not familiar with them, even in shows intended to be realistic. Eerie music playing in the background of a threatening encounter? Really? WWII-era French townspeople speaking to each other in English? Come on… And yet, we don’t generally question these features—even though as viewers of TV and movies, we expect a much higher level of realism than we do as theater-goers, where the walls separating reality from illusion are always in evidence. We accept these conventions because we’ve learned to.

Of course, as we can see in the performance of Shakespeare’s plays, what people accept as artistic convention undergoes considerable change over time. In the case of the conventions surrounding racial diversity in media productions—and of color-blind casting in particular—we’re in a transitional moment. I’m guessing that many viewers under the age of 25 or so (I admit I haven’t asked them) don’t find it any odder that black actors portray some of the Russian Bolsheviks in A Gentleman in Moscow than that Ewan McGregor plays the Russian count.

Problems can appear, though, even once new conventions have been accepted. I just watched the historically based British film, Wicked Little Letters. Set in a small English village in the 1920s, the film follows a bizarre case in which village residents begin receiving mysterious unsigned letters, full of salacious (if hilarious) language and scandalous accusations. Suspicion quickly falls on a young Irish woman, only recently arrived; that suspicion is fanned by her next-door neighbor, who accuses her of unacceptably unfeminine behavior. The police are called in to investigate, and a female police officer along with two townswomen eventually break the case. Both main characters, the conservative lifelong villager and the rowdy Irish outsider, are played by white British actresses. The female police officer with the thoroughly Anglo name Gladys Moss is played, on the other hand, by Indian actress Anjana Vasan. Okay, the slight mystery of the character having an unexplained Anglo name notwithstanding, I can accept that the pressures she is up against become more real to contemporary viewers when we see her as hampered not only by her gender but by her ethnicity (though that ethnicity is never acknowledged in the film). But another character poses problems I can’t rationalize away. Rose, our Irish bad girl, has aroused the suspicion of the locals because of her foul mouth and failure to attend church. But no one appears to have any problem with the fact that her boyfriend is a black man (played by Malachi Kirby). Wow, these 1920s villagers are amazingly open-minded after all. Oh, but wait, no, they’re not supposed to be: this is obviously yet another example of the small-towns-are-so-narrow-minded formula. So are we expected not to notice that the actor is black? I’m confused.

Now let me come back to Bridgerton. The series has been accused by some academics and cultural critics of “colorizing,” “blackwashing,” erasing the history of racism, and indulging in stereotypical race-based portrayals. But having watched the show, I can’t participate in their derision. (I do, on the other hand, find it remarkably common for such critics—most of them women themselves—to attack popular entertainments by, for, and about women. Bridgerton can take its place in a long list, stretching back to the novels of Regency author Jane Austen herself.) In my view, the Bridgerton series has dealt honestly and sensitively with the potential problems of introducing racial diversity into a historically white society. Rather than simply ignoring the historical reality or hoping viewers’ accepted conventions will catch up, they’ve addressed it head on. We have, we discover, entered an alternate reality, one in which racial diversity in aristocratic early-19^th-century England is present, but racial equality not yet fully gained—that is, a reality that echoes our own. We learn as well that what we are seeing is an experiment being undertaken by Queen Charlotte, who managed to persuade her husband, King George III, to provide his support, and that while it is of crucial importance, its success isn’t assured—again suggestive of our current reality outside of the show. I haven’t read the novels the series was based on, but I understand they had no influence here. The introduction of racial diversity belongs entirely with the TV series and its creators, most notably Chris Van Dusen and Shonda Rhimes.

While the Queen herself is represented as black—based on speculation that the actual Queen Charlotte might have had some African ancestry—the individual in the series who most deserves credit is another black character, Lady Agatha Danbury (Adjoa Andoh). As we eventually learn, she is not only the social director of the entire “ton” and the Queen’s advisor and confidante, she almost single-handedly set the movement for equal social status going—and in this world, social status is the only kind there is. Lady Danbury (she worked hard to achieve and retain that title) is worthy of a princely moniker when it comes to Machiavellian manipulation. But her ability to influence others is not limited to a penetrating understanding of human weakness and fallibility. Her tools include compassion, true friendship, and connection with the people around her, white characters as well as black ones. I realize that some critics see this as just another part of the show’s implausible fantasy—or as a hook catering to a largely white audience. I respectfully disagree; Agatha Danbury proves admirable, in my view, as both a strong individual and a good one, one who stands up for herself and for others.

Though black characters are the most prominent new entrants into this society, they aren’t the only ones. Several Asian women appear in background scenes and among the young marriage market contenders. Far more notably, two young women from India become the focus of the marriage game in Season Two. Season Three goes in another direction, giving us a protagonist who challenges the traditional standards of female beauty (Nicola Coughlan as Penelope Featherington). And among the aristocratic women being presented to the Queen, we see a young deaf woman and her mother communicating in what must be British Regency sign language. Among the men at court, we briefly meet a marriageable bachelor attending one of the season’s balls in a wheelchair with no particular notice from the other guests. I can’t help perceiving a wink in these latter two—maybe the show is slyly pointing out that some representations are still largely missing from this series, as well as from other popular media.

Gender and Generation

The “great experiment” in racial diversity is Bridgerton’s most obvious innovation. But the discussion of Lady Danbury brings me to another area where I see the series making its indelible mark. It would hardly seem possible to present anything new when it comes to the roles of women on TV. When every other action hero is a martial-arts-trained female fighting machine and multitudes of the attorneys, doctors, CEOs, and detectives are women of multiple races and ethnicities, what could a faux-historical series do that managed to feel significant? Here, the show has picked up on actual historical reality. Women, then as now, were likely to live longer than men—if they survived childbirth. As a result, women—in most cases, widows—could end up, if only briefly, as the heads of their households. Bridgerton exploits that situation so subtly that at first I wasn’t entirely aware of it—though I suspect it’s what was initially prompting me, albeit unconsciously, to come back episode after episode. By Season Two, all three major families in the ton are headed by women, as is English society as a whole—though in the Queen’s case, it’s not widowhood but her husband’s (historically true) mental illness that has left her in control (not historically true—in real life, her son took over the rule as prince regent, thereby establishing the period known as the Regency era).

Each of the three ruling heads of family has arrived in her position in a somewhat different fashion. Violet Bridgerton, the matriarch of the show’s central family, was left unexpectedly and unwillingly in that role. The rare beneficiary of a “love match,” Violet was devastated, nearly unhinged, by her husband’s early death—so much so, that Anthony, her oldest son, planned (unsuccessfully as the show would have it) to avoid love entirely in order to escape any possibility of such pain. By the present time of the series, however, Violet has grown along with her eight children: she is not only accustomed to her position as head of the household, she is fully prepared to meet the challenges that marrying off her offspring will present. By Season Three, the show has to invent a less credible excuse to keep her in charge, sending Anthony and his new wife off to India rather than having them remain to assume their roles as Viscount and Viscountess Bridgerton.

Agatha Danbury, by contrast, was both exhilarated and liberated by the loss of her much older, egotistical husband, the son of an African king. Unlike the Dowager Viscountess Bridgerton, she was the unhappy victim of a marriage arranged when she was a child. Lady Danbury wasted no time establishing her position as a socially prominent widow, and her power is acknowledged throughout the ton. The only open question is why her now grown son, absent from the show, has not taken over what would be his “rightful” position. But I suppose if the show’s creators aren’t worrying about that, I won’t either.

And finally we have Portia Featherington, who has to wait until Season Two to achieve widowhood. Like Lady Danbury, Lady Featherington is quick to adapt. With only daughters, she has no heir who can ensure that the estate and title remain in her family. Major parts of Seasons Two and Three are devoted to her machinations to secure and retain her position. And though she is considerably less admirable than the two other women, even her mistreated youngest daughter comes to understand and accept her mother’s play for independence and control.

Of course, all of this is taking place in the background: each season foregrounds the romantic attachment of a Bridgerton son or daughter with a soon-to-be marriage partner. But somehow, the matriarchs don’t simply disappear into the scenery. And each of these women is presented realistically, neither glorified nor demonized. (Thankfully, this isn’t a Regency era Game of Thrones.) What is further notable to me about them is their age. They aren’t exactly old (Maggie Smith, after all, is no longer with us), but they aren’t young either. And it’s looking as if at least one of them will find a romantic attachment of her own. (Emily in Paris, by the way, earns points here too for its focus on Emily’s striking, independent, infuriatingly French boss Sylvie—a woman of “a certain age” who proves not to be a stereotypical Prada-wearing devil.)

I don’t mean to suggest that the male characters in this society are ignored. They are in fact major players. And like the women, they run the gamut from very very good to horrid. While the men are admittedly not in control in the world of social politics and marriage markets, they are presumably, as historical accuracy would have it, running things in the world of national politics and financial markets. (Though we’re clearly informed that aristocratic men of whatever race are not only expected not to work—they are not allowed to.) Even in the case of the romantic plotlines, the marriage-minded sons are as much the focus as the daughters: finding a life partner is just as important to one prospective partner as it is to the other.

By far my favorite character in the Bridgerton series, however, is the one who never actually appears: Julie Andrews’ voice as Lady Whistledown, the sharply observant, witty, and insightful gossip columnist whose all-knowing broadsheets have the entire ton at her mercy. The idea of the transformative power of writing is one I can’t resist. Come to think of it, it was more likely Lady Whistledown who kept me coming back to the show. The revelation of her identity and the end of her quill’s reign have, I admit, left me with little enthusiasm for following the series further. That’s okay, though. When the next season appears, I plan to be rewatching Seasons 1-3—with no guilt at all.

The Ones That Got Away: My Best-Ever Just-Missed Photographs

Let me start by saying outright that I am by no means a serious photographer. Writing is the only art to which I can pretend any formal training or (if I dare say it) talent. But somewhat late in life I realized that I might have more of an eye for design—or at least an attraction to it—than I’d previously given myself credit for. Somewhere along the line, I found that I enjoyed helping to design and decorate the rooms my husband and I have refurbished in our 1938 house. I also find myself indulging in critiquing current fashions. I’m immediately attracted to well-designed tools and instruments and artifacts. And along the same lines, I appreciate photographs that go beyond the usual people-and-places snapshots. I came by that last interest honestly: both of my parents were better-than-ordinary photographers—my dad having spent a good part of his life focused on highly sophisticated underwater photography to accompany his scuba-diving passion and my mom quietly amassing a collection of quite impressive family photos at a time when that was truly unusual. My sister too has developed her photographic talent and has produced some artistic gems.

In my case, I’m really not bragging when I admit I’m pleased with my own small successes. The kind of photography I do is the kind that anyone with a little interest and patience and attention (along with an iPhone) could do just as well, even if most don’t. In fact, a surprisingly small number of women, at least in my experience, seem to share my penchant. Many of my women friends, most of whom work in brainy, hands-off fields, claim that they would’ve, could’ve, should’ve been interior designers or decorators; but oddly, in my view, they don’t show the same partiality for taking pictures—the easiest way, I think, to express unrealized design talents. Maybe it’s because, though we’re all obviously equipped with the means, built right into our smart phones, we still associate photography with cameras—and cameras are boys’ toys. And it’s true that I don’t care about lenses or lighting or settings. The technique is not what interests me. What I focus on is the subject and whatever it is that causes me to notice it. And then whatever framing will enhance that initial view.

I have gotten some shots that I think are good enough to revisit fondly once in a while and to feel that I haven’t entirely wasted the time I spent pursuing them: a picture of two handsome ducks in the city park who obligingly posed for me at an artistic angle; a close-up of a bird’s nest nestled into a nearly leafless, red-berried yaupon holly (I enjoy giving some of my photos titles, and I’ve alternately titled this one “Empty Nest Syndrome” or “Room with a View”); a portrait of a favorite student on a study-abroad trip in Italy happily partaking of a generous gelato cone, the stone lanes and buildings of the Renaissance city off-focus in the background. And I’m pleased by my conscious imitation of found still lifes: two pears on a wooden plate; a towel hanging on a hook reflected in a bathroom mirror. I suppose a part of the pleasure comes from the fact that there is absolutely no further purpose, no need to do anything at all with my creations beyond a bit of cropping before saving them in the “Favorites” file on my phone.

I have come to realize, though, that if you care at all about taking pictures, you can’t avoid the disappointment of missing some of the best ones. For years, in some cases decades, I’ve dwelled on the amazing (in my imagination) photographs I almost took. These just-misses are filed in my mind in a special subcategory under “R” for “Regrets,” and I think about them quite often, more often, probably, than I click through the photos I did manage to get. I was so close. . . Like the fisherman’s “one that got away,” they haunt my memory. And like the fisherman, what I’m left with in lieu of a fish is a story. It’s occurred to me that the best way to assuage regret over the loss is—again, like the fisherman—to tell the tale. So here is a brief story to accompany each of some of the best photos I didn’t take. Unlike my stereotypical fisherman, I do promise not to make those fish I failed to catch any bigger than they really were. The misses I’ve included here all took place far from home—maybe because of the realization that the opportunity had passed, it wouldn’t come back the next day or the next week or the next year—although the older I get, the more I realize that the same is true of every missed opportunity. In any case, what I suppose I’ll be hoping to illustrate is that a thousand words are worth a picture.

#1: The Meta-Fashion Exhibit (A Fashion Exhibit at a Fashion Exhibit)

The first story I’ll tell is the one most likely to inspire doubt. Sometimes even I think it couldn’t really have happened. But I know it did, even though no one can confirm it. (My mother, the only person who could have, is no longer with us.) The setting is realistic enough: a fashion exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, featuring lavish women’s dresses from the 1600s to the present. My mom and I were there in June of 1990. I’ll ask you to picture us, both small, quiet, unobtrusive—though I wouldn’t say invisible—gazing intently at the elaborately costumed mannequins. Although I hadn’t really noticed it, we were the only museum-goers in the room. And then, quite suddenly, a line of women entered, accompanied by two black-suited men holding walkie-talkies. Maybe I don’t need to explain that these weren’t ordinary women. In fact, they were stunning. Each was robed in a long, brilliantly-colored silk garment. Their hair and faces were almost entirely covered. Still, it was easy to see that they were young and slim, with beautiful figures and dark eyes. Most striking were their face coverings, sparkling with jewels. It’s clear to me now, as then, that they must have been the occupants of a fantastically wealthy Middle Eastern or North African harem. By this point my mom and I were no longer focused on the original exhibit. What we were now observing was far more captivating: women clothed in the gorgeous raiment of one time and place gazing at mannequins clothed in the gorgeous raiment of another. I shook off my astonishment to grasp that what I was seeing would make the photograph of a lifetime. No one was looking in our direction, and I did manage to raise my camera to my eyes. But that was when the walkie-talkie guys realized that they and their charges were not alone in the room. They rushed over and one of them loudly demanded my camera. No way—I wasn’t about to give it up, containing, as it did, all of my pictures from our entire trip. (I’m still grateful to have those pictures; my mom and I were spending a weekend in London at the end of a longer trip to Belgium where we’d visited her childhood town, a place I never got to visit with her again.) I looked madly around for a museum guard and discovered they had all quietly disappeared. I wonder to this day if they had slipped out when the new occupants entered or only did so when they saw an altercation beginning. But I held on, insisting that those men weren’t my keepers, they had no right to my belongings, and I hadn’t in fact gotten any pictures of the women—all of which was true, though not necessarily helpful at that moment. To our relief, they gave up and angrily instructed us to leave the room, an order we did obey without hesitation.

I do have some slight evidence of the reality of this occurrence, at least for myself. Looking back, I found I’d made a small note in my trip journal, right below the entry on our activities that morning. It says, in brackets, “dozen or so women in richly ornamented Arabic dress closely guarded by 2 men w/ walkie-talkies—clearly a harem.” My note doesn’t make any reference to my (surprisingly bold) defense of my camera or to the missed photo op. But it’s enough to provide some basis for continuing to believe I actually saw what I saw. Of course, I’ve never seen anything like it again—and maybe even more to the point, I’ve never seen a photograph like the one that continues to dwell in my mind. I suspect it’s one that has never been taken.

#2: Meta-Photography (A Photograph of People Taking a Photograph)

My second big fish story also occurred at a museum in London, but on a different trip and at a different museum. This story is short and, I think, sweet. I was doing the usual tourist stuff and found myself in a tight ring of other tourists surrounding the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum. Nothing special there—it’s one of those stops on every London tourist’s itinerary. But as I looked up from the interesting item on view, I noticed the more interesting scene around me. The group was made up entirely of Japanese men, all about the same height, all wearing dark suits, all holding nearly identical cameras, and all taking the Stone’s photo at the same moment. I happened to be in the right place at the right time. But taking pictures of people is tricky. How to be respectful and still get the unposed shot? I decided to try; I raised my camera to join in, but pointing mine in a slightly different direction—not at the artifact but, subtly I hoped, at the viewers. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough. By the time I clicked, many of them had lowered their cameras and a few were already turning away. But one of the men, catching what I was up to, did give me a conspiratorial smile, almost a wink. He’d clearly noticed what I’d noticed—that the real picture was not the famed Rosetta Stone, but the group of people observing and capturing it.

#3: The Bicycle in the Rain (Nothing Meta about It)

Missed photo #3 took place in a different setting; this time I was in Italy, just a few years ago. My husband and I, while leading a summer study-abroad program, spent the weekend with an Italian friend who took us on a day trip to Rimini, the hometown of filmmaker Federico Fellini. Rimini is a major beach destination, but we aren’t beach people. The draw for us was the Old Town, including the theater where the young Fellini first watched movies, a lovely arcade of high-end Italian shops, and some highly recommended restaurants. Just as we finished our obligatory visit to the town cathedral, a light rain started. No worry, our friend assured us. We ducked into a tiny pizza shop to wait while having a quick snack—it was my husband who got a great photo of the shop-tender removing a pizza from the wall of built-in open ovens—and set off once more. But in just a few minutes, the rain started coming down again—and then it started pouring. So much for our plans to wander the cobblestone streets. We hastily took shelter along one side of the main piazza, in a covered space that our friend (and a posted sign) told us had once been a medieval fish market. The small crowd sheltering there was joined by the ubiquitous street vendors who had quickly switched their wares from neon plastic sunglasses to brightly colored umbrellas. Nothing to do but wait. And then, while our friend bargained with one of the merchants, I saw it: a lone bicycle making its way across the piazza through the now driving rain. An undaunted woman who looked more like a schoolteacher than an intrepid adventurer was seated on it. She steered steadily with one hand; in the other, she held a large umbrella, protecting herself, the items in her basket, and the bicycle itself. It looked like a scene from a Mary Poppins movie—I expected the bike and its rider to start rising into the air at any moment. This time I had an iPhone, but it was buried in my purse; though the rider stayed on the ground, she quickly crossed the piazza, and the scene escaped me.

Thinking back now, I realize that, even given the improvements in modern phone cameras, getting a really good photo of that rider in the rain would have been unlikely. And thinking further, I’ve realized while writing this piece, that it’s probably true that none of the photos I might have gotten would have equaled my mental pictures of them. It’s occurred to me that a further irony is unfolding here: if I hadn’t missed the photos and regretted their loss, I might very well have neglected to think back on these scenes—indeed I might not have remembered them at all. And that has brought to mind a further idea. Wordsworth has never been a favorite poet of mine, but I’ve found that his concept of the cycle of expectation/disappointment/recompense comes fairly often to my mind. And here it is again. Maybe my memory of the scenes outweighs the photos that might have been—if so, it’s a fitting recompense. I’m realizing too that this pattern doesn’t just apply to ruined day-trips (as it did for young William as well as for me) or missed photographs. At my late age, I see that it can also come to describe the arc of life as a whole. I’ve been fortunate enough to find post-retirement quite a satisfying recompense for any of those disappointed expectations of youth.

In any case, I’m sure I’ll continue to enjoy fishing for special photos, and I’m sure I’ll continue to regret the ones I fail to catch. But I think I’ll start a new mental file under “M” for “Memories”—with a subcategory reserved for those great pictures that get away.

Students making intergenerational friends in Urbino, Italy—Photo by Craig Clifford

“Talkin’ ‘bout My Generation”

I’ve been reading quite a lot of commentary recently—cultural, political, literary—in “alternative” publications I consider legitimate, intelligent, and even-handed. Most of the “legacy press” no longer fits that description in my view; nor does the plethora of extremist options. I’ve been pleased to escape the reductionism, misinformation, and name-calling on both sides. I’ve especially appreciated the lack of a constant tendency to separate people by race, ethnicity, political affiliation, what have you. (I’ve also been grateful not to be hit constantly with the prejudicial and divisive idea that states have colors, leading to overall value judgments and condemnations of entire swaths of the country.) But I have, somewhat to my consternation, noted that one type of grouping seems to be acceptable even to these generally unbiased commentators: that is the dividing and stereotyping of people by generation. Even many of those who justifiably and consistently call out bad actors on all points of the political and cultural spectrum fall into this habit.

Could I be the only one disturbed by this trend? I’ve discovered that I’m not. A little Google research revealed that some individuals, even quite authoritative ones, have opposed the practice, specifically in the social sciences and finance. Generational labeling, they’ve argued, creates problems in both of those areas. It looks like the word is out. But judging by my reading, it really hasn’t gotten around, at least not in media and popular culture, two areas of particular interest to me.

In fact, even when the writers I usually admire complain about the inappropriate lumping together of, say, Millennials or Gen Xers, they often turn around and accuse Zoomers or Boomers. I’ve just indicated indirectly what I suspect to be a huge part of the problem—the trendy monikers now given to each generation. Let me be clear: I hate those names. They make my skin crawl and my teeth hurt. I understand that in our fast-changing lives, we should pay attention to the varying influences each new wave of the world’s occupants is subjected to—particularly when it comes to internet technology. If we grew up with or without desktop computers, the Web, iPhones, AI—yes, that does in one way identify, define, and divide us. But only in one way—one that has very little bearing on a lot of other more significant factors and that always serves to obscure the unique characteristics of individuals.

Aside from the fact that using them sounds childish, those cutesy names also seem to make it acceptable to condemn whole groups of the population. I’m sure every generation is more sensitive to the attacks made on its own members than to others, and I admit I’m not immune to that. As a so-called “Boomer” (can you hear my teeth grinding?), I do notice every time that term is used to discredit those my age—and every time that term is used, that’s exactly what’s happening. In fact, though we sometimes use the original “baby boomers” ourselves, I’ve yet to see writers from my generation make use of that relatively recent bit of nomenclature—and not because we’re too old to be cognizant of trendy language, thank you. Somehow it seems that as long as writers, even reputable ones, are referring to the members of our entire generation as Boomers, it’s okay to dismiss, undercut, and mock us—while lumping us all together. Boomers cost society too much (I don’t), Boomers can’t use technology (I can), Boomers shouldn’t be running the country (I shouldn’t—but not because of my age). Just for one quick case: as I read through a recent hard-copy issue of The Atlantic (okay, yes, many in my generation still read print—but I know that some members of other generations prefer it too), I found the term used, negatively, in both of the otherwise even-handed and intelligent articles addressing topics in current culture. Neither discussion called for snarkiness—but that’s where use of the term led them. Maybe it’s an overall attitude and not just the label; but I think the dismissive tone might be a lot less likely to appear acceptable—even to the writers themselves—if they referred instead to “people over 65” or “people of retirement age” or “our grandparents’ generation.” After all, though they might feel superior knowing they’ll never be “Boomers,” they will most likely end up in much the same place, and sooner than they expect.

This isn’t, however, about ageism: I’m not saying the same kind of bias isn’t directed at each generation. It is. What I’m saying is that it shouldn’t be. The same kind of thing happens when people my age are doing the commenting. Do we really need to keep insisting that Zoomers are anxious, Millennials won’t marry or leave home, Gen Xers are invisible? To test my theory, I tried a little thought experiment on myself. I noted what came immediately to mind when I thought about “Zoomers.” Right away, the standard stereotypes presented themselves: they’re anxiety-ridden, uninformed, glued to their phones, lacking in curiosity. (I could almost hear Bill Maher’s voice.) Then I tried it a different way: I focused on “people currently in their late teens and early twenties.” The image that phrase conjured was entirely different. For one thing, as some proponents of ideologically-based language modification have pointed out in other cases, the subjects of my thinking were now people first. And then they suddenly became people I have something in common with: I was once in my late teens and early twenties. Added to that, every generation of students I’ve come to know during my 40+ years of university teaching was largely composed of people that age. Those students weren’t all like each other. Neither, I can wager, are these. At the same time, having been born within the last 20 or so years doesn’t make them entirely different from people born earlier. As with other distinctive identity groupings, paying attention to the fact that your own way of seeing the world isn’t the same as everyone else’s, is laudable. Crossing from that awareness to stereotyping isn’t.

I suspect one of the defenses of those indulging in it would be that this kind of generational generalizing is amusing. Okay, I admit I’m fine with Bill Maher’s brand of humor—I’m not suggesting anyone censor it. We are and should be allowed to make fun of each other along with ourselves; that kind of comedy is recognized as satire. But what works in a stand-up routine isn’t necessarily appropriate for serious discourse and commentary. I think what’s needed in those venues is the adoption of a concept of generationism. I suggest that serious writers drop all of those annoying popular generation names from their lexicon. I’ll even go so far as to recommend that my favored publications’ style sheets banish them outright. I think that might help us reach over at least one of the many fences dividing us. And surely it would help us all do a little growing up—whatever our generation.

BT: The Odyssey is one of the most widely read and known books ever, so you’d think in theory - since more people probably have read that than a Batman or Spider-Man comic in their lives – there would have been a Homeric Cinematic Universe by now. An Odysseus trilogy at least, and perhaps a Sirens Disney+ origin series or something. But outside of a few films and a ‘90s miniseries, it hasn't really been touched in a real way. Why do you think that’s the case, that Hollywood’s not hot for the Odyssey the way it has been over the years for, say, other literary material like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and even the Bible?

MY: That question leads me both to what makes the Odyssey so great and at the same time makes it so challenging, for readers and, I think I can venture to say, for filmmakers as well. I can suggest three major reasons I see for Hollywood’s reluctance to embrace the Odyssey as it has other literary classics. First, there’s the challenge of reading it. (The Coen Brothers, in making one of the most far-fetched and yet most perceptive adaptations, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, claimed they hadn’t actually read it. I think that’s hilarious; I also think it’s a lie.) I insist that it isn’t as difficult as it’s often thought to be—it’s a great read. And thanks to some wonderful modern translations, it’s accessible to almost everyone who reads at a high-school level and beyond. But it’s also a commitment, one that I admit most people, even most readers, are no longer willing to make. I’ve heard so many times from those who made the effort, though, that they absolutely loved it. I’m hopeful that the recent translation by Emily Wilson—which got an amazing amount of press coverage—will help change the negative preconception.

The second reason has to do with current ideology. Most readers and viewers these days seem to prefer works that mirror themselves and their ideals and/or clearly condemn anything that doesn’t. The Odyssey doesn’t provide that kind of comfortable mirror-gazing. It’s going to challenge our contemporary world view, not cater to it. Rather than a mirror, it provides a window on a weird, unfamiliar, contradictory, fascinating, beautiful, terrifying world.

And third, focusing primarily on Hollywood’s ethos, I’d suggest that the biggest issue might be Hollywood’s (understandable) lack of tolerance for complexity and ambiguity. Both the hero and the poem itself are unapologetically ambiguous. Odysseus is described in the very first line as “polytropos.” Literally it means “many-turning.” The word has no single direct translation, but Emily Wilson translates it as “complicated,” and I do think that sums it up pretty well. Everything about the work and its hero introduces complications and contradictions. Is Odysseus a hero or an anti-hero? Is he the first modern civilized man or a vicious barbarian? Is he the man who unjustly suffers or the one who causes suffering for himself and others—in today’s political jargon, the oppressed or the oppressor? The work raises all of these questions and so many others—and never answers them.

All of that said, I love the idea of a “Homeric Cinematic Universe”!

BT: Does it have anything to do with the fact that, at least for me and my generation and probably lots of others, we had to read it in school multiple times? Is there some turnoff there, that maybe it's considered more “academic” than entertaining? (Though there is plenty of adventure and drama and all that stuff contained within.)

MY: Yes, that could be part of it—although honestly, I don’t think many students are faced with it these days, except maybe in elite private schools. And even then, I don’t think many actually make the effort to read it. In my entire college teaching career, I came across only a handful of students who had. But in any case, the idea that it’s an ancient classic linked with academic study suggests to many people that it can’t possibly be enlightening or enjoyable. Not surprising, then, that Hollywood would shy away.

BT: Odysseus has one of the seminal hero’s journeys. What more famous pop culture hero do you think most matches his?

MY: That’s a tough one. As I’ve suggested, pop culture in general tends to simplify, not to present complexity. (I don’t mean to dismiss it for that reason—in fact, I think that’s one of the many reasons we need it!) A number of pop culture heroes undertake journeys that correspond to Odysseus’ in some respects, but I don’t know of one that closely matches it in any significant way. Odysseus’ journey is as contradictory as he is. I think it’s often overlooked that he doesn’t make the journey for the sake of adventure or out of duty to some higher cause. It’s actually a desperate and seemingly hopeless attempt to return home from the ten-year Trojan War. But the journey—or at least the story Odysseus himself tells about it—is full of wild adventure, amazing feats, fascinating characters, and magical realms. And that’s only half the story. When he at last reaches his island of Ithaca, midway through the work, he finds that his home isn’t the place he left, that he’ll have to risk everything once again to redeem and reclaim it. (That’s the part often left out in recountings of the plot—but interestingly, the part The Return focuses on.) Also, the entire narrative is marked by constant transitions between gloomy darkness and sparkling light, between tragedy and folktale. Most popular heroes’ journeys, by contrast, follow either the dark, tragic path or the bright, optimistic one. So, by the way, do most adaptations of the Odyssey: the Coen Brothers obviously focused on the light side; judging by the advance information and the trailer I’ve seen, The Return opted for the dark side.

The same thing applies to a match for Odysseus himself. Even in our postmodern world of supposedly ambiguous heroes, I really can’t find one who compares. It’s true that some of our contemporary heroes, in contrast to those of the past, are portrayed as darker and more conflicted, particularly those coming out of contemporary comics/graphic novels. That might be a place to look. My husband, on the other hand, points to Gus McCrae from Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. I agree that McCrae is the sneaky, fast-talking Odysseus to Woodrow Call’s upright Achilles, so he might come close. But he doesn’t have anything like Odysseus’ complexity. For that, we’d need to find the hero who fervently longs to return to his provincial home—so much that he gives up the offer of immortality—but also wants to squeeze every drop of adventure, excitement, and knowledge he can grasp along the way; the one who repeatedly risks his life to defend his men and his cause—and then repeatedly jeopardizes both of those through his vanity, self-interest, and desire for fame; the one who is always prepared to break the rules in a society that is strictly rule-bound; the one who can, on one day, inspire his followers to be unswervingly loyal and on the next, disastrously distrustful; the one who loves his wife and son with true tenderness—and yet chooses to spend years with other women (well, goddesses), and to undertake a risky flirtation with a young marriageable foreign princess; the one who lies, cheats, and tricks his way through one episode after another and then tells the whole story of his travels and his transgressions when he is at his most vulnerable; the one who can be unjustly cruel and heartbreakingly sensitive. That’s the one who matches Odysseus. Do you have any candidates? I’d love to know!

BT: Homer's epic is more than two thousand years old. What do you think about its narrative and themes resonates now in 2024?

MY: Pretty much everything I’ve mentioned. I think the Odyssey brilliantly acknowledges and presents the contradictions of our own present-day life—or maybe of life, period: the simultaneous longing for the thrill of adventure and the comfort of home, for revenge and forgiveness, for violence and love, for power and submission. Humans are complex and contradictory, terrible and wonderful. And through it all, we keep on swimming. Beyond a great story, that insight into humanity is what I think the Odyssey has to offer, and that’s what I hope will continue to resonate.

'The Return' is an epic 'Odyssey' movie. Why isn't there a Homeric Cinematic Universe yet?

P.S. I do include a few spoilers here, so if you’re watching Bridgerton now or plan to watch it in the future, you might want to finish it before reading further.

The Full, Unvarnished Truth about Why I Love Bridgerton and Other Ideas about Representing Racial Diversity, Aesthetic Conventions, the Portrayal of Older Women, and the Power of Writing

(Hint: It has nothing to do with Colinope*)

When I started watching the Bridgerton series, it was all about a guilty pleasure. Not one that I would hide, mind you; I may be guilty, but I’m not secretive. Most of my reading, my writing, and my academic professional life has been quite serious. I feel I’ve earned the right to indulge openly in frothy pop-culture desserts. I expected Bridgerton to take its place right up (down?) there with Barbie and Emily in Paris (oh, come on, don’t pretend you haven’t been tempted, if only to see the over-the-top costumes and idealized view of Parisian life). From the outset, the series was being unabashedly billed as popularized Jane Austen with sex. Successive starry-eyed romances, exaggerated-but-still-posh Regency fashions, fully uncorseted, yep, sex: true to its promise, Bridgerton has, over the past three seasons, delivered all of that. (And what could be more satisfying than catching on when Emily’s best friend Mindy, in an episode of the most recent Emily in Paris season, refers to a couple “living out their horny Bridgerton coach fantasy”? Pure postmodern fun: a character in a fantasy invoking the fantasy of another fantasy.)

The surprise for me has been that the show has delivered a lot more. And it’s the lot more that I want to talk about.

*This is my shameless mash-up of the names of the romantic duo featured in Season 3, Colin and Penelope.

The Race Card

Even more important than the dance card in this alternate Regency world is the race card—and in my view the Bridgerton creators have played their hand successfully. They’ve taken a real historical setting and society where the only people on view were white, and introduced a whole new group of players into the game. Or maybe it’s a whole new game: what in the Bridgerton-adjacent series, Queen Charlotte, is dubbed “The Great Experiment.” Grant me a bit of time to back up and talk about a current issue regarding the presentation of racial diversity in pop culture offerings that’s been on my mind: the issue of color-blind casting in historically based TV shows and movies.

You don’t need me to tell you that the inclusion of non-white races and diverse ethnicities in the Western media world was a major and essential development, one that was long overdue. We know that our popular media has a huge effect on how we see the world—and the people in it. For TV series and movies set in recent and current times to omit that kind of diversity would, and should, be unacceptable.

What I am concerned about though is what happens when that kind of racial diversity is inserted into otherwise historically realistic times and places where it didn’t—and couldn’t—exist. In those cases, some pesky theoretical problems do come up. For viewers with some knowledge of unrevised history, it can be jarring—even unintentionally comic. An extreme case of this disjunction appeared in the Google Gemini gaffe when the hugely influential company’s shiny new AI imaging tool responded to prompts for pictures of historical figures by producing, among others, black medieval knights, a female South Asian pope, Vikings of color—and racially diverse Nazi officers. I, like multitudes of others, thought it was highly amusing. But it did raise some interesting questions—besides the obvious one about who’s minding the Google store. If nothing else, it revealed the limits, not only of AI, but of this kind of revisionism. No black Nazis, please. So artificial intelligence aside, which characters, among historically white populations, are being or should be portrayed in movies and TV series by people of other races? Can only those characters deemed to be good, residing on the “right side” of history, be represented by people of color—while all negatively portrayed characters remain white? (For a recent example of that approach in a fictional setting, see the adult characters in the 2022 film Matilda the Musical.) Are we, on the other hand, creating a false history where the actual lack of racial diversity is erased? Is it a problem at all, as popular media productions have never been a reliable source for legitimate history, and it makes no sense to expect them to be? I know I’m walking on controversial ground here, but I believe the injudicious insertion of racial diversity in historically based media entertainment could be as wrong-minded as the Google fiasco.

I am aware of the influence and importance of artistic convention in this context. Without the willing (or sometimes unconscious) suspension of disbelief, none of our popular media entertainments would be possible. That’s always been true. The most obvious case from earlier times is the unquestionably weird and entirely accepted convention of boys playing the roles of women in the theatre of Shakespeare’s day. The British TV series Upstart Crow, a brilliant comedy focused on Will and his circle of friends, family, and fellow playwrights, has endless fun with it. Each time the idea of women playing the roles of women comes up, the dumbfounded males ask where the acting talent would be in that—and even more, “Where would they put the coconuts?” As fans of the Bard know, the actual Shakespeare had his share of fun with gender-bending too, regularly turning the situation inside out and upside down in his comedies and romances. But to be fair, our own accepted conventions would seem equally odd to someone not familiar with them, even in shows intended to be realistic. Eerie music playing in the background of a threatening encounter? Really? WWII-era French townspeople speaking to each other in English? Come on… And yet, we don’t generally question these features—even though as viewers of TV and movies, we expect a much higher level of realism than we do as theater-goers, where the walls separating reality from illusion are always in evidence. We accept these conventions because we’ve learned to.

Of course, as we can see in the performance of Shakespeare’s plays, what people accept as artistic convention undergoes considerable change over time. In the case of the conventions surrounding racial diversity in media productions—and of color-blind casting in particular—we’re in a transitional moment. I’m guessing that many viewers under the age of 25 or so (I admit I haven’t asked them) don’t find it any odder that black actors portray some of the Russian Bolsheviks in A Gentleman in Moscow than that Ewan McGregor plays the Russian count.

Problems can appear, though, even once new conventions have been accepted. I just watched the historically based British film, Wicked Little Letters. Set in a small English village in the 1920s, the film follows a bizarre case in which village residents begin receiving mysterious unsigned letters, full of salacious (if hilarious) language and scandalous accusations. Suspicion quickly falls on a young Irish woman, only recently arrived; that suspicion is fanned by her next-door neighbor, who accuses her of unacceptably unfeminine behavior. The police are called in to investigate, and a female police officer along with two townswomen eventually break the case. Both main characters, the conservative lifelong villager and the rowdy Irish outsider, are played by white British actresses. The female police officer with the thoroughly Anglo name Gladys Moss is played, on the other hand, by Indian actress Anjana Vasan. Okay, the slight mystery of the character having an unexplained Anglo name notwithstanding, I can accept that the pressures she is up against become more real to contemporary viewers when we see her as hampered not only by her gender but by her ethnicity (though that ethnicity is never acknowledged in the film). But another character poses problems I can’t rationalize away. Rose, our Irish bad girl, has aroused the suspicion of the locals because of her foul mouth and failure to attend church. But no one appears to have any problem with the fact that her boyfriend is a black man (played by Malachi Kirby). Wow, these 1920s villagers are amazingly open-minded after all. Oh, but wait, no, they’re not supposed to be: this is obviously yet another example of the small-towns-are-so-narrow-minded formula. So are we expected not to notice that the actor is black? I’m confused.

Now let me come back to Bridgerton. The series has been accused by some academics and cultural critics of “colorizing,” “blackwashing,” erasing the history of racism, and indulging in stereotypical race-based portrayals. But having watched the show, I can’t participate in their derision. (I do, on the other hand, find it remarkably common for such critics—most of them women themselves—to attack popular entertainments by, for, and about women. Bridgerton can take its place in a long list, stretching back to the novels of Regency author Jane Austen herself.) In my view, the Bridgerton series has dealt honestly and sensitively with the potential problems of introducing racial diversity into a historically white society. Rather than simply ignoring the historical reality or hoping viewers’ accepted conventions will catch up, they’ve addressed it head on. We have, we discover, entered an alternate reality, one in which racial diversity in aristocratic early-19^th-century England is present, but racial equality not yet fully gained—that is, a reality that echoes our own. We learn as well that what we are seeing is an experiment being undertaken by Queen Charlotte, who managed to persuade her husband, King George III, to provide his support, and that while it is of crucial importance, its success isn’t assured—again suggestive of our current reality outside of the show. I haven’t read the novels the series was based on, but I understand they had no influence here. The introduction of racial diversity belongs entirely with the TV series and its creators, most notably Chris Van Dusen and Shonda Rhimes.

While the Queen herself is represented as black—based on speculation that the actual Queen Charlotte might have had some African ancestry—the individual in the series who most deserves credit is another black character, Lady Agatha Danbury (Adjoa Andoh). As we eventually learn, she is not only the social director of the entire “ton” and the Queen’s advisor and confidante, she almost single-handedly set the movement for equal social status going—and in this world, social status is the only kind there is. Lady Danbury (she worked hard to achieve and retain that title) is worthy of a princely moniker when it comes to Machiavellian manipulation. But her ability to influence others is not limited to a penetrating understanding of human weakness and fallibility. Her tools include compassion, true friendship, and connection with the people around her, white characters as well as black ones. I realize that some critics see this as just another part of the show’s implausible fantasy—or as a hook catering to a largely white audience. I respectfully disagree; Agatha Danbury proves admirable, in my view, as both a strong individual and a good one, one who stands up for herself and for others.

Though black characters are the most prominent new entrants into this society, they aren’t the only ones. Several Asian women appear in background scenes and among the young marriage market contenders. Far more notably, two young women from India become the focus of the marriage game in Season Two. Season Three goes in another direction, giving us a protagonist who challenges the traditional standards of female beauty (Nicola Coughlan as Penelope Featherington). And among the aristocratic women being presented to the Queen, we see a young deaf woman and her mother communicating in what must be British Regency sign language. Among the men at court, we briefly meet a marriageable bachelor attending one of the season’s balls in a wheelchair with no particular notice from the other guests. I can’t help perceiving a wink in these latter two—maybe the show is slyly pointing out that some representations are still largely missing from this series, as well as from other popular media.

Gender and Generation

The “great experiment” in racial diversity is Bridgerton’s most obvious innovation. But the discussion of Lady Danbury brings me to another area where I see the series making its indelible mark. It would hardly seem possible to present anything new when it comes to the roles of women on TV. When every other action hero is a martial-arts-trained female fighting machine and multitudes of the attorneys, doctors, CEOs, and detectives are women of multiple races and ethnicities, what could a faux-historical series do that managed to feel significant? Here, the show has picked up on actual historical reality. Women, then as now, were likely to live longer than men—if they survived childbirth. As a result, women—in most cases, widows—could end up, if only briefly, as the heads of their households. Bridgerton exploits that situation so subtly that at first I wasn’t entirely aware of it—though I suspect it’s what was initially prompting me, albeit unconsciously, to come back episode after episode. By Season Two, all three major families in the ton are headed by women, as is English society as a whole—though in the Queen’s case, it’s not widowhood but her husband’s (historically true) mental illness that has left her in control (not historically true—in real life, her son took over the rule as prince regent, thereby establishing the period known as the Regency era).

Each of the three ruling heads of family has arrived in her position in a somewhat different fashion. Violet Bridgerton, the matriarch of the show’s central family, was left unexpectedly and unwillingly in that role. The rare beneficiary of a “love match,” Violet was devastated, nearly unhinged, by her husband’s early death—so much so, that Anthony, her oldest son, planned (unsuccessfully as the show would have it) to avoid love entirely in order to escape any possibility of such pain. By the present time of the series, however, Violet has grown along with her eight children: she is not only accustomed to her position as head of the household, she is fully prepared to meet the challenges that marrying off her offspring will present. By Season Three, the show has to invent a less credible excuse to keep her in charge, sending Anthony and his new wife off to India rather than having them remain to assume their roles as Viscount and Viscountess Bridgerton.

Agatha Danbury, by contrast, was both exhilarated and liberated by the loss of her much older, egotistical husband, the son of an African king. Unlike the Dowager Viscountess Bridgerton, she was the unhappy victim of a marriage arranged when she was a child. Lady Danbury wasted no time establishing her position as a socially prominent widow, and her power is acknowledged throughout the ton. The only open question is why her now grown son, absent from the show, has not taken over what would be his “rightful” position. But I suppose if the show’s creators aren’t worrying about that, I won’t either.

And finally we have Portia Featherington, who has to wait until Season Two to achieve widowhood. Like Lady Danbury, Lady Featherington is quick to adapt. With only daughters, she has no heir who can ensure that the estate and title remain in her family. Major parts of Seasons Two and Three are devoted to her machinations to secure and retain her position. And though she is considerably less admirable than the two other women, even her mistreated youngest daughter comes to understand and accept her mother’s play for independence and control.

Of course, all of this is taking place in the background: each season foregrounds the romantic attachment of a Bridgerton son or daughter with a soon-to-be marriage partner. But somehow, the matriarchs don’t simply disappear into the scenery. And each of these women is presented realistically, neither glorified nor demonized. (Thankfully, this isn’t a Regency era Game of Thrones.) What is further notable to me about them is their age. They aren’t exactly old (Maggie Smith, after all, is no longer with us), but they aren’t young either. And it’s looking as if at least one of them will find a romantic attachment of her own. (Emily in Paris, by the way, earns points here too for its focus on Emily’s striking, independent, infuriatingly French boss Sylvie—a woman of “a certain age” who proves not to be a stereotypical Prada-wearing devil.)

I don’t mean to suggest that the male characters in this society are ignored. They are in fact major players. And like the women, they run the gamut from very very good to horrid. While the men are admittedly not in control in the world of social politics and marriage markets, they are presumably, as historical accuracy would have it, running things in the world of national politics and financial markets. (Though we’re clearly informed that aristocratic men of whatever race are not only expected not to work—they are not allowed to.) Even in the case of the romantic plotlines, the marriage-minded sons are as much the focus as the daughters: finding a life partner is just as important to one prospective partner as it is to the other.

By far my favorite character in the Bridgerton series, however, is the one who never actually appears: Julie Andrews’ voice as Lady Whistledown, the sharply observant, witty, and insightful gossip columnist whose all-knowing broadsheets have the entire ton at her mercy. The idea of the transformative power of writing is one I can’t resist. Come to think of it, it was more likely Lady Whistledown who kept me coming back to the show. The revelation of her identity and the end of her quill’s reign have, I admit, left me with little enthusiasm for following the series further. That’s okay, though. When the next season appears, I plan to be rewatching Seasons 1-3—with no guilt at all.

About a year ago, the smallish town of Stephenville, Texas where I live, became the focus of an extremely popular media representation. The source was a Texas Monthly article that spread immediately across the country. The slick regional magazine might not automatically be considered a paragon of journalistic integrity, but it is a publication which readers, myself included, expect to present more or less reliable information, not fabricated hype. A crafted narrative, yes; a doctored misrepresentation, no.

The article, by Bryan Burrough, which came out in July 2023, was, by the time online readers saw it, titled, “Everyone in Stephenville Thought They Knew Who Killed Susan Woods.” (The original print title was “Hiding in Plain Sight.”) It presents a 1987 Stephenville murder case that went unsolved for nearly twenty years. The victim’s husband was, according to the article, suspected of the crime, but no solid evidence linked him to it, and he was never charged. Still, “everyone” believed he did it—allowing another man, eventually identified as the murderer, to get away not only with that crime, but with the subsequent rape of another woman in Stephenville before he was finally charged and imprisoned. It was not only unfounded suspicion against the husband that affected the case. In addition, the rape victim’s testimony was discounted by town officials because of her “loose” morals.

Yes, this is an account of a tragedy. Yes, I sympathize with the victims, including the innocent husband. But as I realized while reading the article, the account was seriously unreliable. Much of the “new evidence” proved to be based on a diary kept by the criminal himself—not the kind of evidence I find convincing. I can also attest that the setting for the crime was a fiction constructed by the article’s author. He introduces readers to the sleepy little “God-fearing” town of Stephenville, where dairies provide the primary occupation and high-school football and two Dairy Queens the only distractions. What the article never mentions—and clearly would rather leave unsaid—is that Stephenville is also home to Tarleton State University, a branch of the Texas A&M University System, which, by the late 1980s had an enrollment of around 4,000 students along with hundreds of faculty and staff members. (The university now enrolls over 15,000 students on the 170+-acre Stephenville campus and another 5,000 on branch campuses. You’d have to try really hard to miss it.) Until I retired two years ago, I was one of those hundreds of faculty members. Stephenville is in fact, and has long been, an agricultural town, a manufacturing town—and a university town.

And what about the article’s title (or in the print version, the subtitle)? Come on. “Everyone in Stephenville thought”? Really? Even if “Stephenville” referred to a town of 200 or a neighborhood block or a single school board meeting, would “everyone” have thought anything?  Later in the article, when the town is described, we also learn that “everyone” attended church on Sundays. What, no backsliders in the entire town? Well, my husband and I were already living here, and I can confirm beyond the shadow of any doubt, that we were not in church. This “everyone” doesn’t actually exist.

As for the sixteen-year-old rape victim who had what used to be referred to as a bad reputation, her testimony was rejected by a Stephenville grand jury which refused to indict her attacker, the actual murderer. That, I sadly believe to be true. But her situation was not, in contrast to what the article strongly implies, a small-town phenomenon. The same thing was happening in every town and city across the entire country through and beyond the 1980s, as every feminist living at that time well knows.

I admit that even before I read the article, I was suspicious—this was not the first time the town had been presented in a fictionalized light—and my annoyance increased as I read it. But by the time I’d finished reading and had done just a bit of thinking, my initial irritation began to subside. By that point, it had become clear to me that this story wasn’t even posing as a piece of journalism. It actually belongs to a different genre, as the print version attests: the classic true-crime story—that is to say, true-crime fiction. Like all “true” crime, it was constructing a narrative, one that didn’t allow for the inclusion, or even existence, of unrelated information—pesky details like state universities or diverse views or residents who don’t fit the profile. I wasn’t surprised when I discovered that Texas Monthly had indeed put out a “true crime podcast” titled “Stephenville” that devoted six episodes to the story. (I’ve heard that the podcast does mention the university’s existence, though I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to it.) The author’s June 27, 2023 tweet makes clear that the story had little to do with journalism: “Hey y’all. The 3^rd episode of my @Texas Monthly podcast ‘Stephenville’ is now available at @ApplePodcasts. The plot thickens!” That made me feel better. The whole thing was clearly intended as voyeuristic entertainment. Expecting a realistic view of the town, its residents, or anything else would be missing the point and purpose of the genre.

Still, I found that highly educated, typically skeptical, ever careful readers, including many of my friends living in other places, did miss that. In fact, their immediate response to the article was to email us and ask with shocked consternation: Do you remember this case? Did you know Susan Woods? What did you think at the time? The answer is no, we did not know her and have no memory of the case. Violent crime in our town was extremely rare then, as now, and the case obviously made the local papers. But that was over 35 years ago. At that time, Stephenville had around 15,000 residents. I didn’t even come close to knowing everyone on the campus—people who worked steps away from me every day—much less everyone in the town. And not only did I not know Susan Woods, of the many residents I do know, I haven’t come across anyone who did.

 Why did intelligent, educated people so quickly accept the account as reliable? The answer, I’ve realized, is right there in the question: those educated people are exactly the ones who have a well defined stereotype of Texas small towns. They know what those towns are like: dens of cliquish, closed-minded, uneducated rubes, all of whom look, act, think, and vote alike. The murdered woman’s husband, the article explains, was a long-haired “outsider”; as a result, “everyone” suspected him of being capable of murder. Of course—that’s exactly what these small-town, church-going people would believe. Or rather, that’s exactly what the educated readers of Texas Monthly would believe about them. As it happens, I am a big-city-born, Jewish intellectual with a PhD in comparative literature, a life-long Democrat who spent decades teaching local college kids to read, think, and analyze—and I’ve never been suspected of anything beyond tough grading standards. But that doesn’t make a great story, does it?

I can’t really blame the readers though. Where are they going to come across a different view? And so what? Does it really matter how one particular town is presented? Who cares if the university is or isn’t mentioned? Clearly, enough people know about its presence for thousands of students to make their way here at the beginning of every fall semester. And let me not neglect to mention that a good number of Texas small-town stereotypes do in fact prove true, here as throughout the state. There is very little crime in our town—but a whole lot of guns. The town and county are overwhelmingly Republican, the large majority, I’m willing to bet, Trump supporters. A good number of permanent residents under the age of 60 are still refusing to get vaccinated against Covid. At the same time—and I admit I do have some problems reconciling these facts—the people I come across on a daily basis—people who know right away that I am not exactly like them—are kind, helpful, friendly, and welcoming. Most of my close friends are connected with the university; they are the people I have something in common with. But no one here has ever tried to make me feel like an outsider. And I’m not.

True crime or not, the article reminded me that much of what we read in the press and take for an effort at disclosing the truth is actually, at best, “based on a true story.” The response to that, I suppose, lies in the same things I tried to teach my students: read with a healthy skepticism, beware of easy stereotypes, ask questions of everything—especially of what appears to fit neatly into our preconstructed beliefs. Because ultimately, the responsibility lies with no one but us.

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