I know it's a fictional show, but the fact that one's lot it life is largely a result of who your parents are (and to a lesser degree who you marry) would certainly point to it being a "classist" society, even if all of the classes generally agree on this hereditary status.
> I have learned more [from novelist Honoré de Balzac] than from all the professed historians, economists, and statisticians of the period together.
Speaking more generally, in the right hands all fiction provides fantastic evidence for some history. As Lenin says about Tolstoy:
> The contradictions in Tolstoy's views are not contradictions inherent in his personal views alone, but are a reflection of the extremely complex, contradictory conditions, social influences and historical traditions which determined the psychology of various classes and various sections of Russian society in the post-Reform, but pre-revolutionary era.
> That is why a correct appraisal [!] of Tolstoy can be made only from the viewpoint of the class which has proved, by its political role and its struggle during the first denouement of these contradictions, at a time of revolution, that it is destined to be the leader in the struggle for the people's liberty and for the emancipation of the masses from exploitation—the class which has proved its selfless devotion to the cause of democracy and its ability to fight against the limitations and inconsistency of bourgeois (including peasant) democracy; such an appraisal is possible only from the viewpoint of the Social-Democratic proletariat.
How this applies to Downton Abbey or Bridgerton is an interesting dilemma. I seriously doubt most people who watch these shows are equipped to make the "correct appraisal."
Imagine you were having a discussion with someone about some topic, and your discussion partner said:
> I have learned more from [some novelist] than from all the professed historians, economists, and statisticians [who study the topic].
Would you really consider that a well-reasoned opinion?
He's replying to an aspiring author who sees Engels as an authority on the matter, and he's giving an account of the structure of a new genre of literature (realism) and using its greatest representative (Balzac) to do so. Presumably she takes Engels to be an authority for the same reason many do today: he's one of the best read people to have lived and he was on the frontier of every domain of science for which he had utility. (See the lasting impact of his Anti-Dühring.)
My intent was to provide an entry point into the rich domain of Marxist literary theory by the authority of two of its most important progenitors. Engels and Lenin were crucial in developing an apparently important way of studying and creating history. I figured this is a relevant addition to the conversation because I am gesturing to a positive answer to the gaping question that you opened: what is it that makes a historical interpretation "correct"? Unless perhaps your intent was to leave it agape, which is fit for the postmodernist ideological realm in which Downton Abbey and Bridgerton were written in the first place.
If people agree that the caste system is correct, is it still classist? I'd say yes, because it enforces the maintenance of classes, and assigns people different opportunities based on their class.
The substance of the opinions matter more than the consensus
Wait till you see Bridgerton. Ive had a teenage girl mentionthe series of an example of "how things were".
I think this is especially sad because there are much more fascinating true stories of European nobility with Sub-Saharan ancestry, e.g. the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin's great grandfather, Abram Petrovich Gannibal, was black.
Other Regency-period movies are probably more accurate with respect to people's complexions -- pasty white, uniform, and bland. Bridgerton isn't designed to give you a photograph of what you might see were you in the Regency court.
Rather, it's designed to give you a sense of what it might have felt like: diverse, colorful, exciting. To focus on Charlotte's face is to miss the ways in which everything about the show is inauthentic -- the clothing, the language, the dances -- but also deeply in love with the period that inspires it. The couldn't have played with the tropes so consistently without knowing them very, very well.
There is also a lot more to be said about the way real race affected real people at the time. We should have more TV shows and movies, rather than this being the only one.
Hell, there are people who say that about Game of Thrones. Enough for it to be a somewhat regular topic on ACOUP.