#poc in period dramas

[peri0dicity]

Chevalier (2023)

[firelise]

Chevalier de Saint-Georges aka Cunty McBitch Pants

CHEVALIER (2023)

[rhfffas]

your average period drama: white/straight/cis, with annoying men who have egos and screen time bigger than the whole sky

aloto: none of these things above

#justice for aloto

[sparklefiists]

Click the source link for 353 gifs (245x145) of Golda Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte in Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (2023).   All gifs were made from scratch by me so please don’t claim as yours, include in other gif packs/hunts or make edits with them (if you want to turn them into gif icons, ask me first and give credit); I don’t abide by the classic +/- 5 year rule. For full rules, go HERE. Reblog & like if you find them helpful.    

Golda was born in Guyana; her ethnicity is Guyanese and English.

Triggers: drinking, eating, kissing.

[sukibenders]

I need to see Charithra Chandran in more period-type pieces (especially ones that she can talk about excitedly without being met with opposition), not only because it was really sweet seeing that interview she had, but because I need more resources of her!

[underratedvisages]

Q’ORIANKA KILCHER in Terrance Malick’s A NEW WORLD (2005)

[marzipanandminutiae]

Wait could you share pics of the 1980s looking actress from the 1890s? I love things like that where your idea of time gets questioned. What even defines the physical/facial “look” for people from a particular era?

It was Ellaline Terriss! I forgot her name for a while, but just recalled it again

(Devoid of context, I would have said this was from the better class of wildly inaccurate 1970s period drama. But it's actually the better class of wildly inaccurate 1906 period fancy-dress, from a play called The Beauty of Bath.)

This, and some other photos I've seen here and there, prove that the idea of "modern faces" has no actual truth to it. People have always had all sorts of facial features; there's no correlation between one's face and one's time period. (Even without evidence, that would be a more logical supposition than the reverse!)

Nevertheless, we do perceive some faces as more "modern-looking" than others. "She has a face that knows what email is" was a common complaint against Dakota Johnson in Persuasion 2022. So where does that come from?

My guess is that we're subconsciously picking up on differences from the usual beauty standards/fashions/photographic posing conventions of the era. The photo above features a hairstyle that, while obviously fashionable at the time, also resembles Farrah Fawcett swoops or big 1980s waves. She's giving a big, toothy smile, but without the widened eyes or affected "saucy" pose that usually accompanied such in period photographs. She looks a bit thinner- or at least, stronger-chinned -than the usual slightly plump Edwardian beauty. There are so many tiny things here that contradict my mental image of "Edwardian woman," and while it's ridiculous to think that people in any era only looked a specific way...if what we see the most in old photos/paintings are people who uphold that era's standard of attractiveness, we may start to subconsciously think That's What People Looked Like Back Then.

And, by extension, that anything closer to our current beauty standard looks inherently modern.

[supremechancellorrex]

A lot of fantasy draws from European cultures with similar kinds of names, fantasy creatures and feudal structures, but you can still have human diversity in your world-building and it feel natural. After all, black and Asian people are a part of European real-life history and culture and always have been. The world has always been a big place and migration, trade and human will have always been the game.

A trap writers can fall into is to make the cultures they base their fantasy on even "whiter" than they were in real-life mostly due to historical misconceptions. Europe has had constant interactions with North African and Asian populations going back thousands of years, from Arab kingdoms and Sultanates to the Ottomans and the Silk Road. The Romans were aware enough of China enough to call it Serica, and China were also aware of them. Meanwhile, the Roma and Sinti groups, who are originally from India, have been in Europe for over 700 years. There were hundreds of black people living in Tudor London to the point Queen Elizabeth I complained. There were black people like John Blanke, a musician present at Henry VIII coronation, as well as Dederi Jacquoh, who came from what would later become part of Liberia and was baptised in England in 1610. From the Sons of Africa abolition group to black and Asian soldiers serving in WW1 and WW2, POC have always left their mark.

No matter what people are people, and world-wide they have their own individual agency and are often prone to migration as simple as hopping on a boat or raft, or riding horse or camelback or just walking for days, weeks and months in great pilgrimages. Diversity isn't new or modern, it's a natural part of human history, and to remove it can make a fantasy worlds feel less natural, more produced, compartmentalised and artificial. Writers should always give their world some nuance and unexpectedness, wonder and humanity.

[somehowmags]

on the topic of misogyny i still think the argument of "nrc is an all boys school so yuu can't be a girl it's not realistic" is still So Fucking Stupid like... you were willing to accept the talking cat and the magic school and the ghosts but you draw the line at a girl attending an all boys school?

[ladyhawke]

now that i’m my benedict bridgerton phase i found out that alexandra dowling is popular fancast for his love interest and i’m so emo because apparently it’s cinderella-like story and she’s my ideal cinderella

[peri0dicity]

Louisa Musgrove - Persuasion (2022)

[firelise]

Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Joseph Bologne, CHEVALIER (2023)

There are various reasons why that powder blue is Joseph’s main colour. Firstly, it is the colour that is recorded to be one of Marie Antoinette’s favourite colours, so it made storytelling sense to use it for Joseph because it’s like his tool for social acceptance within the aristocracy and the French Court. It’s almost like a uniform that he needs to put on to be able to exist and flourish within that racially unjust society that he’s in... During the last half of the movie—which is what you’re referring to—he’s no longer looking for that approval, he’s in this self-acceptance mode and he embraces his cultural roots and becomes a part of the African community. So, the colours that he wears reflect that. -Costume Designer, Oliver Garcia (x)

[fangedprince]

i am all for racially diverse period dramas but i wish shows would just stop with the ‘alternate history’ explanation for having characters of color as nobility/high ranking members of society because 9/10 times the explanation is given so poorly and in a way that minimizes the historical struggles of poc as something that could be ‘undone’ in a matter of decades. like it’s so easy to just. not acknowledge the nonwhiteness of characters of color.

[samoililja]

Mr. Mondrich icons from Bridgerton season 2

[pantherknight]

Don't want to dunk on that person specifically, but the idea that people that look black to us in Medieval art prove existence of black people in Medieval Europe is bad on a lot of accounts, but one of it is that Medieval art isn't known for its realism. Most of the time it was drawn from description alone, and even when an artist specifically wanted to make their skin different they rarely knew the actual skin tones. Like I think I saw a man on Medieval illustration that was literally black as coal and he was supposed to be an Arab. Luke the artist just read "Arabs have darker look" or something like that and drew what they imagined it to be like. And there are other things about Medieval art not being very realistic.

Which is not to say that there weren't non-white people in Europe. For one there was like a lot of Arabs and other people from SWANA all across the Mediterranean coast with some individuals travelling anywhere, and people from any part of Eurasia or Africa could (and did) just come there, but like search actual proves.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Would you please, when you have the heart (or stomach) to do so, watch the new trailer for 'Persuasion' with Dakota Johnson? and please let us know your thoughts about it because most of mine are very bad

I watched it.

Honestly, many of the secondary and background characters aren't terribly costumed. But Dakota Fucking Johnson's Fucking Side-Bangs...god. Why. Also HATS. PUT SOME GODDAMN HATS ON THOSE GODDAMN REGENCY WOMEN.

I haven't read Persuasion yet- just reserved it at the library, actually -but this seems. Rather Not It, from what I've heard about the book? I'm concerned because the director seems to be one of those who thinks the past is somehow inherently staid and boring and needs to be made Shiny and Modern to liven it up. Which, as that popular post from yesterday said...why even make a historical piece if you feel that way?

Always a fan of racially diverse casting in period dramas. But is it just me, or does it unfortunately seem to happen in Certified Rancid movies and shows more than decent ones? Characters of Color In Actually Good Period Dramas 2k22. God knows it's too long in coming.

(Which reminds me, I need to watch David Copperfield and The Gilded Age. And re-watch Mystery of the Eiffel Tower. Thank heaven, there are some outliers to the trend.)