Bridgerton: Why Lady Whistledown Is Secretly The Villain
In Bridgerton, Lady Whistledown reveals everyone’s secrets, but some characters are more vulnerable than others and their secrets more devastating.
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Warning: This article contains light spoilers for Bridgerton season 1
Lady Whistledown, the faceless narrator voiced by Julie Andrews, is secretly the villain of Netflix’s Bridgerton. In Bridgerton, Lady Whistledown’s gossip column is the obsession of every character. The citizens of London are always rushing to get their hands on the latest edition of Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers, hoping to see the names of their neighbors and enemies, but never their own. Early on, Whistledown proves herself to be an accurate source of information and people take her column seriously, meaning that it’s especially damaging to be targeted by Whistledown.
Throughout Bridgerton, Daphne, Simon, Marina, Nigel, and various others find themselves the subjects of Lady Whistledown’s gossip column. Usually, the best way out of a major scandal is to dispute the source of the claims, but Whistledown has such a strong reputation that no one really bothers trying to deny her implications. While Daphne and Simon manage to weather their appearances in Lady Whistledown’s Society papers, others are not so lucky. The Bridgertons are a respectable, attractive, and wealthy family headed by a dignified widow. Daphne’s status as a duchess helps shield herself and her family, and both Daphne and Eloise’s rapport with Queen Charlotte is also a valuable asset. The Bridgertons are never in any real danger of infamy and ruin. However, when Whistledown targets Marina Thompson, the effects are devastating.
The seemingly all-knowing Whistledown pretends to have an egalitarian approach to gossip, embroiling rich, poor, old, young, men, and women in scandal after scandal. But the problem is that the Bridgertons have enough power and privilege to withstand multiple scandals while people like Marina Thompson do not. Marina, believing her life is over when her pregnancy is exposed, attempts to brew a tea that will end her pregnancy. If the tea had worked, there’s just as much of a chance it would have ended her life as well. But that was the level of desperation brought on Marina by Lady Whistledown, who had to have known how her words would impact Marina. And she’s not the only one held on a tether by the mysterious scandal paper writer.
Other characters are similarly terrified of Whistledown’s ire – Madame Delacroix, Siena Russo, and Henry Granville all live in absolute terror that their secrets will be exposed and their lives will be ruined. In the case of Siena, so too is Anthony Bridgerton similarly tormented: he wishes to marry Siena for love, but his status forbids it and the potential scandal ends their relationship. All of these three characters represent something progressive within Bridgerton: the Modiste owner and Siena are both unmarried women of supposedly “lower class” who have worked hard to support themselves with their respective skills and Granville is a gay man with an established career as an artist after he broke away from the rigid expectations of his family and society. But Siena, Delacroix, and Henry also have secrets and none of these three characters has the money or status to survive being targeted by Lady Whistledown. The threat of being exposed by Whistledown contributes to the oppression of Bridgerton’s characters because they don’t want to draw attention to themselves. Each are members of the rising subculture, which Anthony and Benedict Bridgerton are also aspiring members of (and Eloise would fit, though she doesn’t quite know it yet), but that is kept in its place as “unacceptable” by Whistledown’s policing.
In a society where everyone’s lives are impacted by the way they’re perceived, Lady Whistledown has to know that she’s altering that perception in ways that will do real harm to the most vulnerable people. Nearly every character in Bridgerton is constantly frustrated by the constraints of society and wishes that people would mind their own business. But Bridgerton somewhat hypocritically paints Lady Whistledown as a vigilante, exposing everyone for what they truly are and supposedly leveling the playing field when the opposite is true. In reality, Lady Whistledown perpetuates the very patriarchal values that Bridgerton tries to break down and is the true villain of Bridgerton.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/bridgerton-lady-whistledown-villain-secret-society/