Like many people, Savannah Parker likes relaxing with a good historical drama. But something has been bothering her about certain dramatizations in these shows; people of color are heavily misrepresented.
Parker is an undergrad at the University of Pittsburgh and is currently double majoring in Political Science and Law, Criminal Justice, and Society, but decided to take Professor Chloé Hogg’s course “Kings and Queens.” The course falls under the Medieval Renaissance Program in the Dietrich School, but is open to all undergraduate students looking to fulfill their general education requirements. In the course, Hogg had the class watch episodes of shows like Versailles, Reign, as well as the 2006 film, Marie Antoinette. Parker says she became critical of the shows in how they portrayed race and asked Hogg if she could work on research related to her criticisms of these shows.
Parker’s research takes a look at the shows Versailles, Bridgerton, and Isabel. Each production is set in a different century and country, which allows for a wide analysis of the racial representation or lack thereof. She has three modes of erasure that she looks at: Racial Fantasy, Spectacle and Personalization, and Nationalist Melodrama.
“Versailles erases colonial violence through spectacle and personalization. When we watch Versailles, all we see is the glamour and the opulence of Louis' court. And then in Bridgerton, for example, they have erasure through the concept of racial fantasy. So, there's this world in which black people can marry white people, or black people can be a part of the royalty or the aristocracy, amongst other people of other races. And then in Isabel, I have erasure through nationalistic melodrama; Queen Isabel of Castile isn’t to blame for the religious persecution. And she didn't hire Christopher Columbus; that was somebody else, she didn't do that. [They make it seem like] she's a really cool figure and they should canonize her, and it kind of puts her on this pedestal.” Says Parker.
She was able to present this research at the European and Eurasian Undergraduate Research Symposium this past spring. She was also awarded the Antoni Kosinski and Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski Endowed Research Fund in French Studies, where she primarily focused on the show Versailles, and is also working on creating a video essay series where she watches the show and points out the disparities as they happen.
Parker is also a part of the Frederick Honors College, and through them, she was able to apply for the Brackenridge Fellowship, which is what her research is currently focused on. Her project for the fellowship is a historical drama that she has created herself called Queens of Ayiti. The limited series is only eight episodes long and focuses on Haiti’s first and only Queen, Marie-Louise Christophe. She has the pilot and the season finale written and is currently enrolled in a French Film seminar and will be taking a screenwriting course next semester to work on her skills and finish the show.
Parker says she hopes to be able to submit the show to competitions with the potential to pitch it to a production company.