Bridgerton Season 3 Part 2 left us with great moments but, above all, it delved into Penelope’s emotional wounds as a plus-size woman with a non-supportive family and the consequences those wounds have on her daily life, showing one of the most accurate representations ever. It’s time to analyze why. Ready?
Here we go!
The Meaning of Having an Unsupportive Family
In our first editorial, we talked about the terrible message that plus-size women grew up with, now we are going to address the consequences of having a non-supportive family that doesn’t contradict that message but rather encourages it.
Having a non-supportive family means knowing rejection from a very early age. That rejection is usually wrapped in stinging and scathing comments about your looks and appearance. In the end, these comments demean you to such a point that they make you feel like you are worthless. Sometimes, these are hints that you learn to ignore or handle with humor. Other times, the hints become insults.
I barely have memories of my childhood, only flashes that come to my mind sometimes, but I remember perfectly the times when my closest family called me a fat cow and fatso as an insult. Beyond the pain of the moment, these humiliating insults, this flagrant rejection, leave us with an emotional wound that never fully heals.
After years of being rejected, your self-esteem ends up in the basement and you are a pit full of insecurities because since you can remember, you have been taught that no one can love you as you are, that you are not worthy of love. And you don’t question it. You even think that you deserve it. That’s the only truth you know because if your family, who is supposed to love you unconditionally, rejects you, what can you expect from others?
The Difficulty of Hitting Back in Bridgerton Season 3 Part 2
Penelope Featherington is a true reflection of this. She always has been but, until now, we had only scratched the surface of her trauma. Bridgerton season 3 Part 2 deals with it fully, without hiding the ugly parts. We see how, at the beginning of this batch of episodes, Portia continues to belittle Penelope, angry with her because she rejected a match like Lord Debling for something with no future with Colin Bridgerton.
Portia is sending the message to Penelope that she should have settled for an empty life with a man she doesn’t love because there is no way in the world someone like Colin would really notice her, especially when he’s the most desired man of the season and can have any woman he wants.
Portia is brutally putting Penelope down in this scene, letting her know that she is not pretty or desirable enough to make a man like Colin lose his head over her. She is telling Penelope that she is worthless. As tough as it sounds.
Penelope takes the blow because she has been used to receiving them for years. Her mother’s rejection, contempt, and humiliation don’t come as a surprise to her. But she is no longer the same as before, now she is more confident, and she dares to challenge her mother, to tell her that she is the problem when Penelope gets two of the most eligible bachelors as suitors, without Portia’s help, unlike her sisters.
This is important. Normally, our first instinct is always to accept the blow and move on as if nothing had happened. We don’t know how to hit back, we don’t know how to show that we’ve had enough, and we aren’t even aware that we can and deserve to do it.
Through this scene, Bridgerton Season 3 Part 2 sends us the message that we not can we, but we must defend ourselves from attacks, even if they are from our own family. We don’t have to stay silent and lower our heads. We don’t deserve that treatment no matter where it comes from and we have to assert our value because if we don’t do it, no one will. And, when you have been led to believe that you lack that value, this sends a message with tremendous meaning.
The Shame and Fear of Humiliation Due to Being Plus-Size
However, Penelope’s newly built confidence can’t stand up to Portia’s venom. She knows what sensitive points to touch so that Penelope’s challenge remains a mere anecdote. As we have mentioned before, Penelope has only known rejection. The only thing she has been taught is that she is not worthy of love.
So when Portia questions Colin’s failure to tell Penelope that he loves her and once again patronizes her, as if she were a little girl too innocent to understand how the world works, Penelope can’t stop her insecurities from coming back with all their strength.
Of course, at this point, Colin hasn’t told Penelope that he loves her with the hackneyed “I love you” but he has told her through other, much deeper words and gestures. However, when the only thing you have known in your entire life has been rejection and you have been burned with the message that no one will be able to love you, as in Penelope’s case, it’s very difficult to break that cycle.
Case in point, Penelope herself tells Eloise that what Colin feels for her was a surprise because Penelope never expected, never thought, that Colin would reciprocate her feelings, much less that he would fall in love with her. And, later, Penelope talks to Genevieve about how, even though she’s going to marry Colin, she doesn’t think she’s worthy of him. Rejection does this to you.
Luckily, Colin arrives at just the right moment to make some points clear to Portia. Not only does he declare his love for Penelope, but he makes it clear how much he values her. And, while Colin’s attitude is amazing, we want to focus on Penelope. Her first reaction is to feel ashamed that Colin has witnessed everything. And If find this incredibly accurate.
It reminded me of all the times I felt ashamed of anyone hearing the way my family treated me, all the times I was afraid someone would find out. We, the victims of this abuse, are afraid and feel shame, when it should be the aggressors who feel it.
Colin’s words and defense in Bridgerton Season 3 Part 2 show precisely this, that those of us who suffer something like this have nothing to be ashamed of, it’s our aggressors who should do it, because we don’t deserve to be treated like this, no matter how much they have made us think otherwise. A great message, indeed.
Loving Yourself Despite Everything
Penelope can hardly believe that Colin defended her. She can’t believe the way he had her back and stood for her. During all those years she was alone, she felt alone. No one ever raised their voice for her, not even herself. But here’s Colin, defending her like no one ever did. Like Penelope would never have expected. And that means so much to her… she is starting to feel that she is no longer alone, that she finally has someone next to her who understands her and that she can lean on.
But Penelope still can’t quite believe it. There are too many years of feeling that no one could love her, that love wasn’t for her. That’s why the way Colin lets her know that he’s going to defend her tooth and nail and that he’s never going to let anyone hurt her again is so important. Because Colin loves her, he loves her so much that it hurts. And Colin wants Penelope to feel it. Let Penelope feel how special she is to him, how much he loves her but, above all, why.
Penelope always heard the reasons why no one could love her, and now Colin is making her listen and internalize the reasons why anyone who meets her couldn’t do anything but love her. At the same time that he’s talking, Colin makes Penelope look in the mirror, facing herself, her fears, her insecurities, and seeing herself for the first time as he sees her.
The Hope of Healing in Bridgerton Season 3 Part 2
We’ll analyze more deeply the meaning of this scene in front of the mirror in a separate editorial but the important thing here is that, through his words and his caresses, Colin makes all the bad memories of the mockery, the insults, the humiliations, and rejection, be replaced by his hands, by his love. Colin not only makes Penelope feel loved and seen but also worthy of that love.
The camera shots in this scene also contribute to this by not hiding in any way the wonderful curves of Nicola Coughlan‘s body. Bridgerton Season 3 Part 2 shows Nicola as she is because she is beautiful.
This, just this image in a show that millions of people in the world watch not only represents us but normalizes our bodies, and screams to all and sundry that we are also attractive and sensual, although all our lives everyone has strived to make us feel otherwise.
You can’t imagine how vital it is for plus-size women to see a woman like us in a steamy romance completely naked and not only physically, but emotionally.
Bridgerton Season 3 Part 2 makes us participate in Penelope’s emotional wounds and how they influence her daily life, in all her relationships, from Eloise to Colin, in addition, we also see how those wounds begin to heal when Penelope is aware for the first time of her own beauty, power and value. When Penelope is aware for the first time that she deserves to be loved because she, just as she is, is beautiful.
It’s thanks to that knowledge and self-confidence that she can stand in front of the whole Ton and accept who she is and, in private, she is also able to take control during sex with her husband because Penelope knows, without a doubt, that Colin loves her just the way she is.
In Bridgerton season 3, Penelope not only manages to have the confidence necessary to value and accept herself but also begins to forgive her mother for the way she treated her, once Portia can recognize her own mistakes and show Penelope her regret for them. And, if Penelope can discover her own worth despite having such deep wounds, that means we can too.
Seeing ourselves represented in such a wonderful and accurate way in a show like Bridgerton, which is seen by millions of people, makes the wounds of our inner child that only knew rejection, even from those who were supposed to love her, begin to heal.
Once again, Bridgerton season 3 is for the wallflowers. Period.
Bridgerton season 3 Part 2 is available to stream on Netflix.
What do you think about how Bridgerton Season 3 Part 2 portrays the emotional wounds of plus-size women? Share with us in the comments below!
CATCH UP ON ALL OUR SEASON THREE COVERAGE
REVIEWS
- EPISODE 1 REVIEW
- EPISODE 2 REVIEW
- EPISODE 3 REVIEW
- EPISODE 4 REVIEW
- EPISODE 5 REVIEW
- EPISODE 6 REVIEW
- EPISODE 7 REVIEW
- EPISODE 8 REVIEW
EDITORIALS
- PLUS-SIZE WOMAN PORTRAYAL
- MIRROR SCENE
- PENELOISE CONFLICT
- PLUS-SIZE WOMEN WOUNDS
- CRESSIDA
- QUEEN CHARLOTTE & BRIMSELY
- FRANCESCA REINTRODUCTION
- LORD DEBLING OR COLIN BRIDGERTON?
- LORD DEBLING
- BENOPHIE SEASON 4
INTERVIEWS
