“Life was so simple back then.” Almost a quarter of the United States population was enslaved.

“But, those were simpler times.” Women weren’t allowed to possess their own homes.

“Everything was so pretty!” Only for the elite.

Common statements like these severely understate the true nature of the past. From “Bridgerton” to “Downton Abbey,” there’s been a rising tendency to simplify history. 

This idealization needs to stop if we want to make any progress as a society. 

Everything is not what it seems. As we move on from historical events, narratives are rewritten, names are forgotten and the harsh realities of most people’s experiences aren’t taught to newer generations. While we are starting to have the long-overdue conversations about accurately teaching history, we continue to consume media that doesn’t reflect it.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good historical drama, but I also know that many of the ones that have dominated popular culture are far from historically accurate. 

Take “Bridgerton,” for example. When it first came out in 2020, everyone was praising it for its colorblind casting, a sentiment that I shared. However, when “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story” came out in 2023, the central storyline in this prequel involved the integrated ton after Queen Charlotte, who had moor blood, married King George III, giving a reason for the racially diverse cast in the main show. 

At this time in history, however, slavery wasn’t abolished in the United Kingdom, and the Age of Imperialism was in full swing. Across the pond, roughly four million people in the U.S. were also held in bondage under chattel slavery.

By making race a part of the story, the writers took the power away from seeing people of color in positions of authority.

Shows like “Bridgerton” and “Queen Charlotte” also have a tendency to portray their female characters as strong, outspoken and feministic. Now, this is not to say that such women did not exist at the time — they absolutely did — but it wasn’t as widespread and acceptable for them to be so militant as period dramas in the 21st century like to portray.

Moreover, I have a particular bone to pick with the lack of portrayal of lower-and middle-class familial life. The characters that “Bridgerton” showcases are not those of the majority demographic; nearly everyone worked back then, and it wasn’t easy work. With long hours, low wages and a lack of sanitation, life was hard for the majority, and such people aren’t pictured in these shows.

Look, I get it — no one wants to watch a show about cramped tenement housing and the horrors of slavery. It’s fun to pretend! 

But it’s also incredibly dangerous. When we start forgetting history, we stop recognizing the ways in which its legacy still permeates throughout society today. 

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Section 4 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. In her dissent, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said: “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

This is what happens when we forget. 

The Civil Rights Movement didn’t magically change everything. Allowing women to own their own homes and credit cards didn’t fix misogyny — especially when the Equal Rights Amendment failed to pass in the 1970s. People of color are still consistently marginalized, and with the rise in ICE’s presence and anti-immigration rhetoric, racism is becoming more prevalent every day.

We are a lot closer to the past than we realize. We can’t just stop fighting for equality because things are better than they used to be; just because things are better does not mean they are equal. 

When we start painting over history we see our current lives as black and white, a static snapshot that has yet to be colored by the advancements of today. However, nor can we depict our current reality in too rosy a hue, for that is when we lose sight of the bigger picture: History’s legacy still permeates throughout society today.

When historical dramas cushion the realities of the time periods in which they’re set, we fail to recognize the progress that’s been made — this is how we regress. The fluffed-up storylines in these shows give the false notion that things have always been safe for marginalized people. They haven’t, and they still aren’t.

While we have made great strides over the past century, our society still has room for growth to improve the lives of all people, and this can only happen if we recognize where we have come from. It’s okay to wish things were different in the past, but we can’t do that at the expense of current progress. The worst thing we can do is plateau.

We study history to learn from it, and we must focus on how these previous ideas and systems still linger in our present instead of placing present ideas inside of history. It’s time to stop romanticizing the past and start looking toward the future.

Bethany Mann is a history freshman and opinion writer for The Battalion.