Bridgerton: Audio Description, Unabridged and Uncensored
Bridgerton, the Regency-era Netflix drama that first captured audiences in December 2020, recently returned for a second season. Known for its diverse cast, elaborate costumes, and steamy scenes, Bridgerton has quickly established itself as as one of the most-watched and most-anticipated shows on television, with Seasons 2’s release breaking records for viewership and claiming the title of Netflix’s most-watched English language TV title (Variety). However, when a vast majority of what makes this show unique is conveyed visually, without quality audio description, blind and low vision audiences are left out of this cultural conversation.
As with all recent original content on Netflix, Bridgerton was professionally audio described upon its initial release. The descriptions delivered a handful of visual details about the cast and their beautiful Regency outfits, giving blind and low vision audiences a brief taste for the high-class, over-the-top fashion and set design. However, there were still some major omissions in the in-line descriptions: the races of the characters were never mentioned.
Especially as Bridgerton is one of very few period pieces that showcases Black royalty and acknowledges the complicated social and racial dynamics that accompany this (New York Times), these initial descriptions could only scratch the surface of the volumes of key visual details available to sighted viewers. While supplementary materials could fill in some gaps, the importance of including these critical details in the script itself was clear. Acknowledging the feedback from the blind and low vision community, International Digital Centre (IDC) reworked their audio descriptions for Bridgerton Season 1 from scratch.
Race was not the only aspect of the show that received more attention in the description revisions. Blind and sighted audiences alike clamored for more detailed descriptions of sex scenes, as intense audio descriptions improved the experience for all viewers. Sighted fans described listening to the audio description as being “like reading a romance novel and watching it at the same time” (Wall Street Journal), while blind fans advocated for additional detail that would take the descriptions from “PG-rated” to a rating that matched the on-screen action.
The updates were well-received by all, signifying a departure from the frustrating and infantilizing description censorship that usually accompanies explicit scenes. Parity in viewing experiences cannot be achieved without including enough details that allow blind and low vision audiences to be just as excited about a sex scene as sighted audiences. As Liz Gutman, head audio description scriptwriter at IDC, puts it: #DescribeAllTheButts!
The renewed audio description for Bridgerton has been celebrated for its creativity, care, and cheekiness, drawing viewers in with the intriguing description style while illuminating easy-to-miss visual accents. The script writing, narrating, and mixing are all impeccable, speaking to the ever-increasing standards of audio description quality. Credit and kudos to Eric Wickstrom (@IDC_Eric), Liz Gutman (@Liz_IDC), and Stuart Williams (@stuartdw919) for their incredible work creating, and then recreating, an immersive experience for all. Thank you as well to Robbie Whelan (@RWhelanWSJ) for writing about the audio description process!
Bridgerton’s audio description may well be the diamond of the season — and we hope that it is setting a precedent for future uncensored and unabridged descriptions down the road. Maybe one day, this will be known as the “unaBridgerton” effect!
