Bridgerton has lost the plot: Why most of 21st century media is missing genuine yearning
I recently watched Wuthering Heights and the new season of Bridgerton within the same week, and I have not been able to stop thinking about how terrible modern media sometimes portrays yearning.
This is an issue I think has recently become more noticeable to the real yearners who appreciate the pain and suffering that can come with love.
The Art of Yearning
There's no doubt that one of the best parts of any romance novel, movie, or book is yearning. The complete utter desire to want someone, no matter what anyone says.
Every writer creates this intense feeling between characters differently. Some break soulmates apart for years, leaving the characters feeling heartbroken and desperately missing their lover. Others forbid the love interests from being together. Someone or something stands in the way of their love, which in turn only makes them want each other more.
Creating yearning is an art. A feeling that writers can only genuinely master when a relationship in any story isn’t rushed. A slow burn that allows the author to be able to patiently bring the two characters together, and in turn, these two characters want each other more the longer they stay away.
Comparing Yearning in Current Media: Wuthering Heights vs Bridgerton Season 4
When you compare the two, Wuthering Heights, in my opinion, does a better job at creating a deep sense of yearning than Bridgerton has since Season 2—Anthony and Kate’s season.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the show. I will admit I haven’t read any of the books, but I’ve watched every episode of every season, including the most recent.
And honestly, the last two seasons haven’t made me feel the deep want that I felt in the short two hours and thirty minutes of Wuthering Heights.
This movie did everything right in regards to pace and yearning for me. Their love was built up slowly because of the distance. Leaving me and Catherine missing Heathcliff on multiple occasions.
In this iteration of Wuthering Heights, the two main characters, Healthcliff and Catherine, start as childhood friends when Catherine’s father randomly brings Heathcliff home one day and calls him her brother. Time goes on and the two grow to fall in love, but they refuse to admit their feelings for each other. This annoyingly ends with Healthcliff overhearing Catherine halfly admitting to not wanting to be with Heathcliff because of his lack of money. Heathcliff, of course, runs away before he can hear Catherine admit her feelings for him which leaves Catherine longing for his love until.. she isn’t.
Time passes, and of course Catherine still cares about Heathcliff, but she’s lonely, and really needs to marry up in class, so when a new, wealthy neighbor, Edgar, moves in nearby she immediately looks to impress him. And since Margot Robbie is a goddess, it of course works and the two marry, and coincidentally, a little after a rich Heathcliff returns home.
That’s where it gets juicy. And sexual. Because Catherine begins to slyly cheat on her husband with Heathcliff, but she finds herself pregnant with Edgar's baby, and she decides to not tell Heathcliff and ultimately ignores reality just to have obvious sex with her “bestfriend”.
While the movie and TV show are equally as hypersexual in a lot of ways, both are pretty graphic and show a good amount of things on screen, Wuthering Heights was able to build up the relationship on screen really well thanks to the desire the distance a part created between the two characters.
I spent the majority of the beginning of the movie missing Heathcliff alongside Catherine and then feeling relieved once her and Edgar fell in love. Viewers didn’t even get a good looking Jacob Elordi in the film until after Catherine grew an entire relationship with Edgar.
Whereas in Season 4 of Bridgerton, Sophie and Benedict ruined their romance in just 63 minutes. And I know, that sounds dramatic, but let me elaborate.
In episode one, Benedict ends up saving a desperate, masked Sophie from a suitor and the two end up dancing together. Sparks fly, and after, they escape to a gazebo outside the ball. Sophie and Benedict have a few cute moments (I will admit), but they end up kissing before Sophie has to run off.
And sure, you could say that after the couple kissed, Benedict yearned and searched for Sophie, but did the producers actually leave the audience wondering if they’d end up together if the two couldn’t stop themselves from kissing in episode one?
Do any of the other storylines in Bridgerton start with the main characters kissing someone unforbiddingly and ending up with that character in the end? The answer is no.
And yes, I know Shonda Rhimes was just following the books, so I ultimately can’t blame anyone for these plot holes in the show. Minus the author Julia Pottinger, I might be able to blame her.
Because, unfortunately, I knew from that kiss in episode one that they would be together, no matter how hard the producers tried to convince me it wouldn’t work out.
And I hate that. I wanted the characters to long for one another. I wanted Benedict to lose his mind over the masked lady he met at his family's ball that he didn’t get to kiss.
I wanted him to sketch her from that night and wonder what it would be like to have her. I didn’t want him to have her by the end of the first episode.
And I know, it took much longer for the relationship to come together after that, but it doesn’t change how quickly Bridgerton has lost the plot.
What happened to not being able to be alone with a man? In Daphne and the Duke’s season, the two couldn’t even stand near each other and secretly talk because that felt wrong.
And as dramatic as it sounds, I think that’s what made the culmination of their relationship hit even more.
The art of yearning doesn’t always have to end in a happy ending as “Wuthering Heights” didn’t. But it should always make the viewer yearn for the relationship as much as the main characters.
And I think the majority of 21st-century media struggle to grasp the art of yearning and the desperate need for genuine suffering because of the oversexualization that the media (and some viewers) crave.
The Impact of Sex on Yearning
We currently live in a culture where sex sells now more than ever.
Think about the last five things you watched. What are the chances you turn on a TV show or movie and it at least has one sex or nudity scene? What about the most recent book you read?
I came across a quote in a relevant Substack article from Elisabeth Stone that describes it best.
”Our laws will tell you what our culture regulates, economics tells us what our culture trades, and romance will tell us what we worship.”
While some producers, writers, and production companies are taking advantage of this cultural phenomenon and becoming more and more comfortable with showing literal soft porn to viewers, they are losing the substance that real yearning and actual love can bring to the big screen.
And the viewers who look forward to this raunchy style of media seem to be searching for sex more and actual substance less.
It makes me wonder, is that the point? Who is actually pushing this hypersexual message on us? And why?
Because I can’t be the only one who recognizes that, within the last decade, we have gone from alluding to sex in rom coms to showing full nudity and watching 5-10 minute sex scenes in each hour-long episode of every new show.
And truthfully, it's not the sex that bothers me. I swear. It’s the way it can kill a good storyline that I resent, how the public positively responds to this type of media, and the way I can’t watch anything anymore without yearning being put on the back burner while the sex is rampant.
A good story and some yearning feel like it’s getting harder to get right nowadays. In media and real life. And I partially think that's because of the content and media we consume.
Once that initial want passes and a couple has sex, as a viewer or reader, unless the story is built up well enough, the excitement disappears. And at least for me, the “we aren’t supposed to be together, but we’re going to secretly be together and then break up four times” gets old. Really fast. And it just isn’t enough to make me yearn for a couple to be together.
The real desire is what draws me in. A good story keeps me engaged, and an impactful ending leaves me yearning for more of the relationship after the story ends. Drooling for just another second of dialogue or to be immersed in whatever world the characters find themselves in.
Nowadays, the media seems to shy away from the magic and pure escapism it used to cherish and create for the true yearners. Where the undeniable want between fictional characters felt more meaningful than graphic sex, and amazing storytelling was woven in between intimate moments and pure love.
But now, as the general public blacklists sex workers, but celebrates watching soft porn in the movie theater, yearning is becoming less and less important in a narrative solely because intimacy is viewed as the best part.
The Solution: There Isn’t One
While viewers can’t necessarily stop what’s being made, we can control what we consume. And even though there is no stopping hypersexualization in the media, you can at least avoid the TV shows or movies with only sex and zero substance.
Luckily, there are still plenty of good stories people have told tastefully that include sex, but also make you interested in the characters outside of the intimate moments.
A few of my favorites include:
Challengers (2024)
The book series Crescent City (2020, 2022, 2024)
Materialists (2025)
Anyone But You (2023)
The TV show Awkward (2011-2016)
Sex is a natural thing. It shouldn’t be something we’re ashamed to include in art. It can just get weird when that’s all anything is ever about.
And when it interferes with the art of yearning and passion that drives love in fiction is where I draw a line.
Thanks for reading!
Let me know your perfect mix of sex and yearning recommendations down below! Tell me how you felt about Wuthering Heights or season 4 of Bridgerton, or if you love/hate/disagree with anything I claimed in this article.
This is all my opinion, and I’d love to hear yours!
See you next month!
XOXO
