Bridgerton's Simone Ashley faces Hollywood erasure despite acting with Brad Pitt
Lead of Netflix's hit series Bridgerton, romantic lead of Picture This, and certified fan of the Formula One Grand Prix, Simone Ashley faces 'Hollywood erasure' after significant cut to role in F1
Arguably one of Netflix's biggest stars, Bridgerton actress Simone Ashley appears to be facing 'Hollywood erasure' as her newest role is reduced, despite being cast alongside Hollywood legend Brad Pitt.
Apple Original Films' most recent venture, F1: The Movie, cast Bridgerton lead Simone Ashley, exciting fans of both the Netflix hit series and Formula one - since the actress is known to be a genuine fan of the sport. However, despite being spotted filming between several Grand Prix tracks, it's suggested that Ashley's role was cut to last only a few seconds.
Fans who attended an advance screening of the film described Ashley's role to be a "brief cameo" rather than the significant representation we had hoped for, amongst a dominated cast of white leads.
Ashley's reduction says it all about Hollywood attitudes to brown women and the lack of space for them as returning leads on our screens. A disappointment to fans worldwide, the marketing gaslighting of a community of women who have repeatedly been shunned from media representation has failed to land this time around, considering Simone's success in an age that still refuses to cast deep-tanned brown women as romantic protagonists.
We can see this across every genre of Hollywood and TV - the Indian comedic-relief (Raj in The Big Bang Theory, Anwar in Skins, Karen in the 2024 Mean Girls adaptation) has been the only space for South Asians for decades... until we began to create our own. Simone Ashley is said to now be producing her own work to stay in work, working as both the romantic lead and executive producer in Amazon Prime's Picture This.
But why must we create our own 'third space' in the first place? Audiences crave to see themselves on screen, so why are we recycling the same white, male leads that have clung to the cinematic stage for decades?
Multi-million budget films clearly rely on diverse leads to create the necessary PR frenzy now needed for a project's success, only to edit out the person's effect in the final cut.
This master plan that profits off a display of diversity in public, and slashes representation in practice, is a regressive eye-opener for many fans, and extremely harmful to the South Asian community that celebrates Simone's success and have suffered decades without true representation.
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