Teas, symphonies and the culture industry: unpacking Bridgerton's musical legacy

Abstract

This paper re-examines Theodor W Adorno's critique of the culture industry through a close analysis of the musical and aesthetic logic of Bridgerton (2020- ). Drawing on Adorno's essays ‘The radio symphony’ (1941) and ‘On the fetish character in music and the regression of listening’ (1938), it traces how the series reproduces the same mechanisms of standardisation and pseudo-individualisation that characterised radio music in Adorno's time. In Bridgerton, orchestral adaptations of popular songs aestheticise repetition, offering the illusion of refinement while diminishing the listener's capacity for critical engagement. Classical music becomes a decorative and affective device, subordinated to narrative function rather than autonomous contemplation. The paper argues that Bridgerton exemplifies the persistence of the culture industry's logic: the transformation of art into administered pleasure. By translating Adorno's mid-20th-century concerns into a contemporary televisual context, the analysis reveals how the commodification of listening continues to erode the emancipatory potential of musical experience.