"It also depicts Charles bitterly arguing with Diana as their divorce looms, and romancing Camilla, now Queen Consort, including a dramatisation of the notorious ‘tampongate’ phone call. A production source said that media outrage over inaccuracies – and the lack of sensitivity in airing the series so close to the death of the Queen – is ‘spooking’ the broadcaster..... An entire plotline is, to this end, devoted to suggesting that [Prince Philip] pursued a scandalous extra-marital affair with Penelope Knatchbull, the Countess Mountbatten of Burma... Needless to say, there’s no credible evidence that such an exchange took place, or that Philip was anything other than a devoted husband to Her Majesty. Suggesting otherwise, so soon after both of their deaths, is at best distasteful and at worst downright cruel. Then there are episodes which appear to lend credibility to the barmy conspiracy theory that Princess Diana was murdered.... [Peter Morgan, the show's creator, has said] that Queen Elizabeth II was ‘of limited intelligence'... [and] the Royal Family ‘survival organisms, like a mutating virus,’ [and] the Queen’s belief in Christianity was ‘deranged’ and the monarchy itself is ‘insane.’"
Judging from that article and the comments over there, I'd say people in Britain are disgusted by the prospect of a new season of "The Crown." Here in America, though, we love it. We understand fictionalization, and too bad if the people depicted are still alive. If they're rich enough, powerful enough, or evil enough, we're fine with using them in whatever interesting stories filmmakers want to spin out.
We've seen movies about Dick Cheney and Mark Zuckerberg, for example. We watch these things and maybe discuss the truth/fiction ratio on the side if that's also entertaining. And quite aside from the art of film, the news itself is also something with a variable truth/fiction ratio. We've oriented ourselves to that mystery of human communication.
Freedom of speech breathes a murky atmosphere.
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45 comments:
On with the show.
A series based on real life doesn't need to feel fawning, but it must feel true. This one feels like sensationalized, exploitative crap storytelling. And, we're still in "don't speak ill of the dead" territory, so add tacky to this show's list of faults.
I'm surprised you've decided to angle this as a free speech issue. Sometimes a cigar ...
What do you mean "we," White Man?
"[T]he Queen is not very numerate. I think she's a fairly intelligent woman — I'd put her IQ in the 100-110 range — but she doesn't think numerically."
- Derbyshire
De mortuis nil sed bonum. About the dead the less said the better.
Just tickled to see “barmy” in print.
Someone should tell them to keep calm and carry on.
I disagree that “we understand fictionalization”. We don’t. If a storyline appears on The Crown, 90% of Americans will believe it is true.
Do you seriously believe Americans have some superior sense of suspension of belief?
CHARLES: Oh, God. I’ll just live inside your trousers or something. It would be much easier!
CAMILLA: (laughing) What are you going to turn into, a pair of knickers? (Both laugh). Oh, you’re going to come back as a pair of knickers.
CHARLES: Or, God forbid, a Tampax. Just my luck! (Laughs)
CAMILLA: You are a complete idiot! (Laughs) Oh, what a wonderful idea.
Good for Netflix. Now do one on Barack. Oh wait...
Who cares about the queen. I'm finding it very hard to figure out when we get to see season 4 of Babylon Berlin in the states. Nothing fires up my inner Kraut like that show.
The girls in the he family love watching those craven inbred mildly cleft palate toothy vultures. Without Claire Foy, forget about it.
Oliver Stone-itude doesn't go over well with me, because it is lies about recent history.
But, Shakespeare would also have to be convicted. The whole Wars of the Roses set of "history" plays is rank propaganda.
"Penelope Knatchbull, the Countess Mountbatten of Burma"
Well that's not going to help me disprove the idea that we are living in a simulation.
I’m cool with freedom of speech, but slander has always been a limit to it. In this case, I’m not seeing forced censorship rather than opposition in the form of disgust to what is perceived as slander. As Kate notes above, this feels like exploitative crap. Netflix is reasonable to consider whether this will attract audiences or lose them. Many of us have lived through this portion of the Royal Family lives, and the storyline seems like bullshit. Why would it be interesting to listen to bullshit? I get enough of it from the MSM daily and it is not interesting either.
Actually, I have not see the shows about Mark Zucherberg, or Dick Cheney, or this Crown or whatever, and I have no intention of doing so. Hoping the new Dungeons and Dragons movie becomes a hit and spawns dozens of good movies similar to Harry Potter or LotR or even Marvel. And I suspect millions agree with me, looking at the relative sales on the shows.
""King Charles... is shown lobbying Prime Minister John Major in a bizarre attempt to force his mother’s abdication.""
Did this actually happen? Is this production openly fictional?
The problem with this is the same as the news media pretending to be objective if they are pretending to be historically accurate in any way.
I'm reading a joint biography of William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli, both of whom became Prime Minister in Blighty in the 1800s, beginning let us say in the 1850s (when Disraeli was leader in the House of Commons for his party, and Gladstone became Chancellor of the Exchequer or "Minister of Finance" for his). Very much Victorian Britain.
Disraeli perhaps the more remarkable story overall, a Jew who converted to Christianity as a teenager, never got an Oxbridge education, only gradually gave up looking and living like a literary dandy and libertine, yet the leader not only of a party but of the diehard Tories--the old-fashioned landed people who often expressed bigotry against him. I think he thoroughly enjoyed the sense that all his success was owing to his skill and wits.
Gladstone relates more to this post about whether scandals are reported or invented or not. He was a pious Anglican, as "Roman" as he could get away with, yet staunchly opposed to becoming Roman Catholic as many of his friends did. He believed in daily witnessing for his faith, and as part of an "evangelical" group he met with, he vowed to proselytize among the prostitutes of London. He eventually admitted that he had very poor success at persuading these ladies to go to church. Was Gladstone up to some hanky-panky with them? When his grown son asked him, responding to rumors, Gladstone said he never violated the sanctity of marriage. Taken literally, this probably means not going all the way, but Louis C.K. type activity? Sometimes after an evening out he would put a sign for a whip in his diary; he apparently performed self-flagellation to expiate sin. Everyone who knew him or worked with him knew something about this, but it was largely covered up until many decades after his death.
Here in America, though, we love it. We understand fictionalization, and too bad if the people depicted are still alive. If they're rich enough, powerful enough, or evil enough, we're fine with using them in whatever interesting stories filmmakers want to spin out.
Not me. I despise so-called fictionalization of real people because the extreme Left dominates our arts and tend to turn things like Oliver Stone’s “JFK” into quasi-historical facts. And play out their assassination fantasies about George W Bush, or cast that disgusting fraud Stacey Abrams as queen of the Galaxy in their Sci-fi wishcasting. It’s bad enough when the Emperor with No Clothes picks a ditz that mirrors fake Veep. This “reimagining” of private moments between the late, very recently late, and Beloved Queen is sick and just another way Leftists try and shape public opinion.
My firm belief is that “reality TV” is a growing share of all programming from every source mainly because our culture is tired of the liberties writers and producers take now with established and beloved characters. Who falls in love with current Star Wars franchise characters? Every fictional hero America produced has been destroyed by The Woke with “updates” and the greatest source of wholesome content in America, Disney, is no 100% focused on propaganda to push transgenderism and racism and is in process of repaying fifty years of loyal fans by encouraging teachers to secretly molest their children and turn them against their parents.
Like mentioned already the worst aspect of fictionalization of real people is that phrase perfectly describes “news” in the Trump era, which we are currently living through still. Ninety percent of “news” reported about Trump was fictional including everything the FBI said, says and will say about him. Too many reporters believe their own bullshit. The public appears 90% over it and more than willing to give reality a try.
I thought The Crown was stupendous moviemaking. I quit watching when Diana came on the scene. I won’t watch the new season. This is cruel.
The English have their sense of protectiveness about the Queen and the American left has its protectiveness about their royalty, including the Clintons, the Obamas, St. George Floyd, George Soros, etc. the prospect of a TV series with the slanderous portrayal akin to the Queen about the American royalty is slim and none, and Slim has left the house. Besides, those responsible would hang themselves, die in a head-on collision with a semi-truck that flees the scene or a street robbery that takes nothing from the victim.
And quite aside from the art of film, the news itself is also something with a variable truth/fiction ratio.
It would be unfortunate if we allow the decline of journalistic standards to increase our tolerance for dishonesty more broadly. Yes, Shakespeare wrote propaganda, but it was about events from centuries earlier, and there was no pretense that it was factual. And "free speech" doesn't justify slander.
Oops. “Disney, is no 100% focused on propaganda” should read “Disney, is now 100% focused on propaganda” and I regret the error.
I watched the first season of The Crown and no other, because it was already clear by then that the whole Diana era was going to be a bleep show. I didn't idolize that poor young woman, not the Queen herself, but I don't want to see either of them dragged again through the muck that the tabloids mixed up back then.
And I agree with all those here who have said that Americans are very likely to believe whatever they're told by a good producer. Hence the professional production values (so I've heard) for the Jan. 6 hearings - they were an effort to ensure that those Americans who did watch would know what to believe.
My mild-mannered mother-in-law watched just one session, I take it, and got on the phone with my husband absolutely spitting obscenities over what those "insurrectionists" had done and had been trying to do. It was remarkable. And disheartening. She was 100% convinced that she had been told a true and complete history.
What do you mean "we," memsahib?
I wouldn't be caught dead watching any of the stuff listed.
But some people love it.
King Charles... is shown lobbying Prime Minister John Major in a bizarre attempt to force his mother’s abdication.
Major denies the story. Is that a real denial, or just what he has to say?
An entire plotline is, to this end, devoted to suggesting that [Prince Philip] pursued a scandalous extra-marital affair with Penelope Knatchbull, the Countess Mountbatten of Burma.
The daughter of his mentor, Earl Mountbatten. I believe Philip and Penelope would have been cousins. But I guess everybody was cousins in these circles.
Needless to say, there’s no credible evidence that such an exchange took place, or that Philip was anything other than a devoted husband to Her Majesty.
Irony? Everybody says Philip had affairs, or at least flirtations.
I watched the first couple episodes and enjoyed them, and then lost interest when it moved into the 60s. The UK press is correct to attack this drama for this reason: Large numbers of people cannot tell TV fiction from TV fact. Its amazing how often when I discuss history with people, they will use examples from TV shows.
For example, I used to bump into large numbers who thought MacArthur was personally rude to Truman and refused to land his plane on Wake Island before Truman. They got from a "docudrama" from the early 70s. It never happened. Other, much younger people, think TV shows from the 50s and 60s represented reality. Hey, Don Draper and his gang drink before noon and chase their secretaries around the table well, that's the way corporate life was back in the 50s and 60s.
No doubt many Americans think "The Crown" is actual reality.
Interesting. Until this Althouse post, I'd never considered the relationship between monarchy (the deference due) and free speech. Even a figurehead of state requires a certain censorship or self-censorship that has never applied here since Washington.
I can’t believe that McNulty from “The Wire” is the new Prince Charles.
"King Charles... is shown lobbying Prime Minister John Major in a bizarre attempt to force his mother’s abdication."
(1) Since when was Charles king during Major's time as PM?
(2) If he needed to force his mother's abdication, then obviously HE WAS NOT KING.
Is it really all that hard to write (correctly) "Then-Prince Charles..."
Elizabeth's ordinariness, including her ordinary intelligence, was part of her appeal. You don't expect the Queen to be solving Fermat's Theorem or to be the first in the realm to appreciate the music of Lou Reed. The fact that she will so dull and steady was reassuring. All my life, she was always there and never interesting. A still point in a churning world.
I saw the Crown series. The ones with Claire Foy were very good, but they were all entertaining.....Shakespeare took considerable liberties in either direction with Richard III and Henry VIII. The Richard play was defamatory. The Henry play was hagiographic. Richard III, after Hamlet, is Shakespeare's most popular play. Henry VIII is rarely seen. It's a real disappointment, given the material that Henry gave Shakespeare to work with. Anyway, the point here is that a good slander is more interesting and enduring than even the best hagiography....Elizabeth led a fairly sedate life. She had an enthusiasm for horses. The series might have worked with that. Thrown in some allusions to Catherine the Great. But, given Elizabeth's dignified life, they did the best they could.
Even if historically accurate, I doubt I would watch such a series, it just seems so mundane to delve into the clockwork mechanisms of the monarchy. I did enjoy it when PBS broadcast "Charles III", a play, in Shakespear's style, about the aftermath of the transition. It was prescient in some ways and off on others (much to be determined) but still worth watching. Of course, it won't be historically accurate but then neither were Shakespear's histories, which were written from the Tudor point of view.
I'm not too much into the transexual thing but if I wanted to be a woman I would want to be Penelope Knatchbull, the Countess Mountbatten of Burma.
[Peter Morgan, the show's creator, has said] that Queen Elizabeth II was ‘of limited intelligence'
What are his bonafides for evaluationg someone else's intelligence?
I can’t believe that McNulty from “The Wire” is the new Prince Charles.
I can't believe that an Old Etonian with three middle names played a bedraggled cop in run-down Bodymore, Murderland.
You can find a picture online of Peter Morgan proudly holding the CBE that Liz gave him. If he thought that way about her, shouldn't he have rejected it?
Here in America, though, we love it. We understand fictionalization, and too bad if the people depicted are still alive.
Do we really? Add my negative response to the observations of Jamie and rcocean and, especially the comments from MJB Wolf (among others upthread). If people weren’t fundamentally gullible then how did Joe Biden get 81 million votes?
How come nobody ever talks about King Olaf of Sweden, King Felipe VI of Spain, King Harald of Norway, Emperor Naruhito of Japan and the 100 or so other kings around the world.
How come the only one we ever hear about is Queen Liz and now king Chuck?
Is it because the British kings/queens are the only ones who have any power to do anything? Not that they use it openly but they do have it.
I am an American. I view it as my patriotic duty to mock, jeer, scorn, insult and otherwise disrespect British royals in any way I can.
We need to lower their image to non-importance. They need to e viewed the same way we view other kings and queens. We need to (metaphorically) trample them into the dust until we do.
Fuck them and all Americans who swoon over them.
I look forward to the new season. I hope it is as disrespectful as claimed in the post. Gonna put it on my watchlist.
John Stop fascism vote republican Henry
For example, I used to bump into large numbers who thought MacArthur was personally rude to Truman and refused to land his plane on Wake Island before Truman. They got from a "docudrama" from the early 70s.
I didn't get it from a docudrama, I got it from Truman himself, quoted in Merle Miller's 1970s bio, and in McCullough's bio.
Truman felt that McArthur was a disrespectful son of a bitch (quote from memory) for the way he did that
John Stop fascism vote republican Henry
I liked Claire Foy as the young queen and didn't watch much after she left. I thought Philip and Margaret were portrayed in too negative a way, but Elizabeth herself was written and acted in a positive and inspiring way. Her Christian faith was touching, whether kneeling at her bedside for prayers before sleep or developing a friendship with Billy Graham (to the extent that she could have friends).
Deranged? Not at all. Her faith was the Book of Common Prayer. There is nothing more sensible.
are there any red hair female progeny in line of succession to say 'off with his head' re Charlie boy Rex?
I watched the Claire Foy episodes, but stopped watching after the historical inaccuracies built to an annoying level. The fog episode was full of them. The creator was anti Royalty (claims now pro monarchy), and that bleeds into the story line. It's not necessary. There is enough real dirt on the Royal Family that extra dramatics are not needed. Netflix is extremely Woke in their content.
Prince Philip I am sure had mistresses, as has Prince Charles. The asking the Queen to step down I doubt happened, since the Queen had ZERO Possibility of doing so. She was one smart cookie. Unfortunately the rest of the family is not as smart. Divorces left and right. Prince William and Kate Middleton seem to be doing well, avoiding many land mines. Prince Harry and Meghan seem to be on a kamikaze run to destroy the Royal Family, as a way to build themselves up.
QEII and her father served as living "flags" for their country. They didn't try to run or even influence the Government, so a Brit could respect them as national symbols whether he/she was Tory or Labor or whatever. We don't have anything like that in the US. Our only symbol of unity is the flag -- and we've lost even that.
Ann, Do you really think in America "we understand fictionalization"? Because I'm not convinced. Maybe YOU understand it, but the majority of people will most likely blur the distinction between what is known historically, and the fictionalization presented in this series. And, given that these are real people, the majority of whom are still alive, isn't it morally problematic for Nexflix to make a lot of money making up these 'dramatic' stories about people? And the royal family isn't likely to sue (but maybe they should), so this company feels free to use this family for their own benefit.
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