Last year, James Delingbone caused an uproar around social
media when he blamed the “feminization of culture” for the recurrent
erroneousness in historical fiction. Although part of an ongoing debate,
Delingbone’s insistence to bring gender into the equation, enraged and shocked many.
Not that there were no bases for his reproach, but he failed to realize that since
its origins, historical fiction, particularly historical romances, has targeted
women. Feminine tastes and demands have
shaped the genre, and one of its tropes is the bending of historical events to
spice up the plot. Lately we’ve seen a reaction to that state of things, the
rise of more “masculine” period pieces. Nevertheless, historical incoherence
also comes to play a part in these new shows. So, who is to blame?
Let us go back to the article that started this controversy.
In April 2016, James Delingbone published on The Spectator a piece called “ITV's
Victoria is silly, facile and irresponsible – I blame the feminization of
culture.” Under this
overlong title, laid a negative review of Masterpiece’s “Victoria,” another one
of those biopics about Her Royal Highness, Queen Vicky. Delingbone had a point
since the series presented a lot of fluff and very little accuracy.
The
first season had irked me tremendously, so I embraced Delingbone’s accusations that
the liberty taking with historical facts in “Victoria” felt like “one
giant upraised middle finger to those of us who value history.” I also applauded his demanding of a
responsible attitude from the part of historical drama producers and a commitment
to their public: “you owe it to your audience to cleave as close as you
reasonably can to the known biographical facts.”
Sadly, Delingbone went on to
spew offensive (and untrue) statements such as “I suspect it’s probably true
that boys, being of a more transporters disposition, more jealous of their
facts and their period detail, are more likely to be resistant to Victoria’s
ersatz charms than girls.”
Delingbone forgot that macho
costumed potboilers such as “Spartacus”, “Black Sails,” and “Vikings”, also
twist historical facts. Slave-turned-gladiator Crixus didn’t have sex with his Domina Lucretia: Alfred the Great was
Ragnar’s contemporary (and already king when the Vikings reached England); and Blackbeard
died in battle, he was never keelhauled by governor Woodes Rogers.
Ragnar and Little Alfred. In real life, they were about the same age. |
From its beginnings, historical
fiction has forayed into the land of speculation to make it less “dull”, and to
fill in gaps. Many of those gap-fillers wore pants. Mary Stuart meeting Cousin
Bess was Schiller’s invention, Shakespeare forged Richard the III’s bad reputation,
and Spartacus was crucified only by Stanley Kubrick.
Although we tend to associate early historical fiction with
seminal writers such as Alexandre Dumas and Sir Walter Scott, Gothic literature
was the first field where depictions of the past became a norm. Women Gothic
authors such as Anne Radcliffe, Maria Edgeworth, Clara Barton and Miss Sophia
Lee were instrumental in blending romance, horror and days of yore. Particularly,
Miss Lee, who in the years prior to the French Revolution, wrote what may be the
first historical romance, The Recess.
She even subtitled it A Tale of Other
Times.
Drifting from the Middle Ages,
Gothic’s favorite scenario, Sophia Lee moved to the Elizabethan Era to deal
with historical figures such as Mary Stuart, Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers.
In real life, The Queen of Scots bore a set of stillborn babies, product of her
marriage to Lord Bothwell. In The Recess,
the author provides Mary with a fourth husband, The Duke of Norfolk, who
fathers her twin daughters. Ellinor and Matilda grow up to plague poor Aunt
Elizabeth’s life. Not only do they threaten her throne, they try to steal her boyfriends!
Ellinor falls for domed Earl of Essex, Matilda goes on to marry Robert Dudley. (what happened to Amy Robsart and Lettice Knollys?)
The Recess gave
birth to tropes associated with historical romance to this day: the amalgam of
romance and history; the alteration of real events to suit storytelling; beautiful
unconventional protagonists, and the highlighting of characterization over
action. This latest form of literature caused controversy. Philosopher Willian
Goodwin (Mary Shelley’s father) bemoaned in his On History and Romance, that the new genre “debauched and corrupted”
history. He also noticed that women and
boys were historical romances main readers.
Since then, historical fiction
has been associated with a feminine audience. Nineteenth century literature mirrored
such interest. In Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen presented
us with a protagonist obsessed with Gothic
fiction. Young ladies of leisure like Stendhal’s
Mathilde de La Mole were hooked on Walter Scott’s historical yarns. Louisa May
Alcott’s Old-Fashioned Girl professed
to despise Ouida’s popular French novels preferring instead the work of German
author Luise Mulhbach, because her novels “are historical.”
In my own youth, I learned history thanks to period drama
and historical fiction written by Anya Seton, Daphne Du Maurier, and the
exalted Jean Plaidy, she of the many pseudonyms. In the late 70s, fresh from high
school, I became acquainted with the infamous bodice-rippers, a cocktail
of romance and erotica, dressed in period outfits. Critics can label
such literature as pulpy or trash, the truth is that it confirms historical
fiction as a feminine turf, therefore we cannot talk of a “feminization” campaign.
Going back to
“Victoria,” Delingbone’s main peeve was with the beautification of characters.
He complained about Jenna Coleman looking gorgeous (“more than the dumpy Victoria
ever did”) and Lord Melbourne played by “smoldering” Rufus Sewell. He
particularly objected to the fictitious romance between Melbourne (a portly and
gray gentleman in real life) and his sovereign.
Real life Melbourne and his dumpy queen. |
Slender. and... |
Smoldering. The traps of historical romance. |
What I did mind, and I totally agree with Delingbone’s complains on the subject, was that unsightly rat episode. Buckingham Palace was not Hamelin, it was never overrun by rodents, and Queen Vicky did not go into hysterics on seeing mice sprouting, like a chorus girl, from her birthday cake. Most importantly, there was never a hint in her behavior that may have led to believe that she could have inherited King George’s madness. That need to show women of the past, whether they are Queen Victoria or Jackie Kennedy, suffering from “the vapors” or throwing hysterical tantrums is the product of misogynist minds.
Despite Delingbone’s assertions, women do cringe at
historical inaccuracies. I have often been accused of being a pedantic nitpicker
for grumbling about certain phoniness that tinges period pieces. Modern
sensibilities have become so distant from that of our forebears that any
attempt to recreate bygone eras must be stuffed with absurdities to make
historical characters more relevant to us, Third Millennium audience.
The current fashion is to adjust events in historical fiction
to fit into the canons of political correction. Whether we like it or not, the
great upholders of political correctness tend to be feminists. It is them that
demand that historical context doesn’t challenge their ideology. But not only
feminists fall prey to the habit of reflecting contemporary views on ancient
settings. Were Roman matrons as foul-mouthed as their counterparts in
“Spartacus?” I doubt it, and yet the
gladiator series is an example of the “masculinization” of period drama.
In “Black Sails,” another
macho tale, I was shocked to see Mrs. Guthrie offering Max a white powerful
husband who could become the new governor of Nassau. Aside from the fact that as
a former slave/bisexual prostitute, Max was not precisely a candidate to be the
toast of Colonial Philadelphia’s high society, the color of her skin barred her
from becoming the wife of any 18th century gentleman. Such marriage would have been as anachronic as Marie Antoinette and
her ladies doing drugs in the Sofia Coppola movie.
At least in Coppola’s film the fashion of Enlightened Versailles
was well-researched. The same cannot be said of “Reign,” the series describing
Mary Stuart's youth. In that show, The Queen of Scots wears anything but what an
early Sixteenth century noblewoman would. Those see-through blouses, those sleeveless
dresses, those leather riding pants… What are they thinking?
In 2008, historian David
Starkey ranted in The
Telegraph against the Victorian
carriages used in “The Tudors.” I second his ranting. As women who claim and reclaim
historical romance as our territory, we must also demand as much historical
veracity and context as possible in it, especially when it comes to everyday
life items such as costumes and furniture.
There are those who will oppose this crusade, claiming period
drama is not a history class. This recalls Adelaide Kane’s flippant
answer when confronted with the historical mishmash that is “Reign”: “How
many teenage girls do you know that are obsessed with history? I know I wasn’t
at that age.” Thus, our sweet Mary, Queen of Scots, confirms to Delingbone,
Starkey and those of that ilk, that they are right. Girls are to blame for
historical inaccuracy because they don’t care, because they are not “obsessed”
with history.
The danger is that teenage girls (who obviously are the target
for Kane’s show) learn what-passes-for-history from “Reign.” Hence, they will
go on thinking that Mary Stuart was raped by courtiers, killed Catherine De
Medici’s bastard daughter and had more lovers than the poor woman could fit in
her bed. We say that customers are not supposed to teach history, but in the end,
sex romps like “Versailles,” “Reign, “and the Iberian “Aguila Roja,” do much
worse. They combine false depictions with soft porn and end up in the
weirdest and most useless history lesson any audience could stomach.
There should be limits to creative license, balance between
fantasy and the spirit of authenticity, and as James Delingbone demanded, responsibility
to the public. Just as the worst fanfiction is the one that strays away from
the original, a freely inspired adaptation of historical events won’t guarantee
a quality product. From the moment a
piece claims to be historical or based on actual incidents, there should be a
commitment to deliver a story that is at least 80% truth. After all, sometimes
reality can be much more fun than reprehensible and inaccurate clichés. Don’t
you agree?
I'm distressed by the creative licenses people are taking with historical fiction at the cost of historical accuracy (especially on TV shows and movies). I understand that it's fiction and there should be room for invention, but I hate it when they do it to cater to an audience by changing people's morals/behaviors/views on life to reflect our current values. I know this is fiction, but the problem with portraying this as a "truth" is that people who may not know about a particular event, will take this subjective version as the truth and the misinformation will grow. Not only that but historical fiction, as a genre, suffers because those who do know the true history will start distrusting authors.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for being our first commentator. I wouldn’t mind a distrustful audience. In fact, I look forward to it. My fear is that readers and viewers alike will grow complacent and accept flawed historical fiction as true history. Specially, in view that leading historical fiction writers boast so much about their careful historical research and then go and write down whatever comes to their heads.
DeleteAnd about implanting our current mores and frame of mind to bygone events it’s a futile and risky task. Humanity has never lived in such a neurotic (or sociopathic) society as that of our present Western world where values, ways of thinking and lifestyles change everyday