The feminization of period drama: Are we to blame gender for inaccurate historical fiction?

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.

We are too cute to be historical!

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.”

Oh, Dash, apparently only dogs and girls like me!

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.

 I wasn’t bothered by that romance.  Gorgeous protagonists and romantic interests are elements of the genre, and real dumpy Victoria could have had a crush on Lord M.  Young girls tend to fall in love with father-figures who offer them kindness and consideration. Since Vicky was called “Mrs. Melbourne” behind her back, rumors about a dalliance must have been in the air in her early days on the throne.

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.

Queen Vicky didn't give us cake!

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 18^th 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?

Mary, Mary quite contrary. This is not what queens wore in the 1500s

 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.

Disregard for historical details breeds fashion disasters.

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?