The Tudors
Aug. 31st, 2011 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
next_to_normalIn addition to dodging natural disasters and party-planning, I used my staycation last week to power through The Tudors, so now I have thoughts!
First, let me say this - if nothing else, The Tudors is a great guilty pleasure show, and I don't even care if it's not historically accurate, the costumes are OUTSTANDING. The dresses! The jewelry! The headpieces! I covet them all. Halloween costume ideas are already percolating.
The show actually was better than I expected, although it peaked in season 2 and was never as good after Anne Boleyn lost her head. I think part of the problem is that you're dealing with some pretty well-known history, so when you spend TEN EPISODES where the central conflict is "will the Pope grant Henry the annulment so he can marry Anne?" it gets kind of tedious. We know what happened. We know who lives and who dies. What keeps me interested is the relationships between the characters, and Henry/Anne is by far the most fascinating. It also doesn't hurt that Natalie Dormer is fabulous. Seasons 3 and 4 definitely felt like they were lacking something, and I think quite a bit of it is because it was Anne-less.
And it also kinda feels like they recognized that, because we spend two whole seasons on Henry's losing interest in Katherine of Aragon and the rise and fall of Anne. Then we get to season 3 and we're powering through wives like there's no tomorrow. Jane Seymour? Dead by episode 4. Anne of Cleves? Married in one episode, divorced in the next! You barely have time to catch your breath.
It's really a shame the wives are basically a revolving door of female leads who never stick around more than a handful of episodes, because the women are far more interesting than the men. I mean, the men pretty much do exactly what you expect them to: lots of bickering, betrayal, and beheadings. And, frankly, it got to the point where I neither knew nor cared who all the different lords were and what their various schemes were meant to accomplish. Nor did I particularly care about the war with France.
Before I get too deep into discussing the characters, I feel like I should make a disclaimer. It seems to be popular to be Team [Wife], and to vilify the other wives as manipulative, lying seducers and usurpers. Anne in particular has gotten this treatment throughout history (though modern interpretations are coming around), and it's not just because I'm an Anne stan (heh) that I say this: I don't believe we have the right to judge any of them for their actions. We don't really know what happened, and history is generally written by people who hated them. What we DO know is that all of them existed at a time when women didn't have many options, and their attempts to capture or hold the king's interest were almost certainly a means of self-preservation. If we're going to blame or judge anyone, it ought to be Henry, since he's the one with ALL THE POWER and the one who uses his position to bully women into marrying him and then shame them for not producing heirs.
That said, in the context of the show? OPINIONS. I HAS 'EM. Let's start with my favorite characters:
Um, obviously, Anne Boleyn. Did I mention that Natalie Dormer is amazing? She kind of reminds me of Nina Dobrev. There's a bit of a physical resemblance, but beyond that, they have some of the same facial expressions (perfect bitchface is perfect) and mannerisms, and that same ability to turn on a dime from sweet and flirtatious to fierce BAMF. I think she's a huge reason why Anne is the most captivating of the bunch, because she's so dynamic and conveys all the complications and layers of the character. Also, I pretty much just love Anne. :) She's tragic, in a sense, because she's used basically as a pawn to get her family into the king's favor, but she's clearly strong-willed and is constantly fighting for her own agency, despite everyone trying to manipulate her. And of course there are a million versions of the story, but this one suggests that Anne truly was innocent, that she was executed for being too intelligent and opinionated, basically. He was tired of her and she pissed him off by daring to disagree with him, and he was looking for any excuse to get rid of her.
I appreciated that the show takes a Mad Men approach to the historical accuracy of the gender dynamics. The inherent sexism and misogyny isn't shied away from or normalized (or worse, glorified). It's portrayed as a completely ordinary and accepted part of life, yet in a way that makes it very obvious how gross it is. All the wives are treated like walking uteri and used as political pawns. Anne considers herself a failure for giving birth to a girl when the king wants a male heir and feels compelled to apologize for her miscarriages, because obviously this is all somehow her fault. *eyeroll* Though I think my favorite moment might be Catherine Parr's “I am but a woman with all the imperfections natural to the weakness of my sex” speech to keep herself from getting executed. She is laying it on so thick it's a wonder the throne doesn't collapse under the weight. She's so obviously bullshitting Henry and trying to flatter him - and it works!! Haha, although I think that's probably because Henry was simply tired of executing wives.
Weirdly, I also really loved Mary Tudor. I wasn't a huge fan at first, what with the whole "Bloody Mary" business in her future, but she grew on me, partly because she's the only female character who manages to live through all four seasons of the show. :\ Man, she's a real Cinderella story, isn't she? Her father remarries, and she gets cast off in favor of the new wife's daughter. Except the evil stepmothers KEEP ON COMING, and the only ones she liked either die or get dumped ASAP. I have so much sympathy for the poor girl; she never gets to be happy. She almost maybe likes a guy, and Henry sends him away. Everyone else who's nice to her (and she has approximately two friends in the entire world) either dies or leaves. And she still wants to be loved by her father, even after he disgraced her mother and banished them both to poverty and forced her to renounce her beliefs to get back into his favor. And then Mary apologizing for not being a boy, because none of this would've happened; her parents would still be together and there wouldn't be all the conflict over the line of succession. BRB CRYING ALL THE TEARS. I'm starting to get why she killed so many people, is what I'm saying.
The irony, though, is that as much as she and Anne hated each other, they really are alike in a lot of ways. After Anne died, there were times when all that kept me watching was Mary's spitfire and determination (especially the Katherine Howard episodes. Good GOD did I hate that hot mess). They're both incredibly intelligent and capable women, who are sometimes willing to be ruthless in order to get what they want. I'm actually a little sad that they ended the series with Henry's death. I mean, there are tons of movies about Elizabeth (who, unfortunately, was rather a non-entity in this series), but I would've loved to see the show continue through Mary's reign. Sarah Bolger totally could've led this cast.
So, yeah. Least favorites were definitely Jane Seymour and Katherine Howard. UGH, I feel like we're supposed to like Jane, because she's Henry's favorite? But they just portray her as such a fucking SAINT - seriously, even the lighting is done so that she is always glowing OMFG - that I kind of hate her on principle. She's better in S2, when she's scheming to steal Henry away from Anne, because at least she has FLAWS. But S3 is just unbearable goodness (followed, thankfully, by a swift death).
And Katherine Howard? She really ought to be a sympathetic character, because she's had a terrible childhood and she's been abused, and now she's being held to the worst double standard. Every guy she sleeps with loves that she's experienced, and then turns around and condemns her for all the sex she had to have to get that experience. But then she and her gaggle of maids go around giggling and squealing like tweens at a Justin Bieber concert all the time and I just want to strangle them. She also seems rather... clueless. I mean, she can't possibly be oblivious to the fact that her husband has a tendency to, you know, get rid of the wives he doesn't like. Cheating on him just for kicks seems incredibly stupid. (And hey, let's talk about how the king can screw anyone he likes, but if the queen does it, it's treason?)
I did enjoy Henry Cavill as the king's best friend, Charles Brandon. (He's not bad to look at, either, even if they covered up the pretty with a Moses beard in the later years.) I liked how his arc contrasted with Henry's - they both start out as playboys, but while Henry continues to go from one wife to the next, taking mistresses right and left, Charles actually settles down to be a family man and wants to make it work with his wife, even when she doesn't love him anymore. And as Henry gets increasingly mad with power, Charles increasingly has to weigh his conscience against his loyalty.
Henry himself... eh. Jonathan Rhys Meyers did a decent job as the younger, impetuous, petulant Henry, but I had a lot of trouble taking him seriously as the more mature king, because was so utterly lacking in gravitas. Most of the time, I found him unintentionally hilarious, because he looked like a kid prancing around pretending to be king. It didn't help that he had this awful porn star 'stache (seriously, rethink the facial hair, Show) and was wearing, like, twelve layers of clothing all the time so that he looked fatter. And then just before the end of the series, it's like they suddenly realize he's supposed to be near death. HOLY AGE MAKE-UP BATMAN! He ages about 30 years overnight. And speaking of Batman, for all of season 4, he's forcing his voice into this Christian Bale-esque lower register, presumably to make him sound older, but which mostly makes him sound like he has laryngitis. Hilarious, but so distracting. Generally, I am not one to dwell on appearance - as long as the actor can sell it, it doesn't matter if they look historically accurate - but damn, I was not sold on Henry. They really should've either considered recasting or started with someone older to begin with.
One final note - it's a Showtime series, which means lots and lots of sex and nudity. But frankly, I found the violence and gore a lot worse. There truly is no end to the horrible, gruesome things they could do to people. There were quite a few torture and execution scenes where I found myself wincing and looking away. GAH.
First, let me say this - if nothing else, The Tudors is a great guilty pleasure show, and I don't even care if it's not historically accurate, the costumes are OUTSTANDING. The dresses! The jewelry! The headpieces! I covet them all. Halloween costume ideas are already percolating.
The show actually was better than I expected, although it peaked in season 2 and was never as good after Anne Boleyn lost her head. I think part of the problem is that you're dealing with some pretty well-known history, so when you spend TEN EPISODES where the central conflict is "will the Pope grant Henry the annulment so he can marry Anne?" it gets kind of tedious. We know what happened. We know who lives and who dies. What keeps me interested is the relationships between the characters, and Henry/Anne is by far the most fascinating. It also doesn't hurt that Natalie Dormer is fabulous. Seasons 3 and 4 definitely felt like they were lacking something, and I think quite a bit of it is because it was Anne-less.
And it also kinda feels like they recognized that, because we spend two whole seasons on Henry's losing interest in Katherine of Aragon and the rise and fall of Anne. Then we get to season 3 and we're powering through wives like there's no tomorrow. Jane Seymour? Dead by episode 4. Anne of Cleves? Married in one episode, divorced in the next! You barely have time to catch your breath.
It's really a shame the wives are basically a revolving door of female leads who never stick around more than a handful of episodes, because the women are far more interesting than the men. I mean, the men pretty much do exactly what you expect them to: lots of bickering, betrayal, and beheadings. And, frankly, it got to the point where I neither knew nor cared who all the different lords were and what their various schemes were meant to accomplish. Nor did I particularly care about the war with France.
Before I get too deep into discussing the characters, I feel like I should make a disclaimer. It seems to be popular to be Team [Wife], and to vilify the other wives as manipulative, lying seducers and usurpers. Anne in particular has gotten this treatment throughout history (though modern interpretations are coming around), and it's not just because I'm an Anne stan (heh) that I say this: I don't believe we have the right to judge any of them for their actions. We don't really know what happened, and history is generally written by people who hated them. What we DO know is that all of them existed at a time when women didn't have many options, and their attempts to capture or hold the king's interest were almost certainly a means of self-preservation. If we're going to blame or judge anyone, it ought to be Henry, since he's the one with ALL THE POWER and the one who uses his position to bully women into marrying him and then shame them for not producing heirs.
That said, in the context of the show? OPINIONS. I HAS 'EM. Let's start with my favorite characters:
Um, obviously, Anne Boleyn. Did I mention that Natalie Dormer is amazing? She kind of reminds me of Nina Dobrev. There's a bit of a physical resemblance, but beyond that, they have some of the same facial expressions (perfect bitchface is perfect) and mannerisms, and that same ability to turn on a dime from sweet and flirtatious to fierce BAMF. I think she's a huge reason why Anne is the most captivating of the bunch, because she's so dynamic and conveys all the complications and layers of the character. Also, I pretty much just love Anne. :) She's tragic, in a sense, because she's used basically as a pawn to get her family into the king's favor, but she's clearly strong-willed and is constantly fighting for her own agency, despite everyone trying to manipulate her. And of course there are a million versions of the story, but this one suggests that Anne truly was innocent, that she was executed for being too intelligent and opinionated, basically. He was tired of her and she pissed him off by daring to disagree with him, and he was looking for any excuse to get rid of her.
I appreciated that the show takes a Mad Men approach to the historical accuracy of the gender dynamics. The inherent sexism and misogyny isn't shied away from or normalized (or worse, glorified). It's portrayed as a completely ordinary and accepted part of life, yet in a way that makes it very obvious how gross it is. All the wives are treated like walking uteri and used as political pawns. Anne considers herself a failure for giving birth to a girl when the king wants a male heir and feels compelled to apologize for her miscarriages, because obviously this is all somehow her fault. *eyeroll* Though I think my favorite moment might be Catherine Parr's “I am but a woman with all the imperfections natural to the weakness of my sex” speech to keep herself from getting executed. She is laying it on so thick it's a wonder the throne doesn't collapse under the weight. She's so obviously bullshitting Henry and trying to flatter him - and it works!! Haha, although I think that's probably because Henry was simply tired of executing wives.
Weirdly, I also really loved Mary Tudor. I wasn't a huge fan at first, what with the whole "Bloody Mary" business in her future, but she grew on me, partly because she's the only female character who manages to live through all four seasons of the show. :\ Man, she's a real Cinderella story, isn't she? Her father remarries, and she gets cast off in favor of the new wife's daughter. Except the evil stepmothers KEEP ON COMING, and the only ones she liked either die or get dumped ASAP. I have so much sympathy for the poor girl; she never gets to be happy. She almost maybe likes a guy, and Henry sends him away. Everyone else who's nice to her (and she has approximately two friends in the entire world) either dies or leaves. And she still wants to be loved by her father, even after he disgraced her mother and banished them both to poverty and forced her to renounce her beliefs to get back into his favor. And then Mary apologizing for not being a boy, because none of this would've happened; her parents would still be together and there wouldn't be all the conflict over the line of succession. BRB CRYING ALL THE TEARS. I'm starting to get why she killed so many people, is what I'm saying.
The irony, though, is that as much as she and Anne hated each other, they really are alike in a lot of ways. After Anne died, there were times when all that kept me watching was Mary's spitfire and determination (especially the Katherine Howard episodes. Good GOD did I hate that hot mess). They're both incredibly intelligent and capable women, who are sometimes willing to be ruthless in order to get what they want. I'm actually a little sad that they ended the series with Henry's death. I mean, there are tons of movies about Elizabeth (who, unfortunately, was rather a non-entity in this series), but I would've loved to see the show continue through Mary's reign. Sarah Bolger totally could've led this cast.
So, yeah. Least favorites were definitely Jane Seymour and Katherine Howard. UGH, I feel like we're supposed to like Jane, because she's Henry's favorite? But they just portray her as such a fucking SAINT - seriously, even the lighting is done so that she is always glowing OMFG - that I kind of hate her on principle. She's better in S2, when she's scheming to steal Henry away from Anne, because at least she has FLAWS. But S3 is just unbearable goodness (followed, thankfully, by a swift death).
And Katherine Howard? She really ought to be a sympathetic character, because she's had a terrible childhood and she's been abused, and now she's being held to the worst double standard. Every guy she sleeps with loves that she's experienced, and then turns around and condemns her for all the sex she had to have to get that experience. But then she and her gaggle of maids go around giggling and squealing like tweens at a Justin Bieber concert all the time and I just want to strangle them. She also seems rather... clueless. I mean, she can't possibly be oblivious to the fact that her husband has a tendency to, you know, get rid of the wives he doesn't like. Cheating on him just for kicks seems incredibly stupid. (And hey, let's talk about how the king can screw anyone he likes, but if the queen does it, it's treason?)
I did enjoy Henry Cavill as the king's best friend, Charles Brandon. (He's not bad to look at, either, even if they covered up the pretty with a Moses beard in the later years.) I liked how his arc contrasted with Henry's - they both start out as playboys, but while Henry continues to go from one wife to the next, taking mistresses right and left, Charles actually settles down to be a family man and wants to make it work with his wife, even when she doesn't love him anymore. And as Henry gets increasingly mad with power, Charles increasingly has to weigh his conscience against his loyalty.
Henry himself... eh. Jonathan Rhys Meyers did a decent job as the younger, impetuous, petulant Henry, but I had a lot of trouble taking him seriously as the more mature king, because was so utterly lacking in gravitas. Most of the time, I found him unintentionally hilarious, because he looked like a kid prancing around pretending to be king. It didn't help that he had this awful porn star 'stache (seriously, rethink the facial hair, Show) and was wearing, like, twelve layers of clothing all the time so that he looked fatter. And then just before the end of the series, it's like they suddenly realize he's supposed to be near death. HOLY AGE MAKE-UP BATMAN! He ages about 30 years overnight. And speaking of Batman, for all of season 4, he's forcing his voice into this Christian Bale-esque lower register, presumably to make him sound older, but which mostly makes him sound like he has laryngitis. Hilarious, but so distracting. Generally, I am not one to dwell on appearance - as long as the actor can sell it, it doesn't matter if they look historically accurate - but damn, I was not sold on Henry. They really should've either considered recasting or started with someone older to begin with.
One final note - it's a Showtime series, which means lots and lots of sex and nudity. But frankly, I found the violence and gore a lot worse. There truly is no end to the horrible, gruesome things they could do to people. There were quite a few torture and execution scenes where I found myself wincing and looking away. GAH.
no subject
Date: Aug. 31st, 2011 09:48 pm (UTC)so when you spend TEN EPISODES where the central conflict is "will the Pope grant Henry the annulment so he can marry Anne?" it gets kind of tedious. We know what happened. We know who lives and who dies. What keeps me interested is the relationships between the characters
This was my complaint with Rome. I couldn't care less what Ceasar was up to, or how his political scheming was going, because we all know what happens. Spoiler alert, Ceasar dies. I found the minor historical characters much more interesting.
There truly is no end to the horrible, gruesome things they could do to people. There were quite a few torture and execution scenes where I found myself wincing and looking away.
Yeah. Ew. One reason I haven't watched.
no subject
Date: Sep. 3rd, 2011 07:51 pm (UTC)I found Rome somewhat lacking, but I'm not sure it was knowing what happened that was the problem. I think it was more that I had trouble caring about the characters, even the minor ones. If I care about the characters, then it doesn't matter that I know how it ends.
Anyway, The Tudors is good, silly fun. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it or anything, but it's entertaining.