Wednesday, October 26, 2022

Some Famous Blokes In The U.K. Have Their Knickers in a Twist About the New Season of The Crown

 Note: This article will be written in a slightly different approach than many of my previous articles. Imagine John Oliver or James Corden saying these words, and I think you’ll understand my way.

 

Well, it’s time to deal with the most pressing obstacles facing the U.K right now: the next season of The Crown. Yes, while Great Britain is dealing with the fallout of Brexit, Prime Ministers resigning at a pace as if they were on the Parliament Edition of Big Brother, and basically everything J.K. Rowling says these days, some very prominent British figures are pissed – and not in the way they use the term – about what the next season of Netflix’s The Crown will end up looking like. And their criticisms would be downright hysterical – as they are anyway – even after you consider whose making these remarks.

Dame Judi Dench, who apparently didn’t care what critics when she played Victoria twice, has called the most recent season of The Crown  ‘pretending to be realistic’ and demanding that a disclaimer be put before it so that people know that it is fiction and not a documentary. (Someone’s still ticked that Peter Morgan cast Helen Mirren over her in The Queen.)  To be fair, this is not a truly unreasonable request as there are no doubt some people still questioning how real everything they see on docudramas series are. Some Netflix limited series such as Unbelievable have made sure to have such a disclaimer, and those stories are on a smaller scale. That being said, I do question how much Dench really believes the intellect of the typical Netflix viewer. Does she assume that all of the dialogue and performances that we have seen the previous four season are the result of fly-on-the-wall cameras that have been placed in all the palaces for the past forty years? Does she assume that everything that happens in this series is a reenactment of actual events that happened behind palace walls? More to the point, does she believe the typical Netflix viewer thinks the same? And if such Netflix viewers do exist, I’m actually more frightened as to how far their delusions extend? Do they share these believes for every Netflix series? Are they convinced that there is such a thing as a Squid Game and that there is such a place as the Upside Down? (Of course, Netflix is creating a real-life Squid Game, but let’s not go down that rabbit hole.)

John Major, who is about to make his fictional debut on Netflix this season, has gone out of his way to deny that certain scenes in the series – such as the now King discussing whether his mother should abdicate with him – is denying these conversations are completely fictional. Well, that’s just plain ingratitude. Seriously, John. You’re being played by Johnny Lee Miller. Do you know how much easier it’s going to be for you to get laid from this point on?

“Oh, I’m John Major. I was the Prime Minister once.”

“I hear that every day. Two of them come in every night and try to buy me drinks.”

(Pause) I’m going to be in the next season of The Crown.

(Longer pause) “How close is your place?”

 

And of course, as everything involving the Royals these days, Prince William felt compelled to weigh in, saying that the scenes of his parents fighting were completely fiction because ‘I never saw them fight.’ As if William’s credibility couldn’t get any lower.

First of all, if you really believed your parents had a happy marriage, congratulations, you’ve just proved to the entire world yet again how utterly sheltered your family is from the world. Second of all, even assuming that your parents never fought directly in front of you, everybody in the world knows just how big your homes are. Your parents could have been fighting in a separate wing of one of your palaces and you’d never have heard. And lastly, the breakup of your parent’s marriage was one of the most famous events of the 1990s: the entire world saw it break down, your parents were openly not shy about in the media and your father is currently married to a woman who he had an affair while the marriage was going on. It was the worst kept secret in Britain. All of this fundamentally proves that not only are you so isolated from your family, you seem to be in denial about how things are now. Camilla’s about to be crowned Queen Consort. She didn’t get that title because your mother was fine with it.

In all seriousness (sort of) I’m slightly surprised the British media and Parliament have been so quiet about how the Royal Family has been portrayed on the series until now. Apparently its fine with the Brits to talk about the tragedies of Princess Margaret (who even if this is a fictionalized version has clearly had it far worse than Diana ever did) but it’s not okay to dare infringe upon the memory of  The Queen now that she is no longer alive to say nothing about this as she had the first four seasons of The Crown. Why such outrage now? Part of it may have to do with Elizabeth’s passing (Britain like Hollywood is known for having respect for the dead, but none for the living) but I think there’s a larger issue at play. One that was always in the background throughout the series but that present circumstances are now making much clearer.

For most of the twentieth century, many have questioned the purpose of the monarchy. There have been many factors – the abdication of Edward VIII, the gradual decay of the British Empire, the modernization of the world as a whole – but despite this, many mostly old white men – hold to an institution. In his writing for The Crown Morgan agrees completely with this idea – but he has a definition of what kind of institution.

Morgan says it is the kind of outmoded institution that has held around for centuries not so much because it works but out of habit more than any reason. Institutions can hang around much longer than they should not because they work but because people are afraid what happens if they aren’t any there. Empires were institutions once.

And Morgan makes it clear that for the members of the royal family, it’s an institution as well – such as a prison or an asylum. One that has rules that have been around for so long that they must abide by for fear out of what happens if the rules are violated. One that the wardens follow even if they believe that they are outmoded. And that will destroy the people who are apart of it, even without them knowing it. Like Morgan Freeman famous said in Shawshank Redemption:  ‘I’m an institutional man.” The Crown has made it very clear that this passes on from generation to generation, often without them realizing it.

In Season 1 soon after becoming Queen, Elizabeth (Claire Foy) spends much of the season trying to make changes in the institution to help Philip and Margaret. Men like Churchill in particular find ways to push back against, mostly by finding ways to use The Duke of Windsor against them. As a result, Philip finds himself increasingly restrained and Margaret is unable to marry the man she loves. Margaret is irrevocably damaged by this. For much of the first two seasons, Elizabeth and Philip try their best to push back but increasingly find themselves becoming part of the system.

In Season 3, as the young Charles, who has been raised in this system tries to push back primarily to try and please his family. But at the season goes further, it becomes clear that Charles can do nothing to please his mother or the Queen, whether is ceremonial or trying to marry. By the time the fourth season has begun, it has become increasingly clear that Elizabeth and Philip, who spent their youth pushing back against the boundaries of the institution are fundamentally a part of it and utterly resistant to changing it. I mentioned in a review last year about Thatcher’s tendency to take the royals seriously, but whether it was based in truth or not, I believe she had a point. I think Great Britain could survive the lost of the monarchy; it could not survive the collapse of democracy. In the first seasons they press against their duties as ceremonial; by the fourth season they are pressing them upon Charles and Diana to do them not out of obligation.

I think part of this new agitation against The Crown is about the threat to the institution. As the series has made clear Diana never fit in. I don’t hold to the fringe theories some do that Diana ended up dying because someone in the monarchy had her killed; I am inclined to believe that it was the monarchy that ended up destroying her. As we have seen over and over on the series, that it was the monarchy does. It did it with Margaret, it did major damage to Charles, and it certainly did it to Diana. It chewed her up, forced her to stay and place and was furious that she wouldn’t stand and smile like all the royals. The Crown, like almost all of Morgan’s work, shows us the face of power, warts, and all, and while the British may not care that they have them, they don’t want them pointed out in public.

People argue that the British are famous for being apologetic. If they are, it’s never for the things they should be apologizing for: the British Empire, colonialism, genocide, looting foreign countries, white supremacy writ large for more than half a millennia. The monarchy is the public face of Britain more than anything else, and as long as the Empire existed the monarchy was the face of all of that. As we saw on The Crown, none of the royal family saw any need to apologize for that. Why should they?

Some people – older people – saw Elizabeth as the symbol of Britain’s glorious past. The fact that even when she was crowned the Empire was already decaying and  had been completely destroyed by the middle of her reign was irrelevant. She was a symbol of the glorious past, and America is in no position to judge anyone on glamorizing the past and glossing over the parts we don’t want to tell. And now that monarchy and Britain in itself are facing a future that is already horrible and likely to get worse before it gets better, certain people want to hold fast to the last, real symbol of it. Like I said, respect for the dead, but none for the living.

It's ironic that Morgan and The Crown have more respect for Elizabeth than they think: on the day she died, they suspended filming and flew the Union Jack at half-mast. Which shows that for all his care about revealing his version of the truth, he does respect the institution to an extent. As for Netflix, they have agreed to the disclaimer before every episode of The Crown from this point on and the Brits can rest easy that there’s only one more season left planned – until of course, a few more years and Morgan and his writers begin filming: The Crown: The Next Generation to tell the saga of Charles, Prince William, and Prince Harry. I wonder who they’ll cast as Meghan 

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