Queen Charlotte - halfway through review

[chocolatepot]

I'm finding Queen Charlotte surprisingly good ... I'm on ep 4 and the only real issues I've had are that for some reason Shonda Rhimes decided to have the princesses be unmarried by choice and to have Charlotte disparage them for it - it just strikes me as not quite fair given that IRL they were constrained by their parents and largely not allowed to get married despite wanting to - they even had affairs with equerries and such because they wanted love and connection! (And on that note, even in-universe Charlotte and the camera are such bitches to the grieving Prince Regent after Charlotte dies! wtf!)

There's historical accuracy stuff to discuss - yeah, that one bit about "the bones of whales," plus she says the whalebone in her stays is "delicate" and could break if she moves too much, very silly - but it's all more along the lines of "Hey, interested in the history behind Queen Charlotte? Blah blah blah." Like, when Augusta and George discuss his marriage he assumes she's offering him a bride from the English nobility, and then when she says she's found him a German princess, he says, "A German? How exotic" - a subject bride wasn't against the rules but it was seriously problematic (Augusta and Lord Bute persuaded the real George III against doing just that), and George himself was so freaking German: Augusta (his mother) was a German princess, his father had been born and raised in Germany, George I was indisputably German and George II was a German adult when his father inherited the crown. It's not bad-bad, I just would like to see an 18th or 19th century royal drama that really engages with how German the family was. IIRC, even Victoria grew up speaking German at home and did the same with her children? And there's also some of that "you MUST get an heir soon or our family's position is precarious" stuff that is in every royal drama but is pretty silly here when George had three younger brothers (but I think they don't exist in this universe).

Somewhere in the middle is the fact that IRL, George did not admire Charlotte for her brains and fierceness - he very much expected her to stay in her place, submissive and quiet. He was kind of a domestic tyrant. I can't reasonably object to this because, eh, well, see icon, but it's one of those things that people should probably be aware of re: that Julie Andrews disclaimer at the beginning of the show. (I will, however, bring it up whenever anyone criticizes OFMD for the same thing.)

However, I really like that George and Charlotte each have a gay butler and the first ep has a totally unnecessary but actually very well-done sexposition scene between them. Equal rights! I'm also loving that they didn't go the Marie Antoinette route of having Charlotte unready for queenship in order to make her more ~relatable~ - the day after her wedding, she's prepared to be dressed by other people and then have a social schedule. She's confident and clever. Even though it's a spinoff of Bridgerton, it doesn't feel like a show About Romance in the same way as that - it feels like a historical drama that centers on two people who are married and falling in love. They seem to be handling George's mental health issues well, too.

Comments

[author_by_night]

I can't reasonably object to this because, eh, well, see icon, but it's one of those things that people should probably be aware of re: that Julie Andrews disclaimer at the beginning of the show. (I will, however, bring it up whenever anyone criticizes OFMD for the same thing.)


I think it's nice to see what might have been. Also, while in general OFMD is rather anachronistic, and I imagine this show is as well, it does demonstrate that people have always been people, and also, there was more diversity and challenging of norms than historians acknowledge, even if things didn't happen exactly the way we see them. There were queer pirates, and pirates who were POC.

Sorry, I haven't seen the show so I can't really speak to anything there, this is more of a broad observation about "historical inaccuracies."

That said, I DO like when shows both address a more "realistic" depiction of period bigotry, while also allowing characters from marginalized groups to have their own stories. Like the Prime Video version of A League of Their Own, which very much portrays things as they were, but still puts the marginalized characters in the spotlight and lets them have stories that aren't just about pain.

[chocolatepot]

This show is defs less anachronistic than OFMD (although it does the "rock songs played on strings" thing that Bridgerton also does - although I don't know modern music so I don't recognize the songs, I just can tell that they're rock). I think with Bridgerton, there was a real desire to be anachronistic for anachronism's sake, while Queen Charlotte is more like "not letting history get in the way of the story they want to tell". They want to tell a story about a fierce queen who comes to love her husband.