The Tudors: Enough!
May. 10th, 2010 10:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acampbellI've enjoyed the Showtime series: The Tudors. over the past couple of years. I've always loved Tudor history, and while this show has often strayed from historical accuracy (its worst flaw being, IMO, devoting attention to fabricated personal stories of auxiliary characters, historical and otherwise, we really couldn't care less about.) But it has also dramatized genuine historical, often intimate personal, events that I've never seen included in any other Henry VIII/Tudor dramatizations. For example, they devoted an entire episode to the rampant sweating sickness in S1, and that episode remains one of my favorites.
Midway through first season, my daughter pointed me to an online survey about the show. I guess at that time the series seemed pretty decorous, and we knew from our reading that Tudor history was often violent and bloody. So we both suggested they include more violence. And they did! Sometimes a bit more than we'd like, and often wrenching to watch. But they were bloody, often horrible times, when people would wind up on the block or in the torture chamber regardless of their innocence or guilt. If it was politically expedient for you to die, you usually would.
But, you know, I guess one should be careful for what one asks; last night (the close of the Catherine Howard storyline) was too much. It even beat the guy being boiled alive in S2. I find torture impossible to watch, and I really prefer the way it was in the Keith Michell series, where characters would talk beforehand or after about their execution, etc. and we didn't have actually to watch it.
I can live happily without watching someone be drawn and quartered. It's bad enough just hearing about it. I cried at the close of last night's ep, and had to take a tranquilizer (and I never take tranquilizers at night!) in order to be able to sleep. And I'm still upset.
I know those were different times, and I'm what one would call an overly empathetic person, but differences in eras considered, I just don't understand how people could stand there and watch.
And to make matters worse, they showed Henry basically having an orgy after Catherine's death. He DID have a St. Valentine's dinner the next day, but he WAS genuinely upset about her death, in his own way.
I'll be kind of glad when this show is done. And we know it will be, as Henry will die soon.
Midway through first season, my daughter pointed me to an online survey about the show. I guess at that time the series seemed pretty decorous, and we knew from our reading that Tudor history was often violent and bloody. So we both suggested they include more violence. And they did! Sometimes a bit more than we'd like, and often wrenching to watch. But they were bloody, often horrible times, when people would wind up on the block or in the torture chamber regardless of their innocence or guilt. If it was politically expedient for you to die, you usually would.
But, you know, I guess one should be careful for what one asks; last night (the close of the Catherine Howard storyline) was too much. It even beat the guy being boiled alive in S2. I find torture impossible to watch, and I really prefer the way it was in the Keith Michell series, where characters would talk beforehand or after about their execution, etc. and we didn't have actually to watch it.
I can live happily without watching someone be drawn and quartered. It's bad enough just hearing about it. I cried at the close of last night's ep, and had to take a tranquilizer (and I never take tranquilizers at night!) in order to be able to sleep. And I'm still upset.
I know those were different times, and I'm what one would call an overly empathetic person, but differences in eras considered, I just don't understand how people could stand there and watch.
And to make matters worse, they showed Henry basically having an orgy after Catherine's death. He DID have a St. Valentine's dinner the next day, but he WAS genuinely upset about her death, in his own way.
I'll be kind of glad when this show is done. And we know it will be, as Henry will die soon.
