Marie Antoinette
15 January 2023 04:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI very nearly didn't watch the BBC's new show Marie Antoinette, partly because I had it vaguely confused with the French production "Versailles", which I had gathered was something along the lines of "The Tudors" ("Louis the Phwoarteenth"), and partly because I'd seen someone enthusing over it based on 'it has two women kissing', which did not seem like an adequate basis for endorsement. (Spoilers: it *does* have two women kissing, but via the "I'll teach you how to get your man" trope -- I suspect there was a trailer shot in circulation with a certain amount of deliberate misrepresentation.)
Anyway, I did watch the first episode, and found it enjoyable, and have gone on to watch the rest so far. It probably helps that the reign of Louis the Fifteenth is something that I *don't* know all that much about, historically -- I have carefully avoided doing any further checking up in order to avoid being annoyed by whatever historical liberties are being taken. (One thing I do seem to remember is that Marie Antoinette and her husband were in reality only about fourteen and fifteen respectively at the time of their marriage, as opposed to the seventeen or eighteen suggested on screen... an accurate depiction of which would presumably have rendered the show politically unappetising and impossible to show in America!)
Beyond that, I'm aware of the basic existence of 'the Du Barry', who is one of the many courtesans/mistresses of France who were far better known than the unfortunate Kings' wives, and that's about it :-p I'm assuming that the Dauphin's brother 'Provence' (?sp) is known by his title rather than that actually being his baptismal name, a theory backed up by the King's habit of referring to himself from time to time as 'France', and would guess that this is probably yet another of the trouble-making younger-brother-Philippes who have also featured so largely in the annals of France! (After all, the monarchy wasn't exactly known for its creativity in naming its heirs...)
It occurs to me forcibly that this is, basically, a Marriage Law fic ;-)
We know from history that the marriage does, eventually, succeed (and also, notoriously, the fate of both participants, which is a foreshadowing that makes this a slightly odd choice of subject and which the BBC is assiduously avoiding -- probably just as well). So it becomes in effect a slow-burn romance of a rather touching kind, wrapped in a drama of court and international politics.
It is a little surprising to me that so many countries continued attempting royal alliances by marrying off their princesses, given that the lifetime of the alliance was almost invariably far shorter than that of the marriage and that the foreign Queen in question would then end up stuck on the wrong side of a war with no discernable object achieved (e.g. Anne of Austria, Louis XIII's Spanish Queen, or King John's marrying off his daughter to Llewelyn of Wales, whom he proceeded to fight). I suppose the real gain was in the negotiations over what lands etc. would be included in the marriage terms, rather than in any hopes that being related by marriage would prevent brothers-in-law or their future descendants from fighting one another.
My own instinctive sympathy of course is with the unfortunate Louis, who is the one unattractive, shy and unsociable member of an incontinent pleasure-loving family (and about the one person in Versailles who *doesn't* have sexual designs of one sort or another, whether she is aware of them or not, on the little Austrian princess...), and who is expected to perform humiliating barnyard duties upon a wife he barely knows and with whom he has almost nothing in common. I'm not sure that in real life he would have been quite such an animal-lover as he is portrayed here (in the latest episode, he is shown lovingly cradling a chicken that his brother had received as a prize and immediately rejected in disgust), but it makes sense in terms of characterising him as probably the only gentle and 'safe' person at court in whom 'Toinette' can trust, if she could only get him to so much as talk to her. And it makes his apparent craze for hunting (and dislike of washing) more palatable to the audience, in terms of trying to escape from shallow sophistication out into the freedoms of the wild :-p
Toinette, as the central character, is portrayed as what felt like an occasionally anachronistic teenager, but again I assume this is in order to make her a plausible audience-identification protagonist and the show 'relevant'; it works. It was a little weird to me that she had a pug named 'Mops', since this *is*, in fact, the German word 'Pug' (as I happen to know from the art of E.M.K.81 on DeviantArt):https://www.deviantart.com/erik1881/art/a-pug-s-self-confidence2-556732895 ). I've no idea if that was historically accurate; after all, I used to know a cat called 'Kitty-Puss' ;-)
She forms a compelling central character as a strong-minded innocent out of her depth in a foreign culture, but determined to hold her ground. We actually care about what happens to her, which is vital to the success of the show.
I think another vital element is that nobody (even the unspeakable Provence) is depicted as entirely black and white; behind their confident façade they all have their vulnerabilities, and potential disaster hangs on their mistakes. Madame du Barry is riding an incredibly narrow line between her position as all-powerful court favourite to an infatuated monarch, and abruptly losing his favour -- without him, she is nobody, and he has a taste for younger women. Louis XV, Toinette's 'Papa-Roi', is trying to juggle the personal and the political at the same time, and play international chess with unwilling pieces (he really does try with his elusive, incomprehensibly celibate grandson, rather than simply raging at him). Politicians come and go on a royal whim. The audience can't simply sit down and happily hate somebody, because ultimately the characters are all human and they are all scared.
Of course there is plenty of costume porn, wet clothing and galloping-horse shots :-p
And with the amount of on-screen sexual intrigue hinted at -- not to mention Mme du Barry paired with just about *everybody*, so far as I could see, although since I couldn't tell several of the men apart with their hair in dishabille, I couldn't be certain who at court she was actually carrying on with! -- I can only imagine at the sort of burgeoning of fan-fiction that is likely to result :-D (I have carefully avoided looking...)
Anyway, I did watch the first episode, and found it enjoyable, and have gone on to watch the rest so far. It probably helps that the reign of Louis the Fifteenth is something that I *don't* know all that much about, historically -- I have carefully avoided doing any further checking up in order to avoid being annoyed by whatever historical liberties are being taken. (One thing I do seem to remember is that Marie Antoinette and her husband were in reality only about fourteen and fifteen respectively at the time of their marriage, as opposed to the seventeen or eighteen suggested on screen... an accurate depiction of which would presumably have rendered the show politically unappetising and impossible to show in America!)
Beyond that, I'm aware of the basic existence of 'the Du Barry', who is one of the many courtesans/mistresses of France who were far better known than the unfortunate Kings' wives, and that's about it :-p I'm assuming that the Dauphin's brother 'Provence' (?sp) is known by his title rather than that actually being his baptismal name, a theory backed up by the King's habit of referring to himself from time to time as 'France', and would guess that this is probably yet another of the trouble-making younger-brother-Philippes who have also featured so largely in the annals of France! (After all, the monarchy wasn't exactly known for its creativity in naming its heirs...)
It occurs to me forcibly that this is, basically, a Marriage Law fic ;-)
We know from history that the marriage does, eventually, succeed (and also, notoriously, the fate of both participants, which is a foreshadowing that makes this a slightly odd choice of subject and which the BBC is assiduously avoiding -- probably just as well). So it becomes in effect a slow-burn romance of a rather touching kind, wrapped in a drama of court and international politics.
It is a little surprising to me that so many countries continued attempting royal alliances by marrying off their princesses, given that the lifetime of the alliance was almost invariably far shorter than that of the marriage and that the foreign Queen in question would then end up stuck on the wrong side of a war with no discernable object achieved (e.g. Anne of Austria, Louis XIII's Spanish Queen, or King John's marrying off his daughter to Llewelyn of Wales, whom he proceeded to fight). I suppose the real gain was in the negotiations over what lands etc. would be included in the marriage terms, rather than in any hopes that being related by marriage would prevent brothers-in-law or their future descendants from fighting one another.
My own instinctive sympathy of course is with the unfortunate Louis, who is the one unattractive, shy and unsociable member of an incontinent pleasure-loving family (and about the one person in Versailles who *doesn't* have sexual designs of one sort or another, whether she is aware of them or not, on the little Austrian princess...), and who is expected to perform humiliating barnyard duties upon a wife he barely knows and with whom he has almost nothing in common. I'm not sure that in real life he would have been quite such an animal-lover as he is portrayed here (in the latest episode, he is shown lovingly cradling a chicken that his brother had received as a prize and immediately rejected in disgust), but it makes sense in terms of characterising him as probably the only gentle and 'safe' person at court in whom 'Toinette' can trust, if she could only get him to so much as talk to her. And it makes his apparent craze for hunting (and dislike of washing) more palatable to the audience, in terms of trying to escape from shallow sophistication out into the freedoms of the wild :-p
Toinette, as the central character, is portrayed as what felt like an occasionally anachronistic teenager, but again I assume this is in order to make her a plausible audience-identification protagonist and the show 'relevant'; it works. It was a little weird to me that she had a pug named 'Mops', since this *is*, in fact, the German word 'Pug' (as I happen to know from the art of E.M.K.81 on DeviantArt):https://www.deviantart.com/erik1881/art/a-pug-s-self-confidence2-556732895 ). I've no idea if that was historically accurate; after all, I used to know a cat called 'Kitty-Puss' ;-)
She forms a compelling central character as a strong-minded innocent out of her depth in a foreign culture, but determined to hold her ground. We actually care about what happens to her, which is vital to the success of the show.
I think another vital element is that nobody (even the unspeakable Provence) is depicted as entirely black and white; behind their confident façade they all have their vulnerabilities, and potential disaster hangs on their mistakes. Madame du Barry is riding an incredibly narrow line between her position as all-powerful court favourite to an infatuated monarch, and abruptly losing his favour -- without him, she is nobody, and he has a taste for younger women. Louis XV, Toinette's 'Papa-Roi', is trying to juggle the personal and the political at the same time, and play international chess with unwilling pieces (he really does try with his elusive, incomprehensibly celibate grandson, rather than simply raging at him). Politicians come and go on a royal whim. The audience can't simply sit down and happily hate somebody, because ultimately the characters are all human and they are all scared.
Of course there is plenty of costume porn, wet clothing and galloping-horse shots :-p
And with the amount of on-screen sexual intrigue hinted at -- not to mention Mme du Barry paired with just about *everybody*, so far as I could see, although since I couldn't tell several of the men apart with their hair in dishabille, I couldn't be certain who at court she was actually carrying on with! -- I can only imagine at the sort of burgeoning of fan-fiction that is likely to result :-D (I have carefully avoided looking...)