Posted on 01/05/2018 6:20:43 AM PST by Kaslin
Watching "The Crown" in the reign of President Trump is a trip into British nostalgia that leaves an American viewer with mixed feelings about the monarchy, the institution Americans loathed and left behind with a revolution of arms. Nevertheless, the democracy that followed is currently suffering from an overreaching populism with a president trying to fake out a "fake media," and it might benefit from a few lessons in nuance and understatement.
"The Crown" is a sophisticated television soap opera that runs against the grain of our troubled time. We watch Queen Elizabeth II grow as a sympathetic figurehead who uses her celebrity without flaunting it. She does what comes naturally through careful tutoring and artful tuning, and shows a flair for British understatement and profound personal self-discipline that contrasts vividly with the current style of in-your-face leadership in America.
Nobody elected Queen Elizabeth, and though her duties emerge more from the rules of decorum and tradition than from democratic custom and usage, those duties are circumscribed and limited by the law of the land as applied to a constitutional monarch. She's the most famous woman in the world today (Hillary Clinton, eat your heart out), having inherited her claim to the throne through her father because her uncle, former King Edward VIII, was a weakling of a king who served only for a mercifully short time and gave up all for love.
"The Crown," in its second season, feeds us with a silver spoon more about culture and character than government. It draws deeply on the costs of the decadence of Edward VIII, as we watch him move toward lust and love and away from obligation and duty, which inevitably leads him to nothing less than betrayal of his country after the abdication and the exposure of his nasty appreciation of the Nazi leadership in Germany.
There was no predetermined line for Edward's descent into disgrace, but it inhered in the character of a weak leader carried away by passion. One critic compares his abdication to expulsion from the Garden of Eden, but the abdicator in this account is both the one expelled and the snake in the grass.
The Netflix series runs through a spectrum of criticism from right to left. It's described as the jewel in the crown of conservatism by Kyle Smith in the National Review, where Elizabeth is a royal servant of the people, taking on the family obligation of patriotism and idealism. In a piece for The New York Review of Books, Jonathan Freedland sees her as a child trapped in a narrative lifted from "The Godfather" movies, where Elizabeth is a young Michael Corleone, who wanted to break free from his own powerful family dynasty to create a new and different path but could not achieve escape velocity.
So there's something here for everybody. There's a needed reminder that celebrity and power mean different things and are dependent upon where, when and why they're thrust upon the one chosen to serve. The early episodes, depicting a simpler earlier era, seem to move in slow motion compared with the hyper, high-tech, networked world we now uneasily inhabit.
American viewers of 21st-century television can observe these dramatic figures as sort of an updated Rorschach inkblot test, seeing in them what they want to see given various personal and political perspectives. The queen's virtues -- adhering to standards of faith, duty and traditional morality in a time when nothing is revered -- make her an unfashionable heroine, stuffy and strong. But she is virtue rewarded compared with her sister's snobbish indulgences as a free spirit who turns to alcohol when she finds nothing else within.
The queen, like the institution she embodies, cannot afford compassion and leniency toward her sister in the matter of marrying a divorced man (Britain has a difficult history with royalty and divorce), but she is a tough and thoughtful upholder of Burkean conservatism, educated in the risks and dangers on the slippery slope of ethical relativism.
Barack Obama, in an irony of our time, chose to grant a rare interview to Prince Harry on the BBC. Many of our cousins suggest Obama was angling for an invitation to a royal wedding. If the former president exposed an American weakness for persons royal, the new president might be said to prefer queens in the beauty contests he once sponsored. The British tabloids warned Prince Harry that he dare not invite Barack Obama and snub Donald Trump. Royalty may be sheltered from politics, but the prime minister is not.
"The Crown" is neither history nor a fairy tale about a princess who marries a handsome prince and becomes the queen. It's about the queen's moral choices when confronted with contrasting opportunities and burdens, both personal and public, in an imperfect world where tradition and rebellion collide. Pop-culture popcorn becomes food for thought.
I highly recommend this series. Can’t wait for Season 3
I don’t watch Netflix and have no use for it.
Truth or fake history, the series is not bad TV
Certainly better than anything running on the networks.
So far, although there is an adulterer, there are no queers
Dwelling in darkness dissuedes enlightenment
I highly recommend this series. Can’t wait for Season 3
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I loved every minute of it. It was riveting.
So much fake news in this tv show - Lord Snowdon a queen? Never heard that before! The Mountbatten family outright Nazis? Rumors, no proof. Prince Phillip a non-stop philanderer who was hooked up with Stephen Ward? The Ward story is a complete fabrication and it has never been proven that Phillip cheats. And Phillip is a man with a sense of humor as well as duty - not the whinging bore he’s presented to be by this low-grade Doctor Who actor.
The only good thing is the performance by Claire Foy.
The Crown is very well done. I am very surprised it was produced for Netflix. Netflix has some interesting story lines for their productions but often are crass and exploitative in sex, drugs and violence. Highly recommend The Crown. It is inspiring and amazing to see the queen rule firmly with self discipline. Though emotions are obviously there they do not rule. When there is a glimpse of emotion (passion) as expressed in the time she dispatched her uncle the Nazi loving former king, it’s a clean smack down and not slobbering in the gutter. Refreshing and better than most American TV.
Maybe the series is OK (I don’t have a working TV, I’ll have to catch it on DVD someday). But what about Fields’s comment on over-reaching populism? That seems to need a Barf Alert by itself if I’m reading it correctly.
Of course, I’m a guy who would not buy a Toyota while Martin Sheen was their spokesperson, so I really am hard-headed, just like my wife says. Still, an idea that is attractive to an airhead has to be looked at with some suspicion, I think.
Obama sponsored beauty contests, Obama wanted to be invited to the Royal Wedding?
Seems like the writer is projecting Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The second season has degenerated into a soft-core porn show, focusing heavily on the (dubious) sexual escapades of Princess Margaret, Prince Phillip, and anyone else with a zipper that can be undone.
If you’re looking for history, read a book. This is little more than ermine-clad tabloid scandal set against a posh backdrop.
I can’t comment on what you raise here. I don’t think the series absolutely claims that Philip cheated. He did have the appearance of doing some things.
The revelations about Edward and his wife are true I think. I think the soap opera life of Margaret portrayed was true.
Churchill by Lithgrow is superb.
I watched the episode last night of young Charles being bullied in school. He finally gets to go to Eton. The little guy buys his uniforms etc. Then, jack@ss Philip insists that he go to his school where he said his life there was great!
I don’t think any series, any high budget film or doc could recreate the real anguish that young Charles experienced there.
I love this series. As an American I have no idea how real it is. The segment of Jack and Jackie coming, and Billy Graham I think are true.
The series paints a really beautiful picture of Elizabeth and the Monarchy for us Americans. I’m told that Brits are waiting for the next season.
Love love love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great points and I agree. It’s challenging to watch this portrayal of Prince Phillip - I cringe every time they show a close up of his brooding face - it’s painful!
I’ve watched it more out of curiousity than anything, and in fact, I find the pace of it all to be quite dull. And why do they insist on looooooong draw out close ups of the ‘Queen’, are we supposed to count how many times she blinks??
If she were showing a change in expression to reflect a clue, I’d understand, but that is not what is shown.
You think the Kennedys were presented in correct fashion??? Faulty they may have been but to present them as Americans straight out of the Waldorf Salad episode of Fawlty Towers is another. And those actors were dreadful, truly dreadful. The actor playing Prince Philip is equally terrible. As I said, only Claire Foy manages to present a pretty, dignified Queenlike demeanor.
I will agree with those who think Lithgow was terrific as Churchill. He was; the first season was better than the 2nd.
“Nobody elected Queen Elizabeth”
Nobody voted for him either;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng
If you think of the casting as “likeable” vs “unlikeable” the producers are portraying the characters in this way, (IMO).
Elizabeth-The audience will love her. She’s smart, she witty, she street smart, she sexy, she’s pretty. In short, I think the whole series as the single most objective in making the viewer grow to love the Queen.
Philip-I find the man loathsome in some respects, who kinda comes around in the last episode, but overall, the audience is not going be overly fond of Philip.
King George-The audience will love the man.
Edward-Despicable along with his wife. The scenes where his own mother confronts him are powerful. Then the revelations of him in cahoots with the Nazis.
Margaret-I think the audience will feel sorry for her. I think practically every single scene has her holding a cigarette.
Young Charles-We feel sorry for the boy.
Queen Mother-The audience may tend to appreciate her.
Billy Graham-I think they depict the meeting very accurately.
Kennedys-I think Jackie is portrayed as the phony she was. Jack affable.
I love the series. How they are able to reproduce the era, and scenery etc is truly amazing. The attention to detail is really spectacular. Are you saying you hate it? Did you watch the all the episodes?
PS-What’s wrong with Fawlty Towers?
Nothing’s wrong with Fawlty Towers.
Favorite episode is the when the California couple, (he’s American not the wife), visits and wants fresh OJ and a Waldorf salad. Culminating in the end with the American rounding up everyone and asking if they’re satisfied.
That’s the episode I referenced.
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