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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Oh, another point that may not have been made (I didn't read the entire thread) Queen Charlotte had some African ancestry. At least according to some historians. Thus the running with this idea has its context--it isn't coming from thin air.[/quote]

This is the part that got me.  If they decided to make Queen Charlotte black, then they’re going with that theory, that she had some African heritage.  They also made her husband, King George, go mad - which is also historically accurate.  I couldn’t reconcile some parts of this show being fairly accurate with most of the show being completely fabricated fluff.  I mean, it was fun to watch, but I would have preferred some consistency.  Either be historically accurate throughout, or be completely fictionalized and fantastical.

Also, the sex was WAY too much.  I know many of you enjoyed it, but the amount and explicitness was a major turn off for me.  [/quote]

How do you watch shows like The Tudors or The Spanish Princess? All the things you object to there as well.[/quote]

DP.  I liked this show, but it's different genre than the Tudors or Versailles.  
I initially thought it would be kind of like Marie Antionette with Kristen Dunst.  The sketchers and modern music and historical inaccuracies worked so well there.  But it isn't really that either.

I think that what gets me about this show is that it is internally inconsistent.  
-Everyone is afraid of whatever the queen might say, but it is completely dismissed if Lady Whistledown says something different.  
-[b]No one can even go for a walk unsupervised without scandal, but people are sneaking off and walking alone together all of the time.  [/b]
-[b]The men are supposedly Lords and Dukes of these great estates, yet, other than Lord Featherington, they don't seem to have any worries or responsibility at all.  The only man that acts like a man is the Duke's friend the boxer.   [/b] 
-The mothers have an eye for their daughters to marry up in the world and they are shocked when someone marries for love, yet everyone seems to marry for love, and there are absolutely no consequences.  
- There seems to be more or less a matriarchal society.  [b]The men and fathers have very little influence, and the most the male leads can really do is be "snagged" by the women.  But at the same time, the women seem to think they have very little power and are constantly worried about being "ruined."[/b]

[/quote]

DP.

This may be inconsistent, but it's also realistic. There were strong social norms, but people are still humans. Maybe because I'm Catholic, it seems so plausible! Before the sexual revolution in the U.S. and elsewhere in the 1960s, sex among teens and the unmarried was strictly prohibited and socially censured. Yet, plenty of Catholic teenage girls got pregnant and went to "visit a distant relative" for several months as a way of hiding their pregnancy and putting their child up for adoption.

The three men with any real screen time that were also lords or dukes were all shown working and managing the affairs of the family and estate. The duke was drawn away from his honeymoon activities by the servant who told him what a mess the estate's books were in, and he subsequently working at that desk for long hours all the time after that. Daphne's brother is often shown in his study working and managing things. And the Featherington father, while pathetic and broke and clearly incompetent, is at least trying to set up a scam to fix his finances. The younger sons seem of an age where they're out of school but haven't set up professions or their own households yet. I would assume that's just a matter of time.

Most women were dependent on men, maybe even especially wealthy women, to maintain a respectable lifestyle. Women generally could not own property, inherit property, or control their own financial affairs. Legally, they had very few rights. They had to marry well, and would have no hope of doing so if they were morally/sexually compromised. The stain of compromise would extend to their whole family, including unmarried sisters. In that context, the men actually did have the power to call the shots, but the women had to be adept at manipulating the situation (and the men) to get what they needed. Jane Austen's novels were written as a pointed critique of this reality.[/quote]

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