TV Tuesday: History

[yourlibrarian]

Do you like historical shows? If so, are you looking for accuracy or realism? Or do you think other time periods are just a setting for telling stories and it doesn't matter if they are historically accurate?

Comments

[rodo]

I love historical shows! It's one of my favourite genres, actually. As for accuracy and realism... I am looking for them, sort of? I love shows that really go for the realism and let me explore a different time and place, ugly fashion, inconvenient morals and all. If a show doesn't do that, it has to go in a completely different direction. For example, one recent show I loved was My Lady Jane - about as historically inaccurate as you can get, but a lot of fun. It's the middle ground that tends to fail for me.

[yourlibrarian]

I have a similar issue with supernatural shows sometimes. If something is going along as normal and then you suddenly have a big supernatural element dropped in, that totally changes what that show is and also my expectations that have been built up. I'm totally ready to watch a supernatural show but I need to know going in that that's what it's about (or else that it is set up to debunk supernatural things).

[rodo]

You should spoil yourself for My Lady Jane too, then. Well, it's not much of a spoiler - half the cast can turn into animals. Which took me by surprise a bit when I watched it, considering I hadn't read any synopsis of it before starting. ^_^

[yourlibrarian]

I did try it out and I'm afraid it wasn't for me. But yes that's a good example! I was actually thinking of a different show which was a noir mystery, though they're not alone.

[dirty_diana]

I do enjoy historical shows! Realism is fine and interesting, I like learning things and not being distracted by wondering why that costume is clearly made of polyester, but it's largely not more important to me than a good story. Also the "all the women and poc should be in the kitchen or non-existent" type of realism can get in the bin. I don't need that type of realism at all, I'm here to have a good time.

[yourlibrarian]

Your comment made me think of Renegade Nell, which I recently finished. It's a supernatural historical so kind of outside the bounds generally, but I think sometimes period pieces are chosen for the restrictions they enact on a story (or characters).

[feurioo]

I hope you enjoyed Renegade Nell! :D

[yourlibrarian]

I liked it well enough, yes. I would definitely try out another season.

[jo]

I don't specifically seek out historical shows, but I have/do watch some and have mostly enjoyed them, for example, Vikings, The Last Kingdom, Outlander, Turn: Washington's Spies. I am not a historian, so while I'm sure there are always historical inaccuracies, I won't necessarily spot them, unless they're bloody obvious, or it happens to be something historic that I actually know something about. Turn is a good example of this -- the character of John Graves Simcoe on the show was a totally psychotic piece of s**t, but he's a very prominent historical figure here in Canada and wasn't at all like that, so that characterization irritated me. As to the question of am I looking for historical accuracy/realism, it depends. Some shows are intended to be... maybe not spoofs, exactly, but you know from the outset that they are going to play fast and loose with history -- e.g. The Great. And that's fine if it's made clear from the start. And I do get that shows will/have to take some dramatic license and deviate from historical reality. On the other hand, Outlander has deviated from the books at times in order to be MORE historically accurate. One deviation in season 4 made a lot of book fans VERY unhappy, but I respected their attempt to be more realistic.

One trend I have been noticing is casting a person of colour as a real, historical figure who was not a POC, e.g. Jodie Turner-Smith as Anne Boleyn in a recent UK miniseries. I'm all for more diversity in casting, and there were POC in England during Tudor times, but Anne Boleyn was not one of them.

[yourlibrarian]

Oh that's interesting about Simcoe. I wonder why they chose his character for that sort of role instead of creating another one?

Your comment about The Great reminded me about how for one episode in particular they stressed the "occasionally true story" subtitle -- I can't recall what it was now, maybe "very, very occasionally".

I have to say I'd generally prefer things to be more accurate rather than less accurate, if only because I would like to learn more about a period and because in general people probably learn more through TV and fiction than they ever do from historical writing or shows.

[feurioo]

Re: Simcoe.

Silverstein says that in the original pilot for "Turn," Simcoe died at the end of the episode, but Roukin's portrayal forced the producers to rethink that decision.

"We needed someone that kind of fit the mould of scary and brutal," he said.

Source

[jo]

Quite frankly, it wouldn't have been any better to have him die at the end of the pilot when he went on to have a very illustrious career as the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, including bringing in the first legislation anywhere in the British colonies to work towards ending the slave trade, among other things. If they needed a total jackass psychotic character, they could have just made one up rather than hijack reality.

[feurioo]

I just wanted to give the context that Simcoe largely got his arc due to Samuel Roukin's performance and because they needed a villain. Not saying those were good reasons.

[delphi]

I'm always more likely to check out a historical show, but I think I'm also more likely to bounce off them. I really need to vibe with a show's approach to a period.

If a show really wants to aim for historical accuracy, that's ideal for me - but it has to be aiming for accuracy across the board. I bounce hardest off shows where a lot of time and expense has been put into getting the guns and hairstyles just right, but where the actual diversity of experiences and complexity of social norms are incuriously flattened or deliberately erased. I'm more likely to enjoy a show that embraces anachronism with a purpose or with the aim of conveying a historical truth in ways that land with a modern audience than one that's hypocritical (or overly didactic or fetishistic in ways I don't enjoy) about its accuracy.

[yourlibrarian]

::nods:: Approaches can be a mixed bag.

[feurioo]

I don't really care about historical accuracy. You can give me historical fantasy like Sleepy Hollow, Renegade Nell, or The Irregulars and I will eat it up. But I also enjoy more realistic (albeit not really historically accurate) stuff like Harlots, The Knick, Boardwalk Empire, or Turn: Washington's Spies.

As I grew older, I've started to go more for the kind of historical shows in which female characters are not grossly abused or killed simply because "times were different then".

[yourlibrarian]

I saw both Harlots and TURN and found both to be great viewing. I thought Sleepy Hollow had some great characters and an interesting premise but the handling of it was a mess. They needed decent writers and some gumption.

Yes, that's definitely an issue when it comes to the treatment of women.

[lokifan]

I was about to say 'I don't care' but thinking about it, I do. I don't mind stuff being silly and anachronistic if that's the vibe (e.g. Merlin and its tomatoes) but I love stuff that shows people thinking differently and having different values because of their time and place, especially religious faith that isn't zealotry. (I'm an atheist myself but it still annoys me that religion is usually only prominent in a character's life if they're like, a witch hunter or something.) Double bonus points for showing people who care about like, human rights etc in a historically accurate way, because lots of people did! It's not necessarily an anachronism and if it's done right it makes me very happy.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, there have probably been many efforts in history to right wrongs that were never documented or are poorly known.