Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
…because I don’t like ’em. And that includes the most recent one with all the pretty people. The one where the piano-case-sized King with a bad case of Gout is played by that short-haired skinny dude.
Although it must be said, I certainly appreciated the pulchritude of the Anne Boleyn actress very, very much. No question about it: That is a babe. Hey, it’s a cable-network produced show chock full of historical inaccuracies, and hot young pretty people. There are definitely advantages to be found.
The problem is that the King’s Great Matter, as a significant event in the history of Western civilization, exists not as an origin of something that came later, quite so much as a consequence of other things that came earlier. History’s like that, you know: Things happen because other things happened earlier. Another thing about history is that we are very often left with a big plate of mess, along with historians arguing endlessly about what was real, what wasn’t, what’s provable, what’s questionable. We just don’t know.
But the point to a Henry VIII docu-drama is always the same: Eww, these sexist pig men were a bunch of selfish jerks.
It’s like watching The Daily Show. You’re supposed to take it seriously while it’s motivating you to get angry at, or hate, or act smug and morally superior to, somebody. But then when there is a provable mistake in the record or in the logic, all of a sudden the whole “docu-” part of it pops, like a birthday balloon, and you’re the one with all of the problem because you’re taking it seriously. It’s fiction loosely based on history, you big dummy.
Had a discussion with this with one of my Facebook peeps, who is not part of the problem, because she absolutely does know what she’s talking about. But, you know, my point stands:
…[W]hen the audience watches it and decides King Henry isn’t behaving according to acceptable ethics in our modern day & age, and neither is Cardinal Wolsey, or Thomas Boleyn, or any of those other disreputable characters, they’re not thinking of it as fiction, they’re getting all twisted off at REAL people.
And I don’t care about real dead people too much, but the “fans” end up laboring under the mis-impression that they’re learning something about history….I see people getting actually upset about certain things happening, that actually didn’t happen, or didn’t happen the way they were presented. They don’t know what’s certain and what’s questionable, and don’t care.
There’s also probably a gender divide taking place here. See, to a man, what we see happening is “You’re supposed to get all upset at these guys because they got married for purely materialistic reasons” and our reaction is something like…uh, don’t understand the concept of getting married for materialistic reasons. These days, guys marry into obligation and debt. Also — it has always been socially acceptable for ladies to get married for materialistic reasons, right up into the moments in which I am typing this sentence. See: Clinton, Hillary and Obama, Michelle, along with many others.
So I think the chicks get a lot of enjoyment out of this when the dudes…well, as always, we’d prefer something with tits, guns and car explosions.
If you want to watch a story that is a work of fiction loosely based on real historical events, ya know, this guy named Bill Shakespeare actually put a lot of time and effort into that stuff. There’s just no call for watching this bit about the fat slob with the six wives over & over again.
The way I see it, there are centuries and centuries of things going on, all related — they go on, they culminate in this one little drama about the fat pig who was lucky enough to be born into all this power and wealth, and who wants to get a divorce and still be a good Catholic. Kind of like any old Kennedy asshole. This causes a split with the Catholic Church, which drives many events that came afterward…but what came afterward isn’t explored in equivalent detail, and neither is the antecedent. The conclusion I have to reach is that this isn’t really about history, it’s about getting all ticked off at men who got married for practical reasons.
Which was acceptable then, and isn’t now. But then again, it’s rather silly to scowl on the practice with supercilious disapproval now. Kids and wives are liabilities, not assets. Liberals made them that way. So men don’t get married for security and prosperity. From the financial side of things, they get married for expense and risk.
But as I pointed out, above: It has always been okay, and is now, for women to be married for pragmatic reasons. It has also always been a pretty solid plan for them to do so, one very likely to achieve success, with little to no risk. And for the most part, is now, although that last part may be on something of a downslide, since I’m not sure how appealing a financial prospect is the average bachelor during Obama’s man-cession.
That all having been said, and I think what follows speaks for most thinking human males: I find it difficult to condemn fictional constructs of men who’ve been dead for half a millennium, when that’s just the way things worked all over the place, with the upper crust types anyway, since Roman times and before. As a modern man, I don’t understand “get married for power and wealth” — that whole concept predates me. And I can’t join in on the “two minutes hate,” which seems to be where all the passion is invested.
And I really don’t understand the types who gather around, cluck their tongues in disdain at King Henry and Thomas Boleyn, and turn around and say “Hillary for President in 2016.” T’heck??
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Is that really the appeal of this show, do you think? I have to admit, I enjoy it, and for reasons I assumed most people did — it’s just highbrow soap opera. Everyone in that show comes off miserably, even that smug, self-righteous prick Sir Thomas More (now there’s a proto-liberal for you). And the soundtrack’s nice, and there’s some prime eye candy, and tits as far as the eye can see. I can’t say I saw much modern politics in there at all, to be honest.
- Severian | 06/15/2013 @ 14:58No more than any other “soap opera.” Isn’t that the appeal of soaps in general? Ooh, that dirty rotten creepy jerk bastard, look what he just did…
- mkfreeberg | 06/15/2013 @ 15:43[…] PLEASE: No More Docu-Dramas About Henry VIII because I don’t like ‘em … […]
- Steynian 474rd | Free Canuckistan! | 06/16/2013 @ 15:29FWIW, Henry VIII wasn’t always built like a human planet. I’ve seen the armor made for him when he was young, and back then he was built like Superman. He took strongly after his grandfather, Edward IV, who was six-foot-plus tall and blond and very handsome.
It so happens that the great portraitists didn’t get to England till his health had gone seriously Bad.
- Technomad | 06/16/2013 @ 20:44I’m just always amazed at how long Anne Bolyen managed to keep the King out of her bed. And from our modern point of view, we root for her to win and the old wife to be kicked to the curb. There’s a real feminist idea. The real sexism is his treatment of Anne of Cleves.
- teripittman | 06/20/2013 @ 11:33