Tabloids: Gossip, Innuendo, and Déclassé

[JasonCC]

Gosh, I remember the tampon story and the Fergie sucking the Texan's toes too.....it's weird to think I'm older than Prince Charles was then. He just never seemed young to me?

[Umbelina]

32 minutes ago, JasonCC said:

Gosh, I remember the tampon story and the Fergie sucking the Texan's toes too.....it's weird to think I'm older than Prince Charles was then. He just never seemed young to me?

As Anne said in the episode, he's always been older than his years.

 

[Ellaria]

15 hours ago, JasonCC said:

Gosh, I remember the tampon story and the Fergie sucking the Texan's toes too.....it's weird to think I'm older than Prince Charles was then. He just never seemed young to me?

Agree. He never seemed to be young or fun or exciting. At least, that's my interpretation of the media-constructed image of him.

Obviously, I don't know the real Charles and I believe that he has a better nature that is revealed in private. However, as a product of his upbringing and privilege, there are also unflattering habits.

[sistermagpie]

3 hours ago, Ellaria Sand said:

Agree. He never seemed to be young or fun or exciting. At least, that's my interpretation of the media-constructed image of him.

Obviously, I don't know the real Charles and I believe that he has a better nature that is revealed in private. However, as a product of his upbringing and privilege, there are also unflattering habits.

There was a biography of him that came out not long ago and I swear I remember reading a review that said even the biographer seemed to dislike him. Because apparently he does get on a lot of peoples' nerves.

[Umbelina]

9 hours ago, Ellaria Sand said:

Agree. He never seemed to be young or fun or exciting. At least, that's my interpretation of the media-constructed image of him.

Obviously, I don't know the real Charles and I believe that he has a better nature that is revealed in private. However, as a product of his upbringing and privilege, there are also unflattering habits.

 

6 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

There was a biography of him that came out not long ago and I swear I remember reading a review that said even the biographer seemed to dislike him. Because apparently he does get on a lot of peoples' nerves.

To both comments.

He's a strange duck in many ways, IMO of course.  He was, for a long time "the most eligible bachelor in the world" and frankly, the press was pretty flattering to him then as I recall.  He was popular when he picked Diana and finally married too, right up until the moment he said "Whatever love is."  Dark clouds and questions began to gather at that moment I believe.  The romantic "most eligible" thing began to recede and frankly, it started a downward slide for him.

His odd quirks and easy convincing about things from the weird to the prescient (mind healing illness to climate concerns for example) began to turn people off as well.  Frankly, he came off as nutty far too often, and the kind of nut that is convinced his are the only correct views.

As the Diana and Camilla situation worsened, including tapes, and interviews, he was pretty much sunk. 

He is just so amazingly privileged that he IS disconnected, he may think of himself as "modern" but his actions towards both luxury and servants remind one of the 18th century, not present day.  However, he and his attitudes would have probably fit right in with those from 2 or 5 hundred years ago.  Is he worse than the royalty of the past?  Probably not, it's a pretty motley crew.  The main differences are cameras, tapes, and global instant news and media.

In some ways, it seems he was simply born in the wrong century. 

[sistermagpie]

8 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

In some ways, it seems he was simply born in the wrong century. 

So many things about his whole situation seem exactly that way. His marriage to Diana would have worked out perfectly well (providing she didn't get pregnant by anyone else while they were married) if it had happened in previous centuries. Everything was made worse by the fact that the young girl he married turned out to be not just good at the job, but good at the job of being a royal in the 20th century, something Charles' own family didn't yet understand. 

[SuprSuprElevated]

This production seemed to revere the queen and her father, and presented just about everyone else (in the family) to be jealous, fame-starved, and mentally ill.  The one exception might be the Queen Mum, who came off as largely cold-hearted and devoid of any semblance of kindness.  I would be interested to know if there were any legitimate "insiders" involved in this production, or if it was purely the invention of its creator/s.  

Side note - I read in the past few days that The Crown creator, Peter Morgan and Gillian Anderson (Maggie Thatcher/S4) have split after a 4-yr relationship.

Edited December 21, 2020 by SuprSuprElevated

[Razzberry]

5 hours ago, SuprSuprElevated said:

Side note - I read in the past few days that The Crown creator, Peter Morgan and Gillian Anderson (Maggie Thatcher/S4) have split after a 4-yr relationship.

Aah.  Perhaps this explains the Thatcher-heavy season.   Every scene seemed to go on twice as long as necessary by her slooooow manner of speaking.  Every bow was agonizing - I worried that she couldn't get up.  

[Growsonwalls]

8 hours ago, SuprSuprElevated said:

This production seemed to revere the queen and her father, and presented just about everyone else (in the family) to be jealous, fame-starved, and mentally ill.  The one exception might be the Queen Mum, who came off as largely cold-hearted and devoid of any semblance of kindness.  I would be interested to know if there were any legitimate "insiders" involved in this production, or if it was purely the invention of its creator/s.  

Side note - I read in the past few days that The Crown creator, Peter Morgan and Gillian Anderson (Maggie Thatcher/S4) have split after a 4-yr relationship.

Some of the stuff didn't need an insider. The stuff about Charles' upbringing and the lack of affection Elizabeth showed her kids was well documented ... by Charles himself. They actually didn't go into some of the even more callous choices Elizabeth made, like not visiting Charles when he was seriously ill, but instead writing him a "farewell letter."

[Umbelina]

3 hours ago, Razzberry said:

Aah.  Perhaps this explains the Thatcher-heavy season.   Every scene seemed to go on twice as long as necessary by her slooooow manner of speaking.  Every bow was agonizing - I worried that she couldn't get up.  

She was a slow deliberate speaker though, but yeah, in spite of what I consider great acting (I liked her portrayal better than Streeps!) Thatcher herself was just a boring, and pretty terrible person, so it's hard to give a damn.  I just wanted to get back to the royals. 

Although, at times I felt the same way about the other PM's on this show, except Churchill.  I think it's because I knew less about them, and those times, than I did about Thatcher's time though.

19 minutes ago, Growsonwalls said:

Some of the stuff didn't need an insider. The stuff about Charles' upbringing and the lack of affection Elizabeth showed her kids was well documented ... by Charles himself. They actually didn't go into some of the even more callous choices Elizabeth made, like not visiting Charles when he was seriously ill, but instead writing him a "farewell letter."

True.

I agree that overall, the Queen has been well treated.  For better or worse, she's been serving for many decades, and rarely put a foot wrong.  She's also in her final years, attacking her would be pretty terrible, though season 3 certainly did show some of her faults.

All in all, it's a netflix show, things could have been very explicit, we could have seen Philip having sex with one of his babes, or, for example, Elizabeth's boobs.  Instead we just got to hear that they were her best feature according to Philip.  We could have had actual Philip and Camilla sex scenes, on and on.

It's overall, been pretty mild, and while not being completely factual, most of what they've shown has been documented for years.  After all the ridiculous backlash, I do wonder if next season we will actually have tampon gate.  Morgan is being attacked so much, he may as well go full out.

[Epeolatrix]

Quote

After all the ridiculous backlash, I do wonder if next season we will actually have tampon gate.  Morgan is being attacked so much, he may as well go full out.

And Squidgygate, for the sake of fairness.

[swanpride]

Nah, I think that Thatcher were supposed to have that many scenes all along. Just like Churchill got nearly as much attention as the Queen in season one. You can basically measure the importance of any given minister based on how much time is spend on them of the show. So far the ranking is Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson, Arden (the latter one mostly due to his horrible tenure as prime minister, though).

[Roseanna]

3 hours ago, swanpride said:

Arden (the latter one mostly due to his horrible tenure as prime minister, though).

Do you mean Anthony Eden?

[swanpride]

Ah...right. Naturally I mean Eden. Thanks.

[PeterPirate]

I recently re-watched The Iron Lady.  I gotta say, I really like having different actors playing the same character.  I suppose Meryl Streep was more accurate in her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher.  And I think that film was an honest look at Thatcher's life, almost to the level of being a docudrama.    

That said, I am posting in the Tabloids thread because The Crown is an expensive, live-action tabloid.  And Gillian Anderson gave us a fictionalized, tabloidish version of Thatcher.  Except for the tilted-head thing, I really enjoyed her "extra" portrayal.  

[swanpride]

The Iron Lady wasn't particularly accurate either, a lot in it was switched around for more drama.

[Growsonwalls]

I think Margaret Thatcher was such an awful person that any dramatization is bound to make her look better than she was.

[PeterPirate]

21 hours ago, Growsonwalls said:

I think Margaret Thatcher was such an awful person that any dramatization is bound to make her look better than she was.

Well, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.  Whether one thinks of Thatcher as a good/better or bad/worse person is up to the individual viewer.  I just think The Iron Lady is closer to Downfall or The Last Emperor, and this show is closer to the Cate Blanchett movies about Elizabeth I.  

Along those lines, the scene between Michael Fagan and the Queen wasn't all that historically accurate.  Peter Morgan used the character to give a voice to people who don't have access to the sovereign.  In the end I think that made for a better TV show.  

[Roseanna]

23 hours ago, Growsonwalls said:

I think Margaret Thatcher was such an awful person that any dramatization is bound to make her look better than she was.

I don't it doesn't matter what kind of person Thatcher was. What does matter is what kind of policy she had. Even if the prime minister, or the president for that matter, were the most nicest person, she or he can be a complete failure as a leader.

[Growsonwalls]

2 minutes ago, Roseanna said:

I don't it doesn't matter what kind of person Thatcher was. What does matter is what kind of policy she had. Even if the prime minister, or the president for that matter, were the most nicest person, she or he can be a complete failure as a leader.

That's sort of what I'm saying. That her policies were considered so awful for England that any personal drama is likely to give her more sympathy.

[truthful]

I've been thinking a lot about the next season. I obviously have no idea how Peter Morgan will end it, but I think the perfect ending would be the wedding of Charles and Camilla, followed by a montage of other weddings and celebrations. I'll get to why I think that's perfect later.

But with the stuff before that there is a lot of ground for them to cover. With the deaths of Margaret and the Queen Mother. Blair and Iraq. 9/11. The millennium dome. Some other stuff. Oh and of course the death of Diana and Dodi. With the Diana death I suspect it will only be in the first couple of episodes of next season. There's been countless stuff in regards to that, so I guess whilst they'll be respectful of that moment they won't dwell too much about it because there's so much other stuff to get through over the remaining eight episodes.

Anyway I think the big story for this final season will be the Queen going from despising Camilla to accepting that Charles loves Camilla and that sometimes love can triumph over duty. Because from what I read she actually sent someone to try and break up Camilla and Charles because she thought it was ruining the firm. But that someone realised that the love between Charles and Camilla was too strong. So then a sort of PR campaign was launched both public and private so that the 2005 wedding could go ahead.

Anyway, I had an idea, a little speculation that one of the episodes could be a two hander between the Queen and Charles. We know that Charles did speak to his mum before he popped the question to Camilla. So that could be the basis of that episode, or it could be something else. With Charles basically wanting approval from Elizabeth as both his Queen and his mother for his relationship with Camilla. Whilst the Queen, with memories of history (including of her son), devotion to duty, and a woman of her own strong moral conviction, reluctant to give that approval to her son that so desperately craves it from her. But the point of the episode would be that it starts with the Queen asserting her power with the Charles cowering, but midway through the episode he decides to get a spine and sticks up for his love Camilla. With the end Elizabeth gives her approval to her son and Camilla. So like a shift of power would happen in that episode. Where the Queen finally becomes the mother that Charles has been wanting for nearly all his life.

[BlackberryJam]

‘I thought our story was epic, you know, you and me. Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined, bloodshed. Epic.’ (Logan Echols from Veronica Mars)

If there is a modern love story that has spanned years, ruined lives and resulted in bloodshed, it’s Charles and Camilla. 

[jschoolgirl]

On 11/28/2020 at 6:03 AM, Mellowyellow said:

Anyone have goss on what happened after the divorce? Did their relationship calm down? Were they just civil? I assume they would still need to discuss the children etc

I have read, but I cannot remember where, that she and Charles ended up as friends, and that Diana "nagged" Charles about "making an honest woman of Camilla."

More recently, I've read Diana would not allow badmouthing of Charles, even by those closest to her, because he was the father of her children.

I've also read that Charles has said in the beginning they loved one another very much. If you look at early photos and videos of them, this is not that hard to believe.

[dubbel zout]

32 minutes ago, jschoolgirl said:

More recently, I've read Diana would not allow badmouthing of Charles, even by those closest to her, because he was the father of her children.

She was also always careful to say in public that Charles was a good father. I tend to think that was probably true. He wasn't perfect, of course—no one is—but I think his own upbringing made him very aware of what he missed, and he didn't want his sons to suffer that. 

32 minutes ago, jschoolgirl said:

I've also read that Charles has said in the beginning they loved one another very much. If you look at early photos and videos of them, this is not that hard to believe.

I do think it's hard to believe. Charles was the one who said "whatever 'in love' means" when asked that in an engagement interview. I have no doubt he was captivated by Diana's youth and beauty, but loving her very much? No.

[Athena]

I've read that Diana cared a lot for Charles because he was her first love. It was part of the messiness of the divorce because she really did love him. I think they grew to be civil and respectful of one another especially with regards to co-parenting.

[dubbel zout]

That's just one of the sad things about her death: She and Charles had gotten to a place where they could successfully co-parent their sons.

[Spartan Girl]

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

That's just one of the sad things about her death: She and Charles had gotten to a place where they could successfully co-parent their sons.

And this season really dropped the ball on that.

Don't get me wrong, I’d love for the episode of Diana’s death to have Charles finally feeling some genuine remorse instead of falling back on playing the victim. We might get that much at least. But I would have liked episode 9 to have had them reach that understanding instead of ending it with yet another ugly fight.