The Six Wives of Henry VIII

[meganbmoore]

I'd waffled for a long time about whether to watch this 1970 BBC drama due to the potential for favoritism fail, but caved in when I saw some debate recently about whether Henry was the main character, or his wives were, and felt the need to watch and have my own opinion on the matter.  Unsurprisingly, probably, I really liked it (Actually, I think I've loved all the UK dramas that came out arund that relative time that I've seen so far.)  It's formatted like Elizabeth R (Or Elizabeth R was formatted like it?  I'm not sure which came first.) with each of the six movie length episodes making up it's own independent story, and sometimes having overlapping events. 

From my POV, each wife is the main character of her episode, with Henry as a supporting character of varying prominence in each, but we all know I'm not unbiased in that regard.  It covers Henry's life and reign over approximately 40 years, but Henry himself is largely shown in how he ties into the story of each wife, as opposed to actually following his own story.  Much of his life is covered, of course, but I think he was largely a catalyst in their stories here, as opposed to his being the focus.  Opinions can understandably vary.

The series had a very positive take on all six wives, but didn't ignore their flaws, and I was happy that it largely managed to avoid pitting women against each other, which a lot of the fiction surrounding this part of history do.

Speaking of which, the BBC version of The Other Boleyn Girl with Jodhi May and Natasha McElhone was on the bonus features disc.  When I saw what it was I wondered why I'd never had an interest in that, then quickly remembered that, for some strange reason, a story about sister's pitted against each other over Henry VIII just didn't appeal much.  Especially when he ends up having one of them executed.  I can't speak for the book or the Hollywood movie, but in this, I didn't get the impression that Anne and Mary cared about each other at all until near the end, and the "Mary is pure and innocent and Good and Anne is mean and ambitious and brought it all on herself" thing got old really fast.  And...I am all for historical fiction about he women in history that usually get overlooked?  But not if it's at the expense of others.
 

Comments

[bigbrasskey]

The drama sounds interesting!

I hated the US american version of The Other Boleyn Girl. Especially when I did a little shallow research and found out that a) it lied about a bunch of stuff to be gross about her sexuality and punish her for it (like having her sent to France as 'punishment' for being sexually willful instead of going on political purposes and charming the pants off of everyone around her) and b) it lied about a bunch of stuff to create a false Madonna/Whore complex - Anne was the guardian of Mary's child, and she was the only one in the family who tried to help Mary after she was disowned by secretly sending her money. And the second one actually makes me rage so much, more than the first (maybe because I'm more inured to the first?) because, like, there is actual evidence that they cared for each other but that awful woman had to erase that because love between women, I dunno, didn't exist/isn't dramatic enough/wouldn't serve her overweening purpose of glorifying Henry, which they did relentlessly in the US version. In fact, I think you were there to witness my head explode in rage over witnessing parts as my mother watched it. (He rapes both of them in horrible ways but somehow he's the wounded party?)

There's a funny history spork thing here that soothes my rage, though it is for the US version.