The Crown plans to depict the 'tampongate' call

Personally, I find dramas about children as victims sickening and repulsive. I feel for any parent and extended family members too.
So in terms of The Crown I guess my issue is that William and Harry were actually children at the time and suffered. Why add to this if only for their sakes?

Sorry - the first sentence should be clearer that I meant the drama about the Soham murders - of course the case was beyond ’awful’.

The Soham murders was pretty awful, as it didn’t add anything to the case (IMO) or help viewers understand what happened. The drama about the Moors Murders with Maxine Peake as Hindley, OTOH, did try to put the story in context - not to excuse anything for a minute, but to see Hindley’s sister’s point of view. Similarly, the (fairly) recent drama about Stephen Lawrence was about the police failings and the persistence of his parents to get justice for their son. Should that have waited 50 years to be shown? I think it’s important to see things like that when they are still in people’s minds. The one about Hillsborough is another example, or Little Boy Blue.

I find the whole idea sickening and rather distasteful, but that’s just my opinion. It’s like the dramatisations of the Soham murders, cruel, and not necessarily truthful, though some, having read comments about it , will take it as gospel.
There’s no compulsion to watch it, so we don’t.

I respect your point of view, and totally understand what you mean about not wanting your family’s business televised. I would hate that too. But putting a 50 year rule on things would mean there would be no programmes about crimes or anything involving people (unless you would apply the rule to some and not others). We’d only ever see dramas about things that happened in a different time, and I think that would be a bad thing. Drama, like literature, helps us to understand our world. Yes, we have to separate truth from fiction, and not take everything at face value, but that is true of newspaper reports and magazine journalism too.

As I said, it's just my opinion because I think 50 years is a respectful length of time, especially when it involves traumatic and upsetting national events like the death of Diana. This had an impact on not only the two boys and the family, but the whole nation.

Chestnut

^Did you also dislike the movie “the queen”? What about “the young Victoria”? Titanic? Hidden figures? The impossible? Erin Brockovich? Apollo 13?^

Well some of those are over 50 years ago and some I don't know what they are. I've always felt it wrong to portray anyone living without their approval, that's just my personal belief. I would hate for my family to be portrayed on TV without our agreement. Otherwise, surely 50 years is a respectful cut-off period without agreement? These events are only 25 years ago.

Why 50? Why not 100? Why not 5? We do not get to pick arbitrary numbers on what's "wrong".

The Queen came out less than 20 years after the events it depicted

I was reminded yesterday of Diana's black sheep jumper

She deserved so much better

I’m no monarchist, but I love the Crown , it’s such a fantastic spectacle. I don’t think less of the RF, it just shows them as mere mortals with better clothes and houses than the rest of us. My relatives , who live abroad, also love it, and take an interest in the doings of the royals on a gossip mag level. In fact my fashionista sister in law bought a “Queen Elizabeth” handbag at vast cost in Milan.

I think that on the whole, British people have a reasonable idea of the situation with the royal family. It’s what the rest of the world make of it that’s disturbing in my opinion.

MissAdventure

Its dangerous ground to not show something, or heavily doctor it, just in case it gives people an alternative view.

Absolutely.

We don't have netflix, have no idea to what it is, but from all these disturbing postings - I admit I'm content as we are.

Its dangerous ground to not show something, or heavily doctor it, just in case it gives people an alternative view.

eazybee

It does matter if people take different views about events portrayed in Netflix when the facts are not accurate. Both Tony Blair and John Major have protested formally at the invention of conversations with Charles concerning his apparent desire to force his mother to abdicate, just one of many 'interpretations' to enhance this so-called drama.

This is not fiction, as is Bridgerton, but an exploitation of people's lives for profit.

I'll watch it first, and then make my mind up. You may have a point, but so much depends on the context and how it is shown.

The example of Princess Margaret is a good example. To say that it is wrong to show her as an alcoholic brat is fair enough, but when that is tempered with clear sympathy for how she got there it paints a different picture. In cases like this, 'facts' can be remarkably fluid.

Inventing incidents which didn't happen is a different matter, although again, that is a technique which is often used to summarise a series of comments or actions that would take too much time to portray.

I don't know - as I say, I'm neither a royalist nor a vehement republican, but I have no intention of not watching something on the offchance that it might contain things that other people are unhappy about.

I would say it puts meat on the bones of the bland, better than us, image the royals have had up until recently.

Let's face it, the royals become more popular, the more thats known about them.

It does matter if people take different views about events portrayed in Netflix when the facts are not accurate. Both Tony Blair and John Major have protested formally at the invention of conversations with Charles concerning his apparent desire to force his mother to abdicate, just one of many 'interpretations' to enhance this so-called drama.

This is not fiction, as is Bridgerton, but an exploitation of people's lives for profit.

I would say thats possible, if he's as thick as some people believe him to be. Based on the media, of course.

maddyone

Smileless2012

Never watched it so have no idea about the gruesome images showing the death of William and Harry's mother, but having read your post Joseanne am staggered that H is prepared to have his lifestyle paid for by Netflix.

I agree Smileless. I have never watched this series either (we don’t have Netflix) but I’m also staggered that Harry is perfectly happy apparently to take money, huge amounts of money, from the company that profits from this series. And which is happy to portray his mother’s death, despite his claim that every click of a camera sends him into depression. Doesn’t really add up does it?

I agree, it is very strange that Harry, who seems to have found his voice on so many issues is not now defending his mum and distancing himself from Netflix. Maybe he didn't understand what he was signing up to in the first place.

that should say 'at not being Queen'.

Chestnut

^See, I'm defending her now. I wouldn't have said or felt any of that before watching the series.^
So the series has changed your view of the RF, and that means it does have an impact on people. It may have changed other people's view to make them dislike the RF. There are definitely people out there who think it's real and judge them by what they see.

Maybe. I doubt it though, as the series is, on the whole, sympathetic to the RF. It shows Princess Margaret as rather unpleasant and alcoholic, but it also shows the real frustration she had at to being Queen, but still having to live under the constraints that applied to the Royals. Philip is shown as rather damaged by his own unconventional upbringing, and whilst he is portrayed as adulterous and unbending when it comes to the way Charles is brought up, it is made clear that there are reasons for this.

In any case, does it matter if some people take one view and some a different one? It's not meant to be propaganda - it's a drama, and a very successful one. Millions of people watch and enjoy it, just as millions watch soaps. The fact that there are those who shout in the street at the actors who play baddies in Eastenders doesn't mean it should be banned from the screen, surely? Not everyone can distinguish fact from fiction, but I don't think that this means that drama should be aimed at the lowest common denominator.

Smileless2012

Never watched it so have no idea about the gruesome images showing the death of William and Harry's mother, but having read your post Joseanne am staggered that H is prepared to have his lifestyle paid for by Netflix.

I agree Smileless. I have never watched this series either (we don’t have Netflix) but I’m also staggered that Harry is perfectly happy apparently to take money, huge amounts of money, from the company that profits from this series. And which is happy to portray his mother’s death, despite his claim that every click of a camera sends him into depression. Doesn’t really add up does it?

See, I'm defending her now. I wouldn't have said or felt any of that before watching the series.
So the series has changed your view of the RF, and that means it does have an impact on people. It may have changed other people's view to make them dislike the RF. There are definitely people out there who think it's real and judge them by what they see.

It's a funny one, Glorianny, because I went to see the film Grace of Monaco but I honestly can't remember the car accident scene where she died, but it must have been dramatised. Wasn't her daughter Princess Stephanie actually with her, but we haven't heard anything from her. Maybe it's the way in which Harry constantly refers to the witch hunt by the paparazzi, the chasing into the tunnel and the cameras flashing and the devastating effect it has had on him, that has coloured my views. I feel for the two sons equally.
Sorry, getting away from OP now.

Joseanne

VioletSky

I also must have low moral standards and the sense of humour of an 8 year old so....

I sort of knew that what I wrote earlier, (as I stuffed a quick sandwich during the school lunchbreak), might get taken the wrong way, so I've quickly come back to explain.
My "high moral standards" do not tolerate deliberately upsetting people whoever, whatever, and by that I especially include gruesome images showing the death of William and Harry's mother. It turns me off watching to know that the nearest and dearest have to re witness all the grief.

I can be as smutty and bawdy as the next person in private, but having those conversations repeated in public would be beyond the pale by my standards.

Does that mean you have never watched any of these series Joseanne they're all based on real events. Sometimes telling the story is important. www.stylist.co.uk/entertainment/tv/best-tv-shows-based-on-true-stories/472450

As it hasn't been screened yet, we don't yet know whether there will be gruesome images or not . I rather hope not, as I do think it would be unnecessary, but I still think that everyone has a mother, and dramas about murder victims and so on must also be difficult for families to watch. They needn't do so, of course. I'm not sure that I would deliberately choose to put myself through the dramatisation of something that would so obviously be upsetting.