Anne Boleyn

GagaJo

When I saw that advertised, I KNEW there would be complaints on Gransnet.

It isn't real. It's an adaptation. Give over with the racism.

Do not call me a racist. I find that highly offensive. I just happen to like authenticity in historical drama. That's my opinion and I am entitled to it, in the same way you are entitled to yours. No way is that racist.

I believe authenticity is in the ability in acting, not in appearance.

GagaJo Whatever is it in Sarnia ‘s post that caused you to attach racism to her post? As far as I understand the term racism denotes a negative attitude towards someone/people of a certain race. I have re-read Sarnia’s post several times and no way can I interpret it in the way you seem to have done. Like me I think she was simply commenting on the historical veracity or otherwise of the portrayal of Anne Boleyn. I’m genuinely interested to know why this evidently touched such a raw nerve with you and led to your unjust reaction.

I just happen to like authenticity in historical drama

Why the mention of graffiti and damage if all you're concerned with is authenticity?

Then surely, Hithere, to be authentic she should have worn pale makeup? Just asking.

If it was authentic we wouldn't be able to understand a word they say.
Of course there is some modern adaptation the actors don't speak, or neccesarily look, exactly as they really did.

Acorn

I am horrified with that suggestion. No, just plain no.

But if Othello were white, then the play wouldn’t make sense.
A white ewe and a black ram ? Or does the language have to be changed too. Iago was fairly easily able to exploit the insecurities of Othello and persuade him to murder Desdemona. I imagine that Othello’s insecurities were in part because he was black.

Mildmanneredgran

Today is the anniversary of her execution. Every year a bouquet of red roses is delivered to the Tower of London from an anonymous trust with the request to lay them on her grave. They are only removed when they have withered away.

Her execution was state sanctioned murder. Trumped up charges because her husband wanted to marry somebody else who might give him a boy.

There are people on Twitter blaming the BBC for rewriting history. So eager to criticise the BBC that they havn't noticed it is a Channel five programme

Sarnia

GagaJo

When I saw that advertised, I KNEW there would be complaints on Gransnet.

It isn't real. It's an adaptation. Give over with the racism.

Do not call me a racist. I find that highly offensive. I just happen to like authenticity in historical drama. That's my opinion and I am entitled to it, in the same way you are entitled to yours. No way is that racist.

Your statement was racist. WHY would you link a black actress to graffiti? It's aligned with the DM linking Meghan Markel's mother's neighbourhood JUST because she's black.

Your need for authenticity is an excuse for asking for TV / film to remain predominantly white.

So how far does authenticity have to go? Does the actress have to be English, does her father have to be an earl, does she have to have been educated in France, can she be older than Anne or younger, does she have to have an older sister or is it just the colour of her skin that has to be "authentic" for people to be happy?

*the DM linking Meghan Markel's mother's neighbourhood to 'the hood'

I don't remember any fuss when a French Canadian actress (Geneviève Bujold) played Anne Boleyn in Anne of a Thousand Days. She even won a award for it, how authentic was that?

I've heard that Henry V111 had a jousting accident which led to him falling off his horse casing a possible brain injury. Up until this point his behaviour had been normal, but afterwards his character changed and we all know the story after that. I've also read that Anne was very devout and all the charges against her were trumped up. We're never going to know the truth anyway. Sorry I digress, I don't mind a black Anne at all as it's only a TV show.

Ilovecheese

There are people on Twitter blaming the BBC for rewriting history. So eager to criticise the BBC that they havn't noticed it is a Channel five programme

???

I think she looks stunning.

Which is very shallow of me but that's about all I take from this.

Ilovecheese

There are people on Twitter blaming the BBC for rewriting history. So eager to criticise the BBC that they havn't noticed it is a Channel five programme

Typical!

All the 'disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' types who never see the inside of a theatre, and have closed minds.

Actually it has been great advertising for them. I mean we are all talking about it and it sounds as if it is big on twitter so it will probably get a big audience, the interested, the ones who want to be positive and the ones who want to be outraged.

GagaJo

Sarnia

GagaJo

When I saw that advertised, I KNEW there would be complaints on Gransnet.

It isn't real. It's an adaptation. Give over with the racism.

Do not call me a racist. I find that highly offensive. I just happen to like authenticity in historical drama. That's my opinion and I am entitled to it, in the same way you are entitled to yours. No way is that racist.

Your statement was racist. WHY would you link a black actress to graffiti? It's aligned with the DM linking Meghan Markel's mother's neighbourhood JUST because she's black.

Your need for authenticity is an excuse for asking for TV / film to remain predominantly white.

In my post I said I was fed up with PEOPLE thinking it is ok to graffiti, damage and remove items from our history they do not agree with. There was no link made between these people and Jodie Turner-Smith so I am puzzled where you see that. Neither do I want film and TV to be predominantly white. I just mentioned, that for me, I prefer historical drama to be portrayed as it was. Others have different opinions and that's fine. What isn't fine, however, is for you to suggest, for the second time, that you consider me a racist. To repeat myself I do not make racist statements and for you to keep saying I do is offensive to me.

The main problem is that we do not know how history really happened.

It has been manipulated and retouched so many times.

Well that is two of us Sarnia. I found your statement offensive, racially.

Why include the comment about graffiti if it had no link? You made the two comments in the same post, ergo, you have linked them.

Sarnia I mentioned above about a French Canadian actress playing Anne in a film back in the 60s or 70s. Does that bother you, did you comment on that? If not what is the issue? Is it skin colour or something else?

There is certainly a racial element to the OP, whether or not she meant it to be racist.

Saying that if Benedict Cumberbatch payed MLK there would be 'hell to pay' makes the point that white actors can't play black characters without comment, and that seems to suggest that there is more sensitivity given to black people than to white. This is not the case, of course, as (as was pointed out upthread) there are far more roles for white actors than for black, particularly if people are going to object if roles are not matched to people of the same colour as the original, whether in real life or in the book of the film - black James Bond, anyone?

The linking of the casting of Anne as black with graffiti and damage to statues of slavers, which I assume was what was meant by 'removing anything from British history that they don't agree with' is another racial element of the post. This was something that was said by a number of small C conservatives, as well as by out and out racists when the statue of Edward Colston was removed, and is, IMO disingenuous. As has been said, nobody can change history. What we can change is our attitude to events and people from the past, as our understanding of events evolves in line with modern sensibilities, which is what happened with the slavers. Yes, they could afford to be benefactors to a number of cities, but their money was made on the backs of the people they bought and sold and ill-treated. We need to see both sides of this, and if that means that we do not see the need to honour them with statues, then what is wrong with that? If, in a hundred years the feeling has changed, new ones can always be commissioned. None of it will 'change history'.

I am looking forward to the Ch5 series, but until it has been aired, we can't know why a black actor was cast, never mind whether the series is true to what current historians believe to be what really happened. Even that is highly debatable, as all that we can go on is what was written down and has survived for hundreds of years. Where Anne is concerned, the only portraits of her that survive were painted after her death, as Henry destroyed all images of her after her execution, and other than her death speech, there is very little that we know to be in her own words, so her image has always depended on what (largely male) historians have written about her. It would have been a brave man in the Tudor court who would have recorded anything good about her, and a significant number of rumours about her were started by Nicolas Sander, who was a Catholic supporter of Bloody Mary - a motive for discrediting the woman whom he blamed for the schism between the Church of England and Rome.

Subsequent historians have built on these myths and painted a picture of Anne as, variously, a witch, an adulteress, a schemer and a generally Bad Lot. If modern historians are trying to get a fuller picture, or to see her through more feminist eyes, then why not? Surely it is better to put all the information together as it is gathered, and not to insist that what used to be 'known' is all we need to know.

Sorry for the long post, but as you may have gathered, Anne is a particular interest of mine?

Of course we all know Anne Boleyn was white, the lady chosen to represent her just happens to be black - what's the issue here?