In 2015, Hamilton, a stage musical that retells the story of the founding fathers of America using hip-hop music and a BAME cast, premiered in New York and quickly became a global phenomenon. One of its most famous songs is The Room Where It Happens, in which the shrewd but charmless lawyer Aaron Burr plots to gain political power so that he can be a part of important decisions, such as which state to put the US capital in. This number was conceived as a clever way to get around the fact that historically nobody exactly knows how they managed to decide where the capital should go, as those who actually were in The Room Where It Happened never said.
I don’t know if UK Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden has ever seen Hamilton, but if he has, no doubt the poor man spent the whole time rubbing his temples and spluttering 'b-but George Washington wasn’t black! And people don’t say everything in rhyme! This is completely misleading audiences, it’s an outrage!' Mr Dowden recently had a similar reaction to series 4 of The Crown, the popular Netflix show chronicling the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.
Series 4 has attracted more attention than ever before. Set in the 1980s, a period that many viewers actually lived through (and more recognisably 'modern' to younger viewers), it has finally introduced Princess Diana - beloved campaigner, fashion icon, and martyr for cheated-on wives everywhere – and with it the portrayal of the infamous love triangle between Diana, her astute but charmless husband Prince Charles, and his mistress Camilla Parker-Bowles. In real life, it was more of a love pentagon, but The Crown has chosen to ignore the fact that Camilla was stuck in a deeply unhappy marriage of her own to a philandering husband and glosses over Diana’s own affairs. This – not unfairly, in my opinion - has led to accusations of anti-Charles bias, and a call from the Culture Secretary and several others to make clear that The Crown is fiction by adding a 'health warning' at the start of each episode.
When I heard this news, my first instinct was to laugh at the complete overreaction and then to despair at Mr Dowden’s utter lack of faith in us commoners to have brains. It only takes a second to realise that the writers couldn’t possibly have known the private interactions between an infamously secretive family and a woman who has been dead for 20 years. No one else was in the room where it happened. Unfortunately, people have seemingly taken The Crown to be the truth; since series 4 came out in November, a slew of nasty tweets, TikToks, memes, and comments attacking Charles and Camilla while canonising Diana have come out. This content mainly comes from Generation Z-ers who are learning about it for the first time, and Karens whose adoration of Diana for the twin achievements of being pretty and a princess (these are the same people who now attack Meghan Markle) has been reignited by the show.
The problem with negatively portraying Prince Charles, in contrast to someone like Aaron Burr, is that Charles is still very much alive and will surely become king within the next decade.* The man needs to keep up good publicity for *ahem* the stability of the nation. And I can’t deny that I’d be pissed off at having my mistakes from 40 years ago broadcast across the globe while my ex was portrayed as an eyelid-fluttering saint. But, well, Charlie boy has to reap what he sowed, and by all accounts, he was a complete prick to Diana who never really tried in his marriage. Additionally, he was maddeningly jealous of all the attention she got and didn’t support her with her mental illness and bulimia. It’s very difficult to feel sorry for him, and it certainly raises questions as to whether this man is suitable to become an unelected head of state just because he happened to be born into the right family. What I am angry about is the attacks on Camilla, whose only real sin was to sleep with a man that she loved, just because she was older and 'uglier' (not true at all!) than Diana. To reduce women to their looks is so basic. But hey, Karens and teenagers are basic, and I think that these are the only ones genuinely taking The Crown at face value. Most viewers are perfectly capable of telling fact from fiction, and it’s incredibly patronising of Dowden to think otherwise.
I’m personally more concerned at the devastation wreaked on the British arts this year thanks to lockdown and a flawed rescue scheme by the government. Billions of pounds have been lost, thousands of artists are unemployed, and the chances of great works like The Crown and Hamilton ever being produced again are in danger. This fuss over The Crown feels suspiciously like a distraction from the government’s botched handling of things- or maybe Dowden really just needs to read the room (Where It Happens).
*unless the Queen is immortal, which I’m starting to genuinely believe.
By Mia Crombleholme
Image courtesy of Jonathan Borba via Pexels