Historical Movies Wildly Inaccurate

Madison.com has an article about the inaccuracy of historical films, especially the recent adaptation of The Other Boleyn Girl including quotes from one of my favorite historians Alison Weir.  I’m sure this doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but being a Tudor-era history enthusiast (I prefer that over nerd, dork, etc) I found this article particularly interesting.  I was really disappointed in The Other Boleyn Girl because it was not only completly wrong as far as history goes, it didn’t even really match that well with the story line of the original book by Philippa Gregory, which is one of my favorites.

Then, of course, there is The Tudors, Showtime’s over the top soap opera that doesn’t pretend to be accurate at all, though like Weir states in the article, I do enjoy the portrayal of Henry VIII by Jonathan Rhys Meyers who seems to get the intensity and conflicted impulses of the infamous king down well.

What’s really interesting is how popular Tudor era fiction is right now.  Sometimes it’s a little embarrassing that this is my hobby because it’s become so common these days.  I do enjoy watching all the films and TV shows, even if I know they aren’t correct.  Actually it’s a little fun to be able to point out all the inaccuracies, though I suppose it doesn’t make me a very good viewing companion.  In the article, Weir notes that the popularity of this era rises and falls frequently:

“These things tend to go in cycles. This period is very dramatic and you’ve got some vivid larger-than-life characters,” said popular historian and novelist Alison Weir, whose latest book is “The Lady Elizabeth.” “Power is such a sexy thing.”

I think this is probably true.  When I became interested in the period during my freshman year of college (after picking up The Other Boleyn Girl at the bookstore) it certainly wasn’t quite as popular.  You can bet that I’ll still be re-reading all my old books long after it’s become less cool to be a Tudor history fan.