If you know the truth of Lady Jane Grey, Queen Charlotte or Anne Boleyn then ‘sis-torical’ fiction won’t do you any harm but if it is the first time you have ever come across these historical women, it matters greatly, says Rachael Tearney.
There are many new shows to choose from all the time on the various streaming entertainment apps.
It’s a great time to be alive, with so much choice pumped straight into your living room, you don’t even need to leave the sofa.
However, just because technology allows for advances, it does not mean it is automatically used for the betterment of mankind. It appears at this moment the opposite is true. The huge advances in technology are being used to one end… CONTROL.
Whether it’s ID, digital banking or supermarket loyalty cards, they’re all storing our data and being used to control us. An endless stream of programs also means you can endlessly programme young brains.
An endless stream of programs also means you can endlessly programme young brains.
We have a new trend, apparently called ‘Romantasy’ – I would suggest a better title would be ‘SIS-torical Fiction’ or ‘Sis-tory.’ What does it entail? Well, you need a heroine and she must be from Britain’s great past. It helps if she’s well-known or from a well-beloved era. She must, despite her lack of manners and etiquette, have extraordinary powers and charms, do extraordinarily brilliant things. She can fight, talk politics, swear and leave all the men dumbfounded and surplus to requirements. You can include in this kind of production any amount of factually incorrect information; modern day social liberalism is preferred. It doesn’t matter, you can do whatever you like and call it a costume drama.
It’s all good fun, doesn’t do any harm. Doesn’t it?
If you know the truth of Lady Jane Grey or Queen Charlotte or Anne Boleyn, or the Regency age, or the Tudor age, then yes, it won’t do you any harm but if it is the first time you have ever come across these historical women, it matters greatly.
It is introducing a factual character to young minds as a complete fantasy of herself. Such a woman never existed. Britain’s past never resembled that world. The purpose is to deliberately blur the lines. To make it impossible to tell fiction from fantasy.
It is introducing a factual character to young minds as a complete fantasy of herself. Such a woman never existed. Britain’s past never resembled that world. The purpose is to deliberately blur the lines. To make it impossible to tell fiction from fantasy.
Hillary Mantel once expressed the tendency of historical writers to empower their heroines as problematic because it is inaccurate; they were not empowered. I’d argue the power of which Mantel and others speak, is ‘Feminism’. Many females in history exercised great power, Elizabeth Ist heads a long line of powerful English Queens. This isn’t the kind of empowerment they mean though.
There is (yet another) great speech of Mrs Thatcher’s where she explains the 20th century has been plagued by ‘isms’, Socialsim, Communism, Feminism – each of them is equally as destructive as the other.
The empowerment of historical women is to allow them to rise up against men and social convention. G K Chesterton asked, ‘why is a woman free when she works for her employer and oppressed when she helps her husband?’ Why indeed?
Surely, true freedom for women and indeed men – is choice, isn’t it?
It could be successfully argued Feminism has taken away women’s choices. Women now have to justify not working, they have to justify having babies and leaving work to be a homemaker. They are expected to be workers, or we could say ‘wage slaves’.
The Socialists have successfully reconstructed society so that women (and men) are expected to give up their children, hand them over to the state all day every day, whilst their parents work and we all pay for exceptional ‘childcare’. Quite what makes modern childcare ‘exceptional’ is not clear. Is it the soon to be demonstrated teeth cleaning prowess?
We’ve stopped discussing things like this or asking questions such as do women really have the best deal now? Has Feminism really improved women’s lives?
Does ‘Sis-torical Fiction’ subvert a women’s expectations of life, the role of women (and men) in history and therefore in the present?
Trump’s pick of VP has stirred up controversy already, with his comment about crazy cat ladies. It does beg the question though, how would such a woman as Ms (not Miss) Lady Jane fare these days? Not in the imagined replica of Regency or Tudor Britain created in these fantastical stories but in a genuine 20th century setting, now that we’ve all been enlightened by Socialist theory?
Would our crude, rude, educated feminist romantic heroine bag the most eligible bachelor in England? Or would she be a childless, ‘crazy cat lady’ attending left-wing meetings like a good citizen, spraying sculptures with orange paint for ‘Just Stop Oil’ having put sisterhood first and refused marriage; emasculated every man she ever met and spend her days rambling about in an empty house reading ‘Romantasy’ novels wishing she’d done it all differently?
What is the impact of this application of the twentieth century feminist narrative of ‘Sistory’ to our past? What will be its effect on our interpersonal relationships? Only the future will reveal the impact of ‘Sis-torical Fiction.’
Follow Rachel at @WritesRachael
