Can you believe that we’re still talking about Season 4 of The Crown? LMAO. I mean, I understand why Prince Charles is upset about it. Ten hours of Netflix programming literally destroyed Charles’ 25-year rehabilitation campaign, to embiggen his own image and Camilla’s image after his divorce and after Diana’s death. As we discussed, Charles has powerful allies in the press and government, and many UK tabloids have been angrily arguing for Netflix to put a “disclaimer” on The Crown, saying that it is a work of fiction. The British Culture Minister Oliver Dowden said the same thing, that Netflix should put a disclaimer. Netflix refused, hilariously. About a week ago, Josh O’Connor (who plays Charles) was asked about Clarence House’s hate campaign and Dowden’s comments. This is what O’Connor had to say:
“We were slightly let down by our culture secretary, whose job it is to encourage culture,” O’Connor told Times staff writer Yvonne Villarreal in an interview for a forthcoming episode of “The Envelope: The Podcast,” referring to British culture minister Oliver Dowden’s request that Netflix append a “fiction” label to the series. “In my opinion, it’s pretty outrageous that he came out and said what he said. Particularly in this time when he knows that the arts are struggling and they’re on their knees, I think it’s a bit of a low blow.”
O’Connor, an avowed republican “in the British sense of the word,” also echoed Netflix’s own rejection of the proposed disclaimer: “My personal view is that audiences understand,” he said. “You have to show them the respect and understand that they’re intelligent enough to see it for what it is, which is pure fiction.”
There was already huffing and puffing in the UK about O’Connor’s comments, and now I wonder if those same old farts will talk sh-t about Emma Corrin, who recently commented on the controversy too:
Emma Corrin, who plays Princess Diana on the fourth season of “The Crown,” doesn’t believe the hit Netflix series should be labeled as a work of fiction, as was requested this month by Diana’s brother, Charles, and the U.K. government’s culture secretary, Oliver Dowden. “It is very clearly a dramatized version of events,” Corrin tells me when I chat with her from her London apartment for an upcoming episode of the Variety and iHeart podcast “The Big Ticket.” “This is fictitious in the same way people don’t mistake ‘Succession’ for what actually happened with the Murdochs.” Even so, Corrin says, “I also understand [the request] comes from a place of sensitivity and protectiveness of the royal family and Diana.”
Yeah. Emma’s comparison to Succession is apt, although it’s not like the characters in Succession are actually given the Murdochs’ names. If Brian Cox was actually playing a character called Rupert Murdoch, people would feel differently about the show. That being said, the rest of it from Emma and Josh is right-on. And Prince Charles, his Clarence House staff, the British press and the British government made an absolute hash of their hate campaign.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Netflix/The Crown.
I must be one of only a handful of people who has never seen The Crown. Im starting to wonder if it’s worth trying to catch up. Or if it’s even possible to catch up this late in the day.
If you want to just jump in at season four you’d be fine. Yes it’s telling the story of the queen chronologically but I doubt not having seen 1-3 would be an issue.
I did as well. I tried the first couple of episodes in Season 1, but was put off by the colonialism and positive slant toward the monarchy. I watched Season 4 for Diana and Gillian Anderson. I admit I did fastforward through the Princess Margaret bits after a while- she was a snob and bore. As I lived through this time (I am Diana’s age) I could compare it with what I knew. They were still too kind to Charles and Camilla, and pushed the great love story without admitting she was just one of multiple lovers, but actually, the Diana bits were quite moving. They captured the spirit and sense of the story quite well.
I watched all four seasons but I agree, you can just jump in. I liked the first three seasons, but I agree they were more sympathetic than they should have been, or might have been, toward the Royals. I LOVED Margaret in Seasons 1 and 2. Much as I love HBC, I don’t care for Margaret as a person so much when she plays her. I enjoyed S4 the most in many ways. No knock on the acting in the others because Clare Foy, Matt Smith and Vanessa Kirby were amazing, but I can remember the 80s so it was kind of more interesting to me.
I jumped in at season four purely for the Diana story, other than that the show never interested me.
Same. And I’m not loving it. The family is generally insufferable and Charles is such a sad sack, lol.
I’d never thought to compare it to Succession but it’s interesting to think about. Succession does a much better job of making an incredibly unlikeable collection of people highly entertaining, imo.
I gave up on season three because I found it so boring. I tried a few episodes this season and gave up. Gillian Anderson’s Thatcher was OTT in all the wrong ways.
I jumped in just for season 4 too and let me give new viewers a tip. Fast forward all the landscape and driving scenes. It’s such filler. I understand it’s to show what that land of $$$£££ brings, but it added up for quite a lot of time.
season 1 and 2 are good. s3 is a slog, I found it quite boring and skipped a bit.
S4 is better
You can jump right in on season four. I enjoyed the first three seasons much more though. The first cast so good and there was just so much I didn’t know about P&Es early marriage. I wish future seasons would go back to WWI when the rf rebranded as Windsor’s.
@Annakist – you could easily catch up. A couple weeks or so after season 4 came out my bf decided that he wanted to watch The Crown. I rewatched seasons 1-3 with him and we just wrapped season 4 this weekend. We did a couple episodes a night a few nights a week and it flew by.
haven’t seen it either
Good on them both for speaking out. Hopefully the British press don’t shit on them for the next year for the sake of royal feels.
Josh did get it a little wrong where Emma nailed it… it’s not ‘pure fiction’ but a dramatization of events. If it was pure fiction we’d all just be having a great time but we (of a certain age) remember the reported goings on at the time and we’re rightly appalled again. But yes, we’re intelligent enough to recognize the fictitious elements/nature of it.
I’m not sure what Fred and Gladys can do about it except suck it up.
Exactly. I’m f the infinite number of historical dramas made on this earth, when have we last heard such a clamor for these types of disclaimers.
The real scandal, imho, is this kind of thing (aka whining and infighting and embiggening) is where the RF so obviously put all of their time and energy. What have we seen Charles do over the pandemic. A condescending clap for carers video. But the real energy and noise has all been for The Crown. The other stuff is just an afterthought. It’s all about them.
Geez Louise, that’s a whole lotta behind the scenes political pressure to exert blatant artistic censorship from a so-called “benign, figurehead” institution that has no real power and just boosts the morale of a nation… 🙄
The BBC’s bread and butter is freakin’ historical costume dramas and no one has ever asked them to label their shows as fiction.
Fred and Gladys scored a bit of an own goal really. Siccing all their press minions on Netflix had the opposite effect. It made everyone more curious to watch The Crown and in my opinion, the programme held back on a lot of the truth. Diana In Her Own Words was more chilling.
Charles’ camp won’t let up. Dateline on NBC in America did an episode on Diana tagging it “What The Crown doesn’t show”. I watched about 15 minutes before turning it off after seeing it was filled with Charles tabloid lackeys like Penny Juror and Daily Mail’s Richard Kay.
I decided to see comments on Twitter and they didn’t like it and it just reminded them of how terribly Diana was treated and reaffirmed their love for HER. No Charles sympathy whatsoever. They tried to push the line that Charles didn’t cheat until after Diana started cheating. AND they claimed that it was when Diana was pregnant with HARRY when she threw herself down the stairs. When we all know it was when she was pregnant with William.
Total gaslighting effort.
Gaslighting is what the press and royal family do best. We are al wise to their stupid moves. In the 21st century one would think they could borrow another playbook.
There is much gaslighting. Junor is a self professed Charles and Camilla fan. She calls Camilla “endearing.” She cannot stand Diana. When I see her on any show I switch it off because she is super biased. she and Camilla even went on a trip together a few years ago.
I recall after Diana died, Ingrid Seward wrote some books that slammed Diana. She said ‘Diana cheated first.’ However, After during the Settelen interviews with Diana, he asked Diana point blank if she had a “sexual affair” with Mannakee. She said NO. After that Seward backtracked and said Diana did not cheat first. Charles was IMO cheating the whole time, even if it was just sneaking calls to Camilla and meeting up with her at fox hunts and after parties.
With the U.K. media blackout on rumours that William had an affair and then the palace enlisting various ministers to pressure Netflix about the Crown because a few scenes this season made the Queen, Charles& Thatcher look bad (tbh I still thought they were v humanised&sympathetic)- it shows that the monarchy isn’t some neutral, apolitical force that is just a symbol like many pretend.
You have to wonder what else is concealed/censored given stuff we know eg Andrew allegations, links with Saville, Epstein etc is pretty appalling.
@ABritguest the narrative from the courtiers and the palace that Meghan and Harry should have suck it up and stuck it out because royals never complain or explain is absolutely laughable. What ..with all this complaining and explaining over the Crown. Maybe that related to certain royals or maybe because they were benefiting from the smear campaign.
Olivia Colman also said something like ‘ I thought it would be obvious that private conversations would be made up, but maybe not’ a clear diss to those who insult the intelligence of the audience for their own ends, but that was spun as an admission that Olivia Colman thought that such an obvious thing needed to be pointed out. I’m glad people see through the gaslighting. The thing is Royal supporters think everyone else is too stupid to see that a tv drama with actors in it is a dramatisation yet they are too stupid to see that they are being played by a massive PR machine.
She’s right — of course dialogue isn’t verbatim; Peter Morgan wasn’t sitting in the corner taking notes during everything that happened. It’s so insulting for the BRF to insinuate that viewers can’t tell the difference between a documentary and this show. Even more insulting to those of us who lived through it and remember all of the Charles & Diana drama in real time.
They’re only mad because this reminded the entire world of how badly the family treated Diana during what is already a pretty crappy year for them, PR-wise. But it was all brought upon themselves.
I’m glad that Netflix stood their ground. And love how snarky Olivia was : )
They really just be quiet because a lot of us lived through it and it was as bad or worse in real life. They have this bizarre desire to have people “hit the ground running” with royal work, only to be mad and jealous when they DO.
They need to call the Royal’s bluff. What, specifically, is fiction? The Royals are being intentionally vague by lumping in question of what were the exact words in private conversations with Charles and the Queen torturing Diana. The private conversations are not what have people commenting on the Royals’ social media. It’s the documented terrible treatment of Diana that has triggered this upset. Even though it was old news to those who were around for it, for those of us who were too young, not yet alive, or uninterested in toffs, it is news.
Where exactly are the lies told in the Crown? The ratchet rota keep going on that it’s fiction but don’t actually go into any detail. Charles is just mad that a whole new generation is going to fall in love with Diana all over again. But it is good to see who on the ratchet rota are on Charles payroll, you can literally follow the trail. Given the fact that the daily fail had his back makes me hate him more than anything the Crown showed. Also I do not trust Diana’s brother, other than the speech he made at her funeral which was spot on, there’s just something dodgy about him that triggers me.
That’s because he, too, is a real POS in his personal life (other than that funeral speech), and he’s also making bank off of his dead sister’s memory.
I remember reading that Diana asked her brother if she could stay at the Althorpe estate that summer. He refused her request as he felt the press would be a nuisance. Then at her funeral he accused the paparazzi of hounding her to her death. I remember thinking that had he let her come home, maybe she wouldn’t have been in Paris at all.
Exactly. He is a POS. He has been profiting from his sister since her death. His speech at her funeral was all his showing off or maybe to absolve his guilt for not letting her stay at her own ancestral home. He had little to do with his own children, let alone William and Harry. He lived in South Africa for a start and lived there before Diana died, yet still didnt allow her to stay at Althorp. Hes scum.
You’re right about everyone falling in love with Diana again. The Crown is big with millenials and generation Z right now on tiktok, etc. I think that partially triggered the issues with Meghan too. They didn’t want another People’s Princess.
This is such a missed opportunity for Charles. An appropriate response would
Have been – “even taking into account the obvious fact that the show is a fictionalized account of our lives, I acknowledge that I made many mistakes during my first marriage and I regret the hurt those mistakes brought to my first wife and my sons.”
Done. Say it’s fiction, but take the opportunity to apologize again and calm the fires.
Instead they’ve gone on this bizarre anti-Crown hate campaign that makes zero sense.
YES!!!
Unfortunately his ego, tendency to run away, arrogance, self entitlement, handlers, courtiers and PR advisers won’t let him face this head on. This could have been used so positively for his benefit but they are too dumb to know how.
The timing is truly incredible. Obviously Netflix had no idea that H&M were going to bail, but The Crown was released just when that wasn’t really huge “news” anymore (internationally speaking; not counting the moronic ROTA— most people don’t even know they exist). And just as more Andrew stuff was coming out as well.
If I worked PR for this family I’d cut my losses and walk away because there is no restoring them to their former glory, ever.
If Charles made an admission of his mistakes, he would be Smart, but he’s not.
Definitely Yes !
Definitely Yes !
Diana an harry always took responsibility for their actions. Diana admitted that she had affairs on tv and never hid her mistakes. Same with harry, whenever he messed up he always apologised and never shifted blame. Diana and harry also never tried to be ‘perfect’ they always spoke openly about their struggles whether it was mental health or eating disorders. That’s is why Charles, Willie and Keen are such cowards. They would never admit to being less than perfect and always happy to chuck someone else under the bus.
I keep saying the same thing!! All he has to do is admit fault, complement Diane and move on- he doesn’t even have to admit that much fault, just exactly what you said above,
The gold standard advisors with another PR success under their belt. Between that and the pandemic express super spreader tour, it has been a brilliant year for them.
The other day my mom was talking about how awful Camila is for what she did to Diana. That’s when I knew there is definitely a huge fallout for Charles. The story of how badly they treated Diana is true, and he has to live with that. There’s just no spin you can put in a years long affair.
Is interesting how the Royals and the rota are saying nothing about the other Netflix documentary “Diana: In her own words” which is not a fictional drama, but actually Diana’s POV about what happened. You would think they’d take more offence to that rather than the Crown.
Charles is acting as if it were the days of yore when royal families could control what was said about them because the aristocrats and monarchy were the patrons of 95% of all art produced in a country. Shakespeare, despite heading up the theater company that had the patronage of King James I himself (“the King’s Men”), still managed to sneak in plenty of criticisms of the aristocracy by writing historical dramas and allegorical plays. But it’s been a looooooong time since royals were the main patrons of the arts. Charles most definitely cannot control a U.S.-based global corporation like Netflix, and that’s what kills him.
I only discovered a few days ago that Camilla’s nephew Ben Elliot – son of her sister – is the Co Chairman of the Conservative Party. No wonder the Conservative government ministers are speaking out.