ia_2009_d_melissa

=D. Analysis (500-650 words) Tips]=

Throughout the years there have been hundreds of historical films and television series – which have all been adapted differently to suite the relevant audience and the length of the film. Obviously each film varies in their historical accuracy, but there have been debates concerning historical documentaries. Should films and TV series be more about educating their audience or entertainment? Many of the events in **__The Tudors__** differ from what actually happened, thus making it more of a form of entertainment than education. “Liberties are taken with character names, relationships, physical appearances and the timing of events.”(1) The most obvious difference would be the absence of time; there is no given indication of what year the series starts, or any mention of the years throughout the series. If the events in the TV series are lined up with the actual events, the start of the series is set in around 1519 – when Charles of Castile was elected Holy Roman Emperor and the birth of Henry Fitzroy – all the way through to the death of Cardinal Wolsey in 1530. The age differences between Henry VIII, Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn have been dramatically stretched to appeal to the audiences of the series. The age gap between Katherine and Henry was six years (Henry being born in 1491 and Katherine in 1485) and Henry and Anne were at least ten years apart. Anne Boleyn’s age has always been shrouded in uncertainty. “Until recently, it was accepted that Anne Boleyn was born in 1507…For a more realistic date we must turn to Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s biography of Henry VIII, written during the seventeenth century…Herbert states that Anne was twenty when she returned from France in 1522: this would place her date of birth in 1501-2.”(2) Henry would have been in his early thirties when he took an interest in Anne Boleyn: whereas in the TV series their ages are depicted as more or less the same. In fact all of his liaisons are with women seemingly around the same age as him, with an old Queen Katherine standing passively by in the background. Another drastic adaptation to the characters was the story of Henry’s sister “Princess Margaret”. During the series, Princess Margaret was to be married to the King of Portugal. However she and the Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon, fell in love on the way to Portugal. Margaret married the King of Portugal and killed him a few days after; she then married Brandon in secret from King Henry. In actual fact, the story of the “Princess Margaret” in the series is a mixture of the lives of both Henry’s sisters – Mary and Margaret. Allegedly, the real Princess Mary’s name was changed to Margaret to avoid confusion for the audience between the King’s sister and daughter. However this form of historical perception would be useful to an individual who does not wish to study the reign of Henry VIII as closely as a historian would. Although this does not excuse the fact that directors deliberately cut out important historical events, the audience themselves could take it upon themselves to research the relevant information if they took a keen interest.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tudors  (Taken the 23 August 08) (2) Weir, Alison. The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Vintage, 2007.