lizbee | Not failing at life: you're doing it wrong (Reply)

One of the less-comfortable aspects of The Tudors is the extent to which it's a glorified exercise in watching beautiful women be humiliated and degraded by a powerful man. That's the history, of course, and Henry VIII is a great argument for small-r-republicanism, but the show itself uses it as a marketing ploy, as you can see from the widget I grabbed from the official site.

I had assumed, foolishly, that the fandom itself would subvert this, just as fandom has always subverted dodgy text and unwanted subtext. Imagine my facepalming when I discovered my first Henry VIII fangirl. Because it's not Henry's fault he couldn't father boys, it's just that he never had true love with Mary Sue, and they'd have lived happily ever after and there'd be no need for those silly queens because her magic womb could supply sons. SERIOUSLY. (Also on FF.net: a fic where Anne of Cleves is hooked on Harry Potter, Thomas More is possessed by the aliens from Stephenie Meyer's The Host and Katherine has LOTS OF ANGST.)

Here's a message for the fangirls of the world: Henry VIII != Edward Cullen. In his case, sparkling in the sun would be an improvement.

In short: fandom fails nearly as hard as Showtime. And I'm still unable to reconcile my love for the crack of The Tudors with the misogyny. And I just unwrapped a Fantale, and it had a biogaphy of Sam Neill. DAMMIT, SHOW, I DO NOT APPRECIATE YOUR HOLD OVER MY BRAIN.