King Charles is absolutely losing his damn mind. Buckingham Palace is 100% behind the deranged campaign against The Crown. It’s not Prince William, it’s not Kate, it’s not Sophie or Edward or any of the rest of them. It’s all about Charles and Camilla. The thing is, before this moment, Camilla’s response was completely mature – she acknowledged that she watched The Crown, she befriended several of the actors in The Crown, and she also talked about how it wasn’t a documentary. But Camilla is participating in Charles’s delusional campaign at this point, even going so far as to rope in some of her friends in the industry. Judi Dench is one of Camilla’s friends. Dench has just written an “open letter” to Netflix, demanding that they put some kind of disclaimer about the fictional nature of The Crown. Here’s Dench’s letter, which I’m willing to bet was written by someone in Buckingham Palace:

Sir, Sir John Major is not alone in his concerns that the latest series of The Crown will present an inaccurate and hurtful account of history (News, Oct 17). Indeed, the closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism.

While many will recognise The Crown for the brilliant but fictionalised account of events that it is, I fear that a significant number of viewers, particularly overseas, may take its version of history as being wholly true. Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series — that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence — this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent.

No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged. Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a “fictionalised drama” the programme makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode.

The time has come for Netflix to reconsider — for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve its reputation in the eyes of its British subscribers.

Dame Judi Dench
London W1

[From The Times]

This is hilarious. First of all, Netflix executives have barely spent any money on promotion – why would they need to spend money when every British paper and all of the king’s friends are Streisand-Effecting Season 5? Season 5 is going to be one of the most-watched programs in Netflix history. Second of all, Dame Judi Dench has worked on tons of historical dramas and weirdly, she’s never demanded that disclaimers be shown ahead of Shakespeare in Love or Mrs. Brown (about one of Queen Victoria’s love affairs!!) or Victoria & Abdul (about another one of Queen Victoria’s relationships!). Shouldn’t it be consistent with fictionalized historical dramatizations? Or does it only count when Charles is salty?

Another thing: “I fear that a significant number of viewers, particularly overseas, may take its version of history as being wholly true.” These people are beside themselves with worry that Americans are too dumb to understand that they’re witnessing a dramatization. But please, let’s keep up the fact-checking, especially for the episode where Charles and Camilla’s Tampon Phone Call is recreated verbatim.

I’m just really sad that Buckingham Palace will use an 87-year-old mostly-blind woman in their pathetic campaign. Isn’t there anyone who can tell King Charles that this whole thing is tasteless?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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