The fourth season of ‘The Crown’ has been the most controversial.
The arrival of Margaret Thatcher and Diana of Wales was aimed at uncovering the most uncomfortable moments of British royalty. This forecast has been fulfilled and the Crown is extremely upset with the portrait of the relationship between Prince Charles and Lady Di considering that it has “dangerous historical errors”.
What is the dose of truth and fiction in The Crown? According to the end credits of the series created by Peter Morgan, the fiction is inspired by the play “The Audience”, centered on the meetings between the British head of state and her prime ministers, and not on the real life of the family real.
It seems quite clear that the series took its own artistic licenses from a fictional production such as had happened with “The Queen”, the Stephen Daldry film, written by Peter Morgan, and considered the foundation stone of the Netflix series.
The underlying problem is that the series combines real events with elements of fiction.
In other words, everything that appears on the screen happened, but the dialogue and details are made up. That wasn’t a problem before, when The Crown featured stories that occurred 50 years ago, but it is now, which exposes recent issues.
Royal censorship
The Daily Mail revealed that a coalition made up of politicians, royal pundits and a close friend of Prince Charles had joined forces to demand that Netflix broadcast a message before each episode warning viewers of The Crown that many key scenes never happened or are distortions of the truth.
Most of the controversy stems from Prince Charles’s dramatic marriage to Lady Di and the alleged tensions in the relationship between Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher.
The own brother of Princess Diana of Wales, Charles Spencer also pronounced: “I hope that the spectators do not forget that it is fiction”.
The only one to get angry was Harry himself who ensures that he will not allow the next seasons of the series to come to the present and show his current life.
Meghan Markle’s husband promised to insist that the plot does not alter or show her intimacies since he considers it an invasion of her privacy.
Good Vs. Villains
As for the series there is a real malaise. The resemblance of the actors is so impressive that the vast majority of viewers will not doubt for a second that they are watching a 100% real story.
There are characters like Diana and Queen Isabel who provoke respect and empathy, others like Camilia and Carlos who arouse visceral hatred.
Diana appears as a victim driven to despair by the contempt of her in-laws. In the series her instability, her whims and the fact that she also had lovers are not touched at any time.
The queen provokes respect and has few flaws in her personality, projects measure, discipline and balance.
For her part, Princess Margarita is presented as a witch, a woman with a great sexual libido and multiple lovers.
And what about Camilla Parker Bowles, the bad guy in the series, presented as an adulteress who doesn’t care about her husband or her children.
The same treatment received Prince Charles, a true idiot who mistreats Diana without mercy. In England not only the royal family is concerned but the people in general about the manipulation of events that could damage the future of the Monarchy.
There is also another major problem. Whether they are fictionalized details or real events The Crown evokes private and often embarrassing family situations.
It is true, for example, that Diana was bulimic and tried to commit suicide, that Carlos was forced to get a virgin wife from a good family … But some librettist had the idea of wondering what princes William and Harry would feel when watching on television the images of his mother cutting her veins.
The series that is watching the whole world uncovers questionable aspects of royalty but the result could be disastrous in real life.
Historical errors
1.- The death of Lord Mountbatten
In the first episode of the season, Lord Mountbatten is assassinated by the IRA. It is implied that he died in the explosion on his boat but was actually rescued alive and died before reaching land. In addition, the series insists on describing a conflictive relationship between Carlos and his great-uncle that according to the royal house never existed.
2.- The beginning of the Falklands war
The series made the disappearance of Margaret Thatcher’s son coincide in time at the Paris-Dakar rally with the start of the Falklands War. In reality, what happened to Mark was on January 9, 1982, while the Falklands War did not begin until April 2 of the same year, almost three months later.
3.- A postponed retirement
Martin Charteris is considered one of the Queen’s favorite secretaries. However, Charteris retired in 1977, while the plots for the fourth season are set between 1979 and 1990, which means that, in “The Crown,” Charteris was delayed several years in retirement.
4.- The friction between Elizabeth II and Thatcher
Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher did not get along, however the series shows that the monarch herself orders her disagreement with the Prime Minister to be leaked to the press. Buckingham Palace has always denied being the source of the news. Even Robert Hardman, Thatcher’s official biographer, rejects such recklessness of Elizabeth II.
5.- Carlos’s relationship with Camila
Following the official story, the Prince of Wales resumed his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, current Duchess of Cornwall, in 1986, after his marriage to Lady Di deteriorated.
The series shows that Carlos had an idyll with Parker Bowles since before meeting Diana and that this relationship continued in parallel with their later marriage.
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