BBC doing epic about Battle of Hastings (1066) with diverse casting
Bayeux Tapestry of the Battle of Hastings
The King and Conqueror will tell the story of the Battle of Hastings, depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry
Anglo-Saxons will be played by a diverse cast in a new BBC historical drama about the Battle of Hastings...
he eight-part series King and Conqueror will tell the story of Harold and William’s epoch-defining struggle for the throne of England in 1066.
Some Anglo-Saxon characters, including a real 11th-century leader, will be played by a diverse set of actors.
Jason Forbes and Elander Moore have joined the cast of the drama which boasts James Norton and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau in starring roles.
Adding diversity to a high medieval period setting follows the BBC’s “colour-blind” casting of non-white stars as Tudor courtiers in another upcoming historical drama, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light. King and Conqueror is a CBS Studios co-production series acquired by the BBC.
When announced in 2023, CBS Studios executive Lindsey Martin said the scripts would offer “a bold and fresh take on a story that has endured for nearly 1,000 years”.
The BBC said at the time that the series would bring “Harold and William to life” with details of their personal lives, adding: “In the UK we learn about William the Conqueror, the Battle of Hastings and King Harold’s gruesome death in our school history lessons – but those headlines are all most of us can remember.”
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Historically accurate defense by the British against the French
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 49 | July 11, 2024 11:49 AM
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It's the progressive agenda of rewriting history. Creating a new invented past that reflects current racial obsessions.
by Anonymous | reply 1 | July 9, 2024 2:06 AM
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Once upon a time, a strong Nonbinary Woman of Color thought, why can't I be King of England, or Queen, or Both?
by Anonymous | reply 2 | July 9, 2024 2:10 AM
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In short, there's simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Wokealot!
by Anonymous | reply 3 | July 9, 2024 2:14 AM
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Is the world going to stop turning if there's an historically accurate all-white cast in a period piece? This is ridiculous. There are hundreds of shows to choose from, what's wrong with having an all-white cast when historically it's true that all the players were white.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | July 9, 2024 2:16 AM
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R4 We must create a new past, a past where diversity, equity and inclusion was the reality. A new past for POC.
by Anonymous | reply 5 | July 9, 2024 2:25 AM
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They should remake Roots with a diverse cast of characters.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 6 | July 9, 2024 2:26 AM
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R6. Jessica Chastain IS Kizzy!
by Anonymous | reply 7 | July 9, 2024 2:48 AM
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I hated historical movies decades ago when the characters had blown-dry 70s or 80s hairstyles or when everyone wore new, spotlessly clean and pressed costumes. Since then, Hollywood has made an effort to make the characters more plausible looking. The diverse casting makes such movies no longer historical pictures, but rather fantasies based in alternate universes.
by Anonymous | reply 8 | July 9, 2024 3:48 AM
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No darkies in the period pieces, please
by Anonymous | reply 9 | July 9, 2024 3:48 AM
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It just takes you right out of the story.
I agree with everything r8 said. Another pet peeve of mine is contemporary English in historical pieces, esp. slang.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | July 9, 2024 3:52 AM
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And you talk about Republicans rewriting history...............
by Anonymous | reply 11 | July 9, 2024 11:41 AM
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In the US, all of this diverse casting will end when Trump is elected.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | July 9, 2024 11:42 AM
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[Quote] And you talk about Republicans rewriting history...............
This is a fucking tv show.
When Republicans re-write history, women lose their bodily autonomy, or states lose the ability to control who can get a gun….
by Anonymous | reply 13 | July 9, 2024 11:48 AM
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It makes the past diverse so all the bad stuff magically is gone. History is now science fiction.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | July 9, 2024 11:49 AM
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PASS!
No way do I want to watch this bullshit.
I'd just as soon watch an "epic" about African warring tribes in the Congo, starring an all-Swedish and Norwegian cast.
Does that sound ridiculous to you?
Exactly.
This is equally ridiculous.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | July 9, 2024 11:52 AM
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Historical films are always fiction and are always about the era in which they are filmed.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | July 9, 2024 12:04 PM
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There is a weird contradiction though - the past is horrible, racist, misogynist homophobic (mostly true) - see any number of projects; but the past is sometimes a multi-cultural paradise, like now but better (yet the men are still men and no-one is gay without significant historical evidence - and not always then). It doesn't matter in fantasy worlds, but supposed actual history creates a strange distancing effect and it becomes just another fantasy series
by Anonymous | reply 17 | July 9, 2024 12:12 PM
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I've seen it described as 'an agenda-driven equality cast.'
Sounds about right.
It's the BBC- that's what they do.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | July 9, 2024 12:13 PM
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Eustace II, Count of Boulogne
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 19 | July 9, 2024 12:15 PM
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Well, there were Africans living in Roman Britain due to the scale of the Roman Empire and the commercial exchanges within. One could imagine there were still Africans there in the 11th century. Unlikely, but possible.
by Anonymous | reply 20 | July 9, 2024 12:24 PM
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It’s not more ridiculous than the Trojan warriors with the Scottish accents.
by Anonymous | reply 21 | July 9, 2024 12:24 PM
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Who will play Pippin?
Who will play Ben Vereen??
by Anonymous | reply 22 | July 9, 2024 12:27 PM
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Is this any worse than Charlton Heston and Yvonne de Carlo playing Jews and Anne Baxter and Vincent Price playing Egyptians?
by Anonymous | reply 23 | July 9, 2024 12:42 PM
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They made Edward the Confessor "Eddi the Fabulous."
I've never seen an Inuit-Ainu drag queen before.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | July 9, 2024 12:47 PM
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SNL mocked Frozen 2 for inexplicably having a black character, even though it’s a fictional story. However, it’s understood to be located somewhere that in the real world would be Norway. The mocking was due it not be explained. If you add a glaringly incongruent element to a story, the audience wants an explanation.
by Anonymous | reply 25 | July 9, 2024 12:48 PM
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[quote]When announced in 2023, CBS Studios executive Lindsey Martin said the scripts would offer “a bold and fresh take on a story that has endured for nearly 1,000 years."
Figures it's a white woman pushing this.
They tend to be the wokest of the woke.
That's why I'm suspicious of modern female "historians," because many of them have drunk the woke Kool-Aid and do everything they can to rewrite history and exaggerate the contributions of women/POC.
Thus, the next wave of historical analysis and literature is being tainted by an aggressively woke cultural bias.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | July 9, 2024 12:50 PM
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Finally, the roles of William & Harold will be portrayed by disabled, trans womyn of color. About time.
by Anonymous | reply 27 | July 9, 2024 12:52 PM
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[quote] Finally, the roles of William & Harold will be portrayed by disabled, trans womyn of color.
Even in the Panderverse, it doesn’t make sense. However, it is acceptable and even expected.
by Anonymous | reply 28 | July 9, 2024 1:09 PM
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[quote] That's why I'm suspicious of modern female "historians," because many of them have drunk the woke Kool-Aid and do everything they can to rewrite history and exaggerate the contributions of women/POC.
How about those who say that ancient human remains shouldn’t be identified by sex since we don’t know how the people self-identified in life.
by Anonymous | reply 29 | July 9, 2024 1:11 PM
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The idea that there would have been any identifiable continuity between Roman-era 'Africans' (whatever this term covers) and the 11th century 800 years later is ludicrous, R20.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | July 9, 2024 3:09 PM
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This is no different than casting John Wayne as Ghengis Khan in the 1950s.
by Anonymous | reply 31 | July 9, 2024 3:23 PM
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This sort of thing never works out but they keep on trying.
What's next? How about Braveheart? It would be worth it to enrage Mel Gibson.
by Anonymous | reply 32 | July 9, 2024 3:45 PM
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[quote] This is no different than casting John Wayne as Ghengis Khan in the 1950s.
And how well did that work out
by Anonymous | reply 33 | July 9, 2024 4:08 PM
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There is already a school of thought among black and "woke" scholars that the original Europeans were black and whites "stole" Europe -- languages, cultures, and all -- from black people and then exiled them to Africa. I assume all of these odd multi-culti efforts are designed to further the idea that POC were the original Anglo-Saxons, and the whites living in England are occupiers on stolen land.
by Anonymous | reply 34 | July 9, 2024 4:14 PM
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What about MY outrage and right to presence????
by Anonymous | reply 35 | July 9, 2024 4:30 PM
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I predict this will be a ratings BOMB.
As usual.
There is no audience for this.
by Anonymous | reply 36 | July 9, 2024 7:12 PM
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[quote] There is no audience for this.
I disagree. Not saying people should but I'm sure they will load it with enough ladies tits and mens washboard abs that they will get them tuning in.
Like Poldak, Versailles, or Lady Chatterley’s Lover, BBC has found a niche with woke soft porn.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 37 | July 9, 2024 7:34 PM
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[quote] Is this any worse than Charlton Heston and Yvonne de Carlo playing Jews and Anne Baxter and Vincent Price playing Egyptians?
No, but could you name ANY bankable Egyptian or Semitic Jewish actor living in Hollywood in the early 1950s? What choice did they have?
by Anonymous | reply 38 | July 10, 2024 1:12 AM
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Oh, if Derek Jarman did the same thing everyone would have eaten jt up.
by Anonymous | reply 39 | July 10, 2024 1:28 AM
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R38, Hollywood had spent decades committed to the idea that anyone who seemed “ethnic” had to be a character actor. Obviously there were no bankable stars in Hollywood who would have looked believable in The Ten Commandments, but that was, in part, due to choices Hollywood itself had made.
by Anonymous | reply 40 | July 10, 2024 2:22 AM
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[quote]Is this any worse than Charlton Heston and Yvonne de Carlo playing Jews and Anne Baxter and Vincent Price playing Egyptians?
So are you saying that having Charlton Heston and Yvonne de Carlo playing Jews and Anne Baxter and Vincent Price playing Egyptians is now acceptable? I don't understand your point.
If you feel it was the wrong thing to do back then, why do you think it's OK now?
by Anonymous | reply 41 | July 10, 2024 2:38 AM
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Jeff Chandler (born Ira Gossel) was Jewish, looked Jewish and would have been a totally hot Moses.
More Jewish casting misses for The 10 Commandments: Kirk Douglas, Paul Newman, Tony Curtis, Lauren Bacall, Laurence Harvey, Lee Grant, Cornel Wilde, Hedy Lamarr, Peter Falk, Sylvia Sidney, Paulette Goddard, Martin Landau, Luise Rainer, Lee J. Cobb, Shelley Winters, Eli Wallach, Martin Balsam.
None of them would have been any less believable than Heston, De Carlo, John Derek, Debra Paget and Nina Foch as Jews.
Well, at least they hired Edward G. Robinson, but he played an Egyptian.
by Anonymous | reply 42 | July 10, 2024 2:51 AM
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I hope it's got plenty of trans, nonbinary, and differently abled people too. If there is not at least one person in a wheelchair, it's obviously the work of a fascist. Disagree? You must be a fascist too.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | July 10, 2024 2:59 AM
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Suzanne Pleshette could’ve taken the Yvonne De Carlo role. She was Jewish.
by Anonymous | reply 44 | July 10, 2024 5:14 PM
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There's so much that's funny about "authenticity" and the Ten Commandments movie. For one thing, none of it can really be authentic because none of it actually happened.
But even more is what the hell we mean by "authenticity." Because if we mean, people who might have looked like Hebrew Slaves in Egypt in 1300 BC, it would make more sense to cast a lot of Arabs and Syrians and of course Egyptians rather than a lot of modern American Jews. But something tells me that wouldn't fly.
by Anonymous | reply 45 | July 10, 2024 5:23 PM
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Charlton Heston was so fucking hot as Anglo-Saxon Moses.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 46 | July 10, 2024 8:35 PM
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[quote] When Republicans re-write history, women lose their bodily autonomy, or states lose the ability to control who can get a gun….
Republicans didn’t rewrite anything, dear.
by Anonymous | reply 47 | July 10, 2024 8:55 PM
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Liberalism/Progressive has become a mental illness.
by Anonymous | reply 48 | July 10, 2024 8:56 PM
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[quote] differently abled people too.
Well that would be the one realistic thing about an epic Battle of Hastings film. By the end of the battle there would be lots of people missing limbs.
by Anonymous | reply 49 | July 11, 2024 11:49 AM
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