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Prince Charles in The Crown

119 replies

CardoMondo · 07/12/2020 22:34

Ok I know it’s fictional (supposedly) but my god why did they make Charles so dippy and gormless?! I’m on season 3 - Charles is a young man but acts like a bloody 3 year old, all the OTT excitement and hand flapping inbetween looking worried and confused all the time ... most of the characters seem pretty true to their “real like counterparts” but Charles? Surely he wasn’t like this in real life? I can’t stand him! He comes across as a total idiot! (In the drama that is)

AIBU to think the writers really did the dirty on Charles in this?

OP posts:
IcedPurple · 08/12/2020 18:13

@Foxyloxy1plus1

I’m sure Gillian Anderson has a prosthesis in her mouth. It’s very odd. I think her portrayal is over the top in general.
Yes, it's a caricature, not a portrayal. Spitting Image version of Thatcher.

Ironically, people spoke of Anderson's 'Margaret Thatcher voice' in 'The Fall'! She sounded more like Thatcher then than when she's actually playing her!

Lalaloveyou2020 · 08/12/2020 18:50

I wish I could find it but there was a joke article on helping politically left leaning men cope with the fact that they now fancy thatcher. Lots of "cranking" references! She does look fab and the episode with her and Liz in Balmoral almost made me like her.

wellthatsunusual · 08/12/2020 20:36

I'm part way through reading a biography of Margaret Thatcher and the thing that has surprised me most about her is how vain she was, as a young woman anyway. I thought she was so driven and serious that she wouldn't have time for that sort of thing but she worried about her weight and was very particular about her choice of clothes.

wellthatsunusual · 08/12/2020 20:37

Maybe vain is too strong? Maybe image conscious would be better.

Floatyboat · 08/12/2020 20:42

I haven't seen the crown but I have a lot of respect for Prince Charles and his campaigning around biodiversity. I don't always agree with him but he is very passionate and dedicated.

Is this a joke? He advocates for grouse moors, one of the least biodiverse things one can possibly do in the Scottish Highlands. Prince Charles is no friend of the natural world.

Frenchblue · 08/12/2020 20:53

@Lalaloveyou2020 was that the Daily Mash? 🤔

DoreenWinkings · 08/12/2020 21:01

I just can't get behind him as Charles at all. Ignoring the truth or not of everything else the actor is playing him all hunched over and slopey shouldered. Charles is one of the most upright (in the literal sense of word) men I've ever seen. Even now in his 70's his posture is fabulous.
Every time he's on screen there's a voice in my head screeching "STAND UP STRAIGHT FFS" it's actually spoiling it for me and I was enjoying it as a binge watch before.

Rae36 · 08/12/2020 21:35

@yeOldeTrout that film made me feel quite sad. Poor wee lad. No wonder they're all so strange.

Stillnotgotdressed · 08/12/2020 21:44

Seeing him as a small child in the clip makes me really sad for him. He may have wealth and status but had such a dysfunctional childhood that will have impacted on his self-esteem. I have worked with young people who have benefitted from The Prince's Trust and he has done great work supporting many troubled young people. A family member met him once at a ceremony and he seemed genuinely interested in their work with children. I think the writers of The Crown haven't shown a character with many positive traits and have been pretty unkind to this 72 year old.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 08/12/2020 21:54

@Floatyboat

I haven't seen the crown but I have a lot of respect for Prince Charles and his campaigning around biodiversity. I don't always agree with him but he is very passionate and dedicated.

Is this a joke? He advocates for grouse moors, one of the least biodiverse things one can possibly do in the Scottish Highlands. Prince Charles is no friend of the natural world.

He was banging on about the environment in the 80s when it was massively unfashionable and everyone laughed at him for talking to trees.
wellthatsunusual · 08/12/2020 22:07

@Stillnotgotdressed

Seeing him as a small child in the clip makes me really sad for him. He may have wealth and status but had such a dysfunctional childhood that will have impacted on his self-esteem. I have worked with young people who have benefitted from The Prince's Trust and he has done great work supporting many troubled young people. A family member met him once at a ceremony and he seemed genuinely interested in their work with children. I think the writers of The Crown haven't shown a character with many positive traits and have been pretty unkind to this 72 year old.
I think they've been very sympathetic in some ways. They have portrayed him as feeling unloved and feeling that he is a disappointment. And as falling in love with someone but having to follow his duty instead. And of feeling forced into marriage with someone who he fundamentally doesn't understand and who doesn't understand him. And of feeling usurped by an arrogant younger brother. So whilst it portrays him as behaving indifferently or even cruelly towards Diana, it doesn't portray him as a monster. Diana on the other hand has got off very lightly. I think they have portrayed her as immature and naïve, and her eating disorder has underlined her pain. But when she was alive she was not viewed in anywhere near as flattering a light as the series portrays. Maybe in the early days, but not by the early 90s.
Floatyboat · 08/12/2020 23:25

He was banging on about the environment in the 80s when it was massively unfashionable and everyone laughed at him for talking to trees.

He certainly doesn't do much for natural woodland in the shooting estates of Scotland. He probably sees trees as a symbol of the old Britain that would have been more respectful and deferential for him.

LaraLuce · 08/12/2020 23:40

He was raised by a succession of nannies and his parents went away and left him for long periods of time. Then packed off to boarding school at 8. He hasn't had a normal, loving family upbringing. That must have an effect on a person. I feel sorry for him.

Diana also had a really cold and dysfunctional upbringing. They were both really damaged people.

ChestnutStuffing · 09/12/2020 00:15

He was banging on about the environment in the 80s when it was massively unfashionable and everyone laughed at him for talking to trees.

Yes, people thought a lot of his ideas around organic farming were completely dotty.

He was advocating for community focused and person focused architecture too, and all he really got from architects and people in urban planning saying he was an idiot with bad taste. A lot of those people still say that but there has since then been a real movement developed around human centred architecture and neighbourhoods.

I don't imagine he's an intellectual but it's always seemed unlikely to me that he's as dim as some say.

IcedPurple · 09/12/2020 15:15

He was raised by a succession of nannies and his parents went away and left him for long periods of time. Then packed off to boarding school at 8. He hasn't had a normal, loving family upbringing. That must have an effect on a person. I feel sorry for him.

Anne had the same upbringing though - it was a bit different for the younger sons, especially mummy's darling Andrew - and she seems to have turned out OK. I don't think their childhood would have been considered that strange for their generation and social class.

CockleburIck · 09/12/2020 16:16

The Crown really has it in for Edward and Andrew, doesn't it? They're portrayed as such annoying, spoilt dweebs. And rather unfairly Andrew comes across better than Edward!

William and Harry were known as William Wales and Harry Wales in the military; in the photos of Andy with his chopper he has "HRH Prince Andrew" on his name badge. What an utter prick.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 09/12/2020 16:39

I think however unfairly, Andrew did come across better in the media in the 80s, compared to Edward- can’t speak for RL.
Andrew was the better looking helicopter pilot who had seen active service in the Falklands. Edward was seen as the one who had wimped out of the Marines and very unroyally went to work for Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Also back then without the internet there was no vehicle to spread the ‘I’ve met him and he was an arse’ stories as widely as they do now. Newspapers were mostly not going to print that.

PlumsAreNotTheOnlyFruit · 09/12/2020 20:26

@IcedPurple

He was raised by a succession of nannies and his parents went away and left him for long periods of time. Then packed off to boarding school at 8. He hasn't had a normal, loving family upbringing. That must have an effect on a person. I feel sorry for him.

Anne had the same upbringing though - it was a bit different for the younger sons, especially mummy's darling Andrew - and she seems to have turned out OK. I don't think their childhood would have been considered that strange for their generation and social class.

Some children are more naturally resilient than others.
TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 09/12/2020 20:40

Also Anne didn’t go to Gordonstoun and get brutalised, she went to Benenden which was nearer home and probably a lot nicer, and Edward did but he was 16 years younger than Charles and I would hazard a guess it was slightly less grim by the late 70s than it had been in the early 60s.

Skysblue · 09/12/2020 22:53

Because it’s an American show and they needed a villain so they can feel cultural superiority. This isn’t a documentary, it’s a money spinner and will sell whatever lie makes the most $.

I think the whole thing is bloody cruel. If my family died horribly in an accident I wouldn’t appreciate people broadcasting a fictional account of it around the globe in order to make money. Especially one so horrendously cheesy and cliched.

Charles’ wife is getting a huge amount of hate mail because of this show. And how are William and Harry supposed to feel seeing pictures of Diana everywhere again?

I wish noone would watch it. I don’t.

sst1234 · 09/12/2020 23:22

What does mumsnet think of the Queen’s parenting skills?

wellthatsunusual · 09/12/2020 23:24

@sst1234

What does mumsnet think of the Queen’s parenting skills?
I'd say the royal diet wouldn't fit Mumsnet standards. Too many carbs. They're always having toast for breakfast.
Paintedmaypole · 09/12/2020 23:29

I think the whole thing is in very bad taste. I am not a royal family fan but it isn't fair to subject people to having a distorted fictionalised account of their lives portrayed in a series like this. It's very cringy. There is a lot we don't know which isn't really our business. None of us would enjoy having our life turned into a play and televised.

GlummyMcGlummerson · 09/12/2020 23:31

I have met Prince Charles IRL. He was extremely kind, very down to Earth but lacked the charisma Diana had. I feel the same about William, Harry (before he went a bit weird and ran off to Beverley Hills) had charisma and William, while a thoroughly lovely chap has none.

Tootsietootie · 09/12/2020 23:38

Even as a small child l hates Thatcher's voice.