Premodern Rulers and Postmodern Viewers : Gender, Sex, and Power in Popular Culture

359 Pages·2018·4.459 MB·English

by  Janice North, Karl C. Alvestad, Elena Woodacre, (eds.)

QUEENSHIP AND POWER

PREMODERN RULERS AND

POSTMODERN VIEWERS
Gender, Sex, and Power in
Popular Culture
Edited by
Janice North, Karl C. Alvestad,
and Elena Woodacre
Queenship and Power
Series Editors
Charles Beem
University of North Carolina, Pembroke
Pembroke, NC, USA
Carole Levin
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, NE, USA
This series focuses on works specializing in gender analysis, women’s
studies, literary interpretation, and cultural, political, constitutional,
and diplomatic history. It aims to broaden our understanding of the
strategies that queens—both consorts and regnants, as well as female
regents—pursued in order to wield political power within the structures
of male-dominant societies. The works describe queenship in Europe as
well as many other parts of the world, including East Asia, Sub-Saharan
Africa, and Islamic civilization.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14523
Janice North · Karl C. Alvestad
Elena Woodacre
Editors
Premodern Rulers
and Postmodern
Viewers
Gender, Sex, and Power in Popular Culture
Editors
Janice North Elena Woodacre
Altoona, PA, USA Department of History
University of Winchester
Karl C. Alvestad Winchester, UK
Department of History
University of Winchester
Winchester, UK
Queenship and Power
ISBN 978-3-319-68770-4 ISBN 978-3-319-68771-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68771-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017957840
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
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Cover credit: Vladimir Pomortzeff/Alamy Stock Photo
Printed on acid-free paper
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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To our loved ones, who have offered us unflagging support and patience
during the production of this collection.
A
cknowledgements
The editors would like to thank Christine Pardue at Palgrave Macmillan
for her assistance throughout the process, which has been invaluable. We
would also like to thank Timothy McCallister and Kavita Mudan Finn for
their helpful comments on the introduction and Daniel Delgado Díaz
for his assistance with formatting the images in the book for production.
vii
c
ontents
1 Introduction—Getting Modern: Depicting
Premodern Power and Sexuality in Popular Media 1
Janice North, Elena Woodacre, and Karl C. Alvestad
Part I Reappraising Female Rulers in the Light of Modern
Feminism(s) 21
2 Early Modern Queens on Screen: Victors, Victims,
Villains, Virgins, and Viragoes 27
Elena Woodacre
3 Silencing Queens: The Dominated Discourse
of Historical Queens in Film 51
April Harper
4 Feminism, Fiction, and the Empress Matilda 69
Katherine Weikert
5 ‘She Is My Eleanor’: The Character
of Isabella of Angoulême on Film—A
Medieval Queen in Modern Media 91
Carey Fleiner
ix
x CoNTENTS
6 Women’s Weapons in The White Queen 111
Misty Urban
7 ‘Men Go to Battle, Women Wage War’: Gender
Politics in The White Queen and Its Fandom 131
Kavita Mudan Finn
Part II Questions of Adaptation: Bringing Premodern
Queens to the Page and Screen 153
8 Religious Medievalisms in RTVE’s Isabel 159
Emily S. Beck
9 ‘The Queen of Time’: Isabel I in The Ministry
of Time (2015) and The Queen of Spain (2016) 179
Emily C. Francomano
10 From Mad Love to Mad Lust: The Dangers
of Female Desire in Twenty-First Century
Representations of Juana I of Castile in
Film and Television 195
Janice North
11 The Filmic Legacy of ‘Queen Christina’:
Mika Kaurismäki’s Girl King (2015) and
Bernard Tavernier’s Cinematic ‘Amazons’
in D’Artagnan’s Daughter (1994) and
The Princess of Monpensier (2010) 215
Séverine Genieys-Kirk
12 Thomas Imbach’s Marian Biopic: Postmodern
Period Drama or Old-Fashioned Psychogram? 239
Armel Dubois-Nayt
CoNTENTS xi
Part III Undermining Authority: Rulers with Conflicted
Gender and Sexual Identities 257
13 Queering Isabella: The ‘She-Wolf of France’
in Film and Television 263
Michael R. Evans
14 Seeing Him for What He Was: Reimagining King
Olaf II Haraldsson in Post-War Popular Culture 283
Karl C. Alvestad
15 Televising Boabdil, Last Muslim King of Granada 303
Elizabeth Drayson
16 A Man? A Woman? A Lesbian? A Whore?: Queen
Elizabeth I and the Cinematic Subversion of Gender 319
Aidan Norrie
Index 341