So how many black guys do you think fought during the Battle of Hastings at a place called Hailesaltede, in Sussex, England, nearly a millennium ago?
Before you give some flip answer, let’s look at the participants.
On the one side, you had the Normans, led by their Duke, William. Normans — aka Northmen — were partially Franco-fied Vikings, invited to settle in France in 911 at the behest of the West Frankish king, Charles the Simple.
On the other side, you had the English — descended from Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from northern Germany — led by the just-crowned King Harold Godwinson.
OK, so now you can give your flip answer. Here’s mine: those armies were whiter than an all-albino Osmonds tribute band.
But not to the BBC, whose new miniseries — “King and Conqueror” — features “a diverse group of actors” telling the story of Harold and William’s fight for the English throne.
“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,” according to The Telegraph.
That isn’t color-blind casting — it’s historical revisionism, full stop. They’re remaking history to suit a particular agenda. It’s the same agenda introduced by Tony Blair’s New Labour government a quarter century ago to remake the British electorate.
Today’s report also goes right back to a conversation with my wife last week.
She mentioned the show “Bridgerton” that she enjoys, and I needed a reminder of which show that is. It’s a Shonda Rhimes romance set in 19th-century London — with a weirdly mixed-race cast. There’s some sort of alt-history justification about George III marrying a black woman and establishing racial harmony. But that isn’t alt-history, which really needs to be grounded in ahistorical but plausible outcomes; it’s fantasy.
“Yes, it’s fantasy,” Melissa told me. “That’s my whole point,”
I countered: “But it’s still a period piece. If you’re going to set a fantasy in a historical period, you’ve got to get the details right or it sucks me right out of the fantasy.”
“‘Bridgerton,'” I said, “is like re-doing ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,’ but putting everybody in Viking helmets.”
After a brief discussion — enthusiastic but civil — we agreed to disagree and let the subject drop while I made another round of margaritas. This, by the way, is a not-so-secret ingredient to a happy marriage.
I’ll leave it to you to decide whether “this” applies to letting it drop, making margaritas, or both.
(But it’s both.)
In the case of “King and Conqueror,” the BBC has a historical drama — not alt-history, not fantasy, just a straight-up telling of real history. But if someone suggested the BBC cast a few white or Japanese actors for a docudrama about Nigeria’s bid for independence, they’d better bring along enough smelling salts for the whole production team.
What the BBC wants viewers to forget is that England and Normandy weren’t just lily-white, they were extremely provincial. While Harold and William certainly knew there were other races, it’s unlikely they’d ever encountered someone who wasn’t a person of pallor.
In 1066, the Normans weren’t quite French, and the English wouldn’t be recognizably English to modern ears. But to be fair, today’s England — where Mohammed is the most common boy’s name — would hardly be recognizable to a time-traveler from just 50 years ago.
The BBC is, in effect, ret-conning history to make the unmaking of Britain seem normal.
There’s a story to be told about how the Battle of Hastings set in motion the evolution of a recognizably English culture. It could be a fantastic story, too. But to tell it, first the BBC would have to get out of the business of rewriting history to suit postmodern narratives.
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The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie.
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