Sorry.
There's this Tudor TV series that drives all the historians crazy called The Tudors, known for including 'too-beautiful and too young' actors, copious inexplicable sex and graphic violence, historical inaccuracies and elaborate (but still inaccurate) costumes. I've been watching it on YouTube, and it's quite good. It aired four seasons, starting with the divorce of Katherine of Aragon (I love how they always start there. Wasn't her marriage interesting enough?) and ending with the death of King Henry VIII.
I just got a problem.
The King Henry.
King Henry is portrayed by actor/'I've only had one girlfriend I havent cheated on' douchebag Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Firstly, he doesn't look anything like Henry VIII. He claims that nobody knows what he looked like and we can't trust Holbein who only really painted Henry in later life and even then they're 'works of art' and 'probably don't look very much like Henry VIII.' Let me tell you something. If Hans Holbein was commissioned to paint a portrait of the King of England and it looked nothing like the King of England knowing Henry Holbein wouldn't have many more opportunities to get any more commisions (if you get what I mean). And we have detailed descriptions from the Venetian ambassador who, in Henry's youth praised his fair skin and golden red-blonde hair. This is Jonathan Rhys Meyers' 'I totally look like Henry':
Loving the 'golden red blond hair', Jonathan.
But I can look past an inaccurate dye job. It's the fact that Henry is portrayed as so one-dimentional.
Historically, Henry VIII claimed that he had been 'wronged' by Katherine of Aragon's 'sin' because they had never truly been married becasue she had been his brother's bride before being his, blah blah blah. I know historically Henry VIII was an idiot and self centered and his conscience was easily adaptable, but they portray him as being so gullible he manages to convince himself so easily. He never shows any second thoughts of setting aside a good woman, which historically he did, he never showed any restraint against blantantly accusing Katherine of Aragon (which he did historically - he only spoke bad things about her because Anne Boleyn and Cromwell and the Reformists wanted him to). It annoys me. Henry VIII was an intelligent man. Jonathan Rhys Meyers does not portray him as intelligent spouting out what was apparently the thinking of the time, but historically Henry VIII had to fight a lot of inner demons to do what he did, and he had second thoughts after killing pretty much everyone important he did kill.
It still annoys me. Wah.
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