April Harper, “Silencing Queens” in Karl Alvestad, Janice North, and Ellie Woodacre eds., Pre-modern Rulers and (Post)modern Viewers: gender, sex and power in popular culture (Palgrave, 2018), 51-68. (original) (raw)

Abstract

Abstract: This paper will focus on the disempowered queen as portrayed in modern film and will seek to analyse why medieval queens, including Isabella, Sybil, and Eleanor among others, are frequently silenced in terms of their power, authority and their very voices in modern film. It will explore why medievalism, which has often allowed writers and artists to comment on controversial social and cultural issues has, in this case, deliberately stripped these women of the power accorded to them in the Middle Ages and why, in the creation of their neo-medieval, romanticized historical narratives, modern film requires a silent queen. In a scholarship that increasingly emphasize the individuality of the situations of Queens, it is thought provoking that modern representation and interpretation of the roles, and personas of these queens are best seen as silent shadows of their male counterparts. Where culture and history often is taken as an indicatory of the contemporary developments in which they are made, may this paper highlight how the popular medievalism of the film industry is projecting an interpretation that does not fit with the realities of medieval Queenship.

April Harper hasn't uploaded this paper.

Let April know you want this paper to be uploaded.

Ask for this paper to be uploaded.