Speaking of women's agency, Mrs. Avdat and I, searching for new TV programming passion, are checking out The Tudors on Netflix. It's a great show for couples. Women will appreciate the breathtaking period costumes. Men will appreciate the breathtaking ladies-in-waiting when they slip out of their costumes. Which seems to happen all the time.
Now 16th century England was quite the patriarchal society. That said, I imagine that even then and there women had opportunities for creativity and advancement apart from sleeping your way to the top. Thus far, the show permits the viewer one of only two relationships with its female characters--lust, if they're young and have the King's eye (Anne Boleyn), or pity, if they're matronly and don't (Catherine of Aragon).
But it's Showtime, so what should I expect? Howard Zinn's People's History of the English Renaissance?
Oh, I'm forgetting. There's Margaret Tudor who, in this less than historically accurate telling, is married off to the elderly and lecherous King of Portugal, much to her chagrin. When the King grasps his chest in pain after they consummate the marriage I thought, "Ah, there's your escape. Wear him out until he checks out!" But she found a quicker way, smothering him to death with a pillow, his gout-swollen big toe quivering to the very moment he expired. Now that's agency!
Still, I imagine I will continue to watch. Sam Neill is outstanding as Henry VIII's confidant Cardinal Wolsey. Neill is so good you can almost hear the gears in his brain going click, click, click as he manipulates his driven but somewhat erratic monarch at every turn. Why Neill in a red cap isn't the top hit on a Google image search of "medieval corruption" I have no idea.
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