‘Becoming Elizabeth’ Makes Really Frustrating Choices With the Female Leads

Becoming Elizabeth is the latest in the post-The Tudors/The Other Boleyn Girl land of pseudo-historical bodice porn that attempts to mix modern girl boss energy, middling storytelling, and historical women.

Starz previously dabbled in the Tudor era with their adaptations of Philippa Gregory’s terrible-yet-engrossing novels, which gave us The White Queen, The White Princess, and The Spanish Princess miniseries. While the network is no longer working with the creative team behind those projects, they have moved forward in time with Becoming Elizabeth.

Becoming Elizabeth stars Alicia von Rittberg as the future Queen Elizabeth I, a teenager who at the death of her father King Henry VIII becomes caught up in the politics of the era. Especially the Catholic vs. Protestant divide personified by her older sister, the future Mary I (Romola Garai), and younger brother, and current King, Edward VI (Oliver Zetterström).

I am used to bad historical period dramas. Especially in the past decade. When I saw Becoming Elizabeth, I really had no expectations. The cast looked mostly fine and after just finishing up Wolf Hall, I needed something light and fluffy.

Then the series decided, in an infuriating sequence of events, to make Catherine Parr (Jessica Raine), one of Henry VIII’s only surviving wives and Elizabeth’s guardian, a sex-starved manipulator. By most historical accounts, Catherine was a loving stepmother to her stepchildren and was particularly attached to Elizabeth and influential in her life. She was also brilliant and a bestselling author in her own time. Becoming Elizabeth’s Catherine Parr is unrecognizable.

The show then renders Elizabeth as a jealous child who adores a man who historically molested her. Thomas Seymour was the brother of Jane Seymour (Henry’s third wife, and the one who gave him his long-desired son and heir, Edward). Through his nephew, Thomas Seymour had a powerful place in court. He was in love with Catherine Parr before she married the king, and they rushed into marriage following his death. This was a huge scandal because it meant she didn’t have a period of mourning, and because, in the very unlikely idea she could have been pregnant, it would have impacted the succession.

Elizabeth was only around 13/14-years old when she came to live with Parr and Seymour after her father died. Historically, Seymour showed “affection” toward Elizabeth by tickling her, slapping her on her behind as she lay in her bed, and by coming into her room in his nightclothes. This was all gross behavior that was not just inappropriate because of her age, but Elizabeth was a Princess and in the line of succession at this point.

In Becoming Elizabeth, Elizabeth is aged up so she can actively desire Thomas Seymour and be upset when he marries her stepmother. Gag me.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been listening to SIX (an excellent, tongue-in-cheek musical featuring all of Henry’s wives singing about their mixed triumphs and tragedies) a lot, but didn’t we decide awhile ago not to handwave this sort of predatory behavior anymore in adaptation? For a show that wants to depict the childhood of one of England’s most important monarchs, could they have taken the time to actually explore her trauma and the events that really shaped her?

But then how would we get the sexy moments?

That has become the most frustrating aspect about shows like this. They reduce women and girls into whatever archetype the narrative needs them to perform, even when those women bucked expectations for women at the time. We see Catherine “Fucking” Parr, as the show calls her multiple times, as some sex-starved woman who can barely keep her hands off Thomas Seymour.

Which, fine. But you know, could we have established her as one of the most intelligent women and intellectuals of the English Protestants, before seeing her fucking? Is that too much to ask for?

Lady Jane Grey (a cousin who will be briefly proclaimed queen after King Edward’s death), is introduced as being a slightly antagonistic force to Elizabeth, and Mary, well … she’s there being Spanish. It is a whole lot of nothing, but I guess … at least the music is fun?

I can only hope that Catherine de’ Medici will fair better when The Serpent Queen comes out, if only for putting the respect on Samantha Morton’s name.

(image: Starz)