More and more series trace the fate of the great queens. A consequence of the “The Crown” effect, according to specialists.
Sissi, Diane de Poitiers, Catherine de Médicis, Marie Antoinette: the real female figures become the headliners of the series after the global success of The crowntestifying to the interest in the stories of illustrious women whose lives are no longer told through men but in all their complexity.
Opening the ball of this royal wave on the small screen, The Serpent Queen airing Sunday on Starzplay, Lionsgate’s video on demand service. The series, of relative historical rigor, offers in eight episodes a rock’nroll and cruel version of the way in which Catherine de Médicis has imposed herself as sovereign and with her husband, the future Henry II, in love with her lover Diane de Poitiers, played by Ludivine Sagnier.
Sissi and Marie Antoinette are back
At the end of the month it will follow on Netflix The empress, a six-episode German series about the rise to power of Elisabeth of Austria, aka Sissi. The TV groups will also present their own Majesties stories. After the opulent Versailleswhich traces the early years of the reign of the young Louis XIV, Canal + throws itself back into court intrigues in October with the series Maria Antonietta16 years after Sofia Coppola’s cult and pop film.
Finally, France Télévisions will broadcast the miniseries by the end of the year Diana of Poitiers, which premiered on Friday evening at the La Rochelle festival. He will sign the majestic return of Isabelle Adjani, almost thirty years after playing Marguerite de Valois at the cinema in Queen Margotsurrounded by many headliners including Gérard Depardieu as Nostradamus.
For historian Marjolaine Boutet, this fashion effect around the queens was driven by the “change induced by the series The crown“, which covers the life of Queen Elizabeth II, as well as” from the character of Daenerys Targaryen in game of Thrones“.
Political power, presupposed desire
“Compared to classical representations, of the type Sissi embodied by Romy Schneiderwe are more in a representation of the question of the power of politics and the way women do politics “and no longer simply in the presentation of” pretty Disney princesses “, analyzes the professor of American civilization at the Sorbonne-Paris-North University.
Even in a historical-sentimental series like The Bridgerton Chronicle on Netflix, “women are actors” of their desire, especially in the first season where the lead male character is “very clearly staged as the object of desire” and is haunted by his suitor, he notes. The novelty, according to the specialist of the series, is that “this sexual desire does not disqualify them but (on the contrary) on the contrary of the women they control”.
In the image of sovereigns, such as Cleopatra or Marie Antoinette, often denigrated as “femme fatale who will distract man from his trajectory”, when in reality “they build their destiny and are not just ‘women of’, lovers or objects of conquest for men “, Marjolaine Boutet develops.
Starzplay, real specialist
These stories work so well that the Starzplay platform has made them “an editorial pillar of its offering”. Becoming Elizabeth on Elizabeth I, The great on Catherine II of Russia or The Spanish princess around Catherine of Aragon, cites for her part Rémi Tereszkiewicz, founder of Betaseries, a French-speaking social platform dedicated to series.
“Time series ticks all the boxes of what a good series can do” knowing that for professionals “the three fundamental elements are: the story, the characters and the universe,” he analyzes.
But there, “the stories are strong and true, the characters are powerful, they have incredible dilemmas, and there is a lot of information available to enrich the universes.” Vikings or Peaky Blinderscapable of being at the top of the audience “in the same way as a huge Marvel blockbuster,” he says.
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