We're still a few weeks out from the release of season 5 of The Crown, but everyone is already losing their minds. Vast swathes of the right-wing press have been drumming up controversy surrounding the show in the wake of the Queen's death, as its timeline heads towards the murkier parts of the Royal Family's recent history (namely the 1990s and Princess Diana's death). What was once, just a few weeks ago, widely touted as the most anticipated British drama of the year is quickly becoming headline fodder – so much so that the show's cast and crew have had to come out in its defence ("The show is not unkind," creator Peter Morgan told Variety). Yesterday, Dame Judi Dench – who has taken part in several royal dramatisations herself – penned an open letter to The Times, calling the series “crude and cruel”, and asking Netflix to add a disclaimer to clarify that The Crown is fictionalised history despite the fact it never has in its six-year run.
In her letter, Dench says: “The closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism”, adding “the time has come for Netflix to reconsider — for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve their own reputation in the eyes of their British subscribers”.
Her plea comes hot off the heels of The Telegraph claiming the palace is worried the series will be exploitative as it hits one of the monarchy's most tumultuous eras. “Has The Crown gone too far this time?” one headline reads. Over at The Daily Mail, it's a similar story. “Has The Crown's writer gone too far?” Betteridge's law of headlines will tell us the answer to both of these questions is no, but it won't stop the comment sections from filling up with bile and outrage.
Not to be glib, but is everyone ok? Sure, this season will cover one of the worst times in the public image of the royal family, but that's the point of The Crown and has been for the last 6 years. It's a peek behind the curtain of an institution that, up until extremely recently, mostly felt like a silent presence running alongside our lives. The 90s were a rough time for the royals. The gilded gates that guarded any indiscretions got firmly knocked down by the tabloid media and suddenly revenge dresses and questionable leaked phone calls became dinner table conversation.
Arguments could be made that the death of Queen Elizabeth has humanised the royal family – "they're grieving just like we all would" and so on – but it's not the job of dramatists to whitewash history in fear of accidentally speaking ill of the dead or, more likely in this case, the living who succeed them. Unlike perhaps earlier seasons of The Crown, edging closer to the present day means people watching may have actually lived through the events on screen. They will already have their personal experiences of these, so is the fear that the series may prove their opinions right?
Fictionalised history will always play fast and loose with some aspects of the past because, well, real life can be kind of boring. To suggest that the general public requires a disclaimer to distinguish between fiction and reality fringes upon the absurd. We know going into films like Elvis or a series like A Very English Scandal that what we watch will have to be taken with a generous pinch of salt. Second screening with a Google search is part of the viewing experience, as the endless ‘fact vs fiction’ features that surface for every season of The Crown will tell you. Media literacy may be sitting on a dangerous precipice but there should be at least some faith in viewers' ability to read a listicle or two.
The Crown season 5 is released on Netflix on 9 November
