You asked for it, so here’s an occasional open thread to bitch about anything tangentially related to history, costume, movies, or TV shows! Or whatever else is on your mind right now. Note that URLs are automatically held for moderation, but most anything else goes as long as you’re not bitchier than we are!
It’s a new year full of new frock flicks, we hope. We watched a few during our break, but mostly we’re ramping up for Snark Week. In case you’re new, this is our annual celebration of all that’s terrible in historical costume movies and TV shows, and it happens at the end of every January.
Are you excited for Snark Week?
A random thought: 50 years from now, will that future era’s version of Frock Flicks look back with amusement or longing to the fashions worn by actresses portraying young female pols, White House aides, and broadcasters? “Those bandage dresses! That long, glossy hair! The eyebrows! The emoting!”
Definitely the eyebrows! Also “the Rachel” haircut.
I hate to be like this, but The Rachel was already 25 years ago!!!
But “historical” movies always love to mix styles from ye olde times ;)
Was just on Youtube. One of my recs was “Classic Hollywood Actresses Who Slept With Way Too Many Men”. I just can’t right now. Are they going to have a video about how many women classic Hollywood actors slept with? Fuck You, Patriarchy.
UGH.
Miss Scarlet and the Duke…OK, go!
My mom and I just discovered this show and binged watched all three seasons over Christmas! We thoroughly enjoyed it.
I thoroughly disliked Miss Scarlet & the Duke. Too much forced feminism and social commentary. It was just is too fake for me to be even believable. Premise is good, execution is terrible.
I think the creators hobbled themselves by giving “the Duke” equal billing, because it’s so clearly Miss Scarlet’s story and his character is not given anything interesting to do.
Not a fan. I tried to watch S1 & was totally & completely bored, from the story to the costumes.
I think you are being so kind. lol
I’m bummed about the cancellation of “1899.” If you ever do more coverage of it, please talk about the French lady’s earrings.
But I’m planning to see “Corsage” this weekend!
Dying to see Corsage, but I’m so busy this month, no idea if I’ll catch it in the theater…
Not a frock flick, but I’m excited for the new “Renfield” movie.
Just watched the trailer – it looks hilarious! Too bad we have to wait until April to see it. :)
Did anybody see Babylon? Was it as WTF as I thought?
The reviews have been all over the map, & it looks very WTF. Not gonna pay money to see it, so maybe when it hits streaming. With a few drinks!
I thought The Pale Blue Eye had some decent costumes. But it was just meh overall
Our local movie critic—DC area—ripped it to shreds.
I want to see historical films, including those set in Europe, show black people without claiming they were slaves or that they’re there as a result of “color blind casting.” Um black people were the first ancient Europeans, and they didn’t just disappear into a historical vacuum. Shakespeare mentioned black people. There are medieval statutes of black aristocrats called “St. Maurice.” The Grimaldi (ie Gravettian🙄) were black. The Pelasgians (autochthonous Greeks) were black. There were black people in ancient Rome. There were hundreds of “religious” wars that killed black Europeans and many were then shipped off to enslavement in the Americas. The whitewashing of European history and human history in general has lead to one of the greatest crimes ever – specifically Black people all over the Americas thinking they had no history beyond slavery or that any black person found beyond Southern Africa was brought there as a slave or servant. I want films and tv to be honest. But maybe that’s too much to ask when even Martin Luther King & Ruby Bridges are being excluded from American whitewashed “schooling.”
Agreed! There’s Chevalier coming to theaters in April, & Seacole is still in production, but that’s hardly enough on film compared to the actual history (or even the entertaining historical fiction available). Get with it, Hollywood, et. al.
Please do a post about notable BIPOC people who deserve biopics! Phillis Wheatley comes to to mind. Any other writers of color I should know about?
Is Black an offensive term? I apologize!
Alexandre Dumas and Alexei Pushkin would be great biographical subjects.
Dumas’ father would be even more interesting. Maybe too large was his life – therefor a focus maybe on his youth or a campaign when he was in the army would be nice.
Great idea! I haven’t done a Forgotten History post in ages (tho I do try to include BIPOC & queer folks in when I do those posts) — https://frockflicks.com/category/blog/forgotten-history/
A frock flick about the Black samurai Yasuke would be amazing. Same with John Horse, a Black Seminole man who fought against the US to protect the tribe, lead a group of Seminoles to Mexico, and negotiated with the Mexican government for asylum in exchange for guarding their border.
I’ve never heard the Grimaldi family was Black. Do you have a link to some info on that?
Black was used to envelope anyone with dark skin — even olive complected skin — not just those of African heritage. For example, Italians were also considered black at one time. Europe glosses over the hierarchy of nationalities, something that the author Stieg Larsson really addressed in his three books.
And English used the adjective “black” for people who had black or dark brown hair.
St. Maurice–the one after whom St. Moritz is named–was a Roman soldier in a unit called the Theban Legion, so probably hailed from Upper Egypt. Which means he could have had a complexion ranging from olive to dark brown. I don’t know, however, if there’s more than one St. Maurice. (There easily could be!)
Yes, I am SO excited for Snark Week!!
I saw “The Wonder” last month on Netflix. I’m curious how Frock Flicks would think of this movie. At the same time, I know the answer, as it takes place in the mid-1800s, focusing on a few working class characters. Very little variety going on.
It’s fine as a movie, but I wasn’t a fan of the art house conceits. They were sporadic throughout the movie and didn’t add much to the story. The fourth wall breaking elements at the very beginning and end felt rather out of place.
Indeed. I’d like to see a major movie–there were a few made some decades ago–about St. Martin de Porres, the first black saint of the Americas, who sounded like a pretty great person, whether or not divinely inspired: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_de_Porres
Its power lives on…
Will we see something about “Lost Illusions”? I saw it last weekend in our smallest cinema in our town (in Germany).