The Culture Secretary is planning to ask Netflix to add a “health warning” before each episode of The Crown — and no, not because viewers’ hate of Prince Charles is causing high blood pressure. (This hasn’t been proven, but also hasn’t been disproven.)
Secretary Oliver Dowden reportedly believes that younger viewers won’t understand that the series — which is widely understood to be based on true events — is dramatised.
“It’s a beautifully produced work of fiction, so as with other TV productions, Netflix should be very clear at the beginning it is just that,” Dowden told the Daily Mail on 29th November. “Without this, I fear a generation of viewers who did not live through these events may mistake fiction for fact.”
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
The fourth season of the show focuses on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the royals during the late 1970s and 1980s, but people have been getting riled up about the depiction of the late Princess Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles (and his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles).
But according to The Guardian, many have been especially nitpicky about inaccuracies in the show, from showing the Queen “wrongly dressed for trooping the colour” to Charles’ fishing technique.”
But issuing a health warning over it? Seems a bit drastic, and even historians agree.
Historian Alex von Tunzelmann tweeted: “Netflix already tells people that The Crown is fiction. It’s billed as a drama. Those people in it are actors. I know! Blows your mind.”
For anyone who has seen Galaxy Quest, this does feel a bit like trying to explain to the Thermians that the things they think are Earth’s “historical documents” are old episodes of a scifi TV show pic.twitter.com/ZufrgQX9EN
— Alex von Tunzelmann (@alexvtunzelmann) November 29, 2020
Maybe that "health warning" would be put to better use before an episode of a show with too many hot people, like Emily In Paris? Or one that seems fake but mostly is shockingly real, like The Bachelorette? Just an idea.