History and song

[selenak]

It's a good day to wake up and find tasty trailers for upcoming shows. Like the new series about the Borgias (aquired via the_grynne), which you'll find below along with more goodness. I have to say I was a bit cautious at first due to the Michael "I wrote The Tudors" Hirst involvement, but Neil Jordan seems to have prevailed, because the trailer looks as if it doesn't turn anyone into a caricature and keeps it nicely shades of grey and three dimensional, which especially with the Borgias and their pop history reputation is important. Also, check out those actors!

Then I discovered some enterprising teachers of the filking persuasion had the inspired idea of using pop songs to portray both various characters of history and works of literature. Also awaiting below: Theodora (the Empress) to the tune of Norwegian Wood, Anne Boleyn to the tune of Girl, and the Odyssey summed up by, what else, Across the Universe. All three written by you know who (or you should know, if you've been following this journal for a while.) Although I also branched out and included the French Revolution filk based on Lady Gaga's Bad Romance.

Love that Vanozza (aka the mother of Cesare, Lucrezia, Juan and Jorge, Rodrigo Borgia's main mistress) seems to have an important role. The Mafia family tag line is about right as long as you keep in mind the Borgias were by no means the only family of that type. Rodrigo, the later Pope Alexander, was neither the first nor the last Pope to openly flaunt his illegitimate family; the difference to the others and the reason why the Borgia, rather than, say, the Piccolomini or the della Rovere, got stuck with becoming the proverbial embodiment of clerical corruption in the Renaissance was that they were Spanish, and the Italians didn't take kindly to foreigners. It's not a coincidence that with one brief exception, after Rodrigo it would take centuries (until John Paul II) for another non-Italian cardinal to become Pope).

Now for all those Beatles song filked for historical purposes. I tried to put them here but discovered for some reason the embedded code wouldn't reproduce, so I'll link them on YouTube instead:

Theodora (aka Norwegian Wood)

Anne Boleyn aka Girl

The Odyssey aka Across the Universe

The French Revolution aka Bad Romance

Comments

[kalypso]

And now I've come over here, so I can use my Theodora icon, which is only on DW.

I suppose I really ought to use my basic Kalypso one too...

[selenak]

It's an awesome icon (the Theodora one, though I like the basic Kalypso one, tooo).

[kalypso]

In the course of looking up something else, it just occurred to me that Barbara Shelley (Dr Plaxton) played Vanozza in the not-very-good 1981 version with Anne-Louise Lambert as Lucrezia. The same year as Stardrive, too!

Suppose this is an opportunity for a basic Kalypso as I don't think I've anything particularly Borgiasque.