By Kaveri Pillai ’23
Staff Writer
Binge-watching media content has become a household norm during the lockdown, and with the much-needed time off for Thanksgiving break, many people got the opportunity to watch the latest season of the Netflix series “The Crown.” Season Four, the last season for the Olivia Coleman-headed cast, welcomes two iconic women of the ’70s: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Lady Diana Spencer. Needless to say, I had prepared myself for a week of endless drama and shocking revelations about the British royal family. However, after days of watching “The Crown,” one thing stood out. While the mistreatment of Lady Diana as a member of the royal family has been widely publicized for decades now, the negative representation of Thatcher and the failure of her tenure is stressed in the course of the 10-episode season. This rather skewed representation of the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom reveals a dark truth about the media: Conservative politics are hardly ever tolerated in TV shows and movies. Even if right-wing politics are showcased in this form of media, it is done poorly and in a way that undermines the entire conservative ideology.
The lack of representation of conservative politics is harmful to the public. Because people rely on works of fiction for the truth about our reality, shows like “The Crown” have a moral responsibility to represent the truth. The creator of the show, Peter Morgan, has never denied taking artistic license when it comes to portraying the world’s most famous royal family while simultaneously emphasizing his devotion toward getting some of the facts right. Nevertheless, getting Lady Diana’s iconic wedding dress and Queen Elizabeth II’s corgis right cannot compensate for bending the historical and political truth Morgan is responsible for portraying.
For many of the viewers, my grandparents included, the 1970s and 80s are decades that they vividly remember. The Falkland War in 1982 and the Right to Buy Housing Act of 1980 are etched into the minds of the people who lived in the U.K. at that time. The fifth episode of season four is completely devoted to the impact of Thatcher’s policies and the massive increase in unemployment, something that seems unusual for a drama like “The Crown.”
After years of showcasing the intricacies of the royal family structure, “The Crown” detoured while sensationalizing Thatcher’s reign. The episode narrates the true story of a Buckingham Palace intruder Michael Fagan who wishes to speak to the queen in order to voice his concerns about the deteriorating country under Thatcher’s rule. While this incident did occur, the representation of the bureaucracy and the government’s inefficiency was selectively portrayed to undermine the work Thatcher did for the U.K. The Right to Buy Act successfully allowed tenants to buy the council houses at a large discount, increasing the national homeownership rate by 15 percent, yet the scenes in the show focused solely on citizens of lower incomes living in dilapidated council houses. A noble endeavor is undermined when Thatcher’s name is dragged through the mud.
In November, Vulture noted that Gillian Anderson’s portrayal of Thatcher in the show reflected the animosity toward the prime minister’s conservatism as well. The over-the-top accent work went beyond mimicry or character impersonation — it presented a caricature of Thatcher to a 21st-century audience that showed the Iron Lady as rude, uptight and hated by many.
Political analysts have countlessly voiced criticism regarding Thatcher’s administration, which is understandable when one analyzes the populism that surrounded her campaign. However, movies like “Vice,” which portrayed Christian Bale and Sam Rockwell as Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush, respectively, echo the same liberal bias the film industry consciously perpetuates. By glamorizing Cheney and Bush’s row with alcoholism and their post-9/11 conflict with the Middle East out of proportion, the film’s creators dangerously create an image for the public that conservative politics is a nasty business.
The biased reporting of politics threatens the integrity of fictional representation and media commitment to showing the truth. This liberal-minded interpretation of politics has unfortunately seeped into news outlets as well, with a Gallup poll finding that 66 percent of Americans think the news does a bad job of separating factual reporting from opinion. Various news outlets, like The Washington Post, discuss Obama’s presidency as if his worst controversy was a tan suit, rather than the impact of some of his detrimental programs like Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed for a dangerous amount of firearms sales. Headlines like these highlight the media’s favoritism when it comes to liberals.
Thatcher is just one political leader who has been reduced to an ineffective and ruthless woman by the film industry, showcasing that the improper portrayal of conservative political leaders across many media forms is a larger issue. With this misguided motive to homogenize politics and to make every issue a partisan issue, we are being anything but democratic and undermining the achievements of leaders like President Abraham Lincoln and President Ronald Reagan who helped the country as conservative leaders.
The last two seasons of “The Crown” can only depict the fresher political wounds the U.K. has had to bear, and the public anticipates the portrayal of national issues like the London bombing attacks and Brexit. One can only hope that truth prevails and conservatism is given a second chance.