Abstract
Queen Elizabeth I of England seems to suffer from an identity crisis in historical films . This crisis stems from the inability of filmmakers to come to a consensus on a characterization of England’s most depicted monarch. Should they portray her as the (in)famous Virgin Queen? Should she rule like a man? Should she suffer from the ‘weakness’ of the female sex ? Should she control the men who surround her? All of these questions are answered—in a variety of successful and unsuccessful ways—in historical films that feature Elizabeth. This muddled depiction, however, has resulted in the Queen’s gender being both at the fore of her characterization, and also completely subverted, in order to present the Elizabeth known to popular culture .
A version of this chapter was presented in the 2016 International Medieval Congress session, ‘Premodern Rulers and Postmodern Viewers: Gender and Sex in the Representation of the Medieval and Early Modern World in Film and Television.’ I thank both the audience for their feedback, and Elena Woodacre for inviting me to present as part of the session. The writing of this chapter has been greatly assisted by conversations with, and comments from, Jo Oranje and Robert Norrie. Finally, I thank Professor Evelyn Tribble and the Donald Collie Fund at the University of Otago for providing a grant to purchase the images included in this chapter.
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Bibliography
Films
Elizabeth. Feature Film. Directed by Shekhar Kapur. Universal Studios, 1998.
Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Feature Film. Directed by Shekhar Kapur. Universal Studios, 2007.
Orlando. Feature Film. Directed by Sally Potter. Adventure Pictures, 1992.
Shakespeare in Love. Feature Film. Directed by John Madden. Universal Studios, 1998.
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Norrie, A. (2018). A Man? A Woman? A Lesbian? A Whore?: Queen Elizabeth I and the Cinematic Subversion of Gender. In: North, J., Alvestad, K., Woodacre, E. (eds) Premodern Rulers and Postmodern Viewers . Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68771-1_16
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