Summary
Acccording to "Why we can’t get enough of the Tudors" (Anderson, 2020) As we know most of entertainment industry especially, literature have influenced by Tudors era even that is around 400 years ago. Back to Tudors period, at that time Britain facing a great change, suddenly change, in every way such as political social or religious reform. We can say that is the age of unpredictable. According to this article, Hilary Mantel found the reason that make Tudors period more attractive and popular for long time than other history ever, Tudors emerged in pop-culture sine the Victorians, because the detail and element in Tudors history still can parallel to the modern situations particularly, Brexit. This way, Tudors history become the reflection for the past and helps people see or think about what their era might be next.
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Response
History is lives as we know history is the collective story from past that written by human. Therefore, History is human self-knowledge which can play an importance role by told us about who we are? What is it mean to be human? If we learn from the past widely we can predict our future and make it better. Unfortunately, most of history is always focus on royal house, war heroines, famous people stories rather than ordinary people stories.In my opinion, I think that the history and the past is not the same thing because history had been constructed by historians as known as grand narratives. its can be true or not? It’s depend on who tell that story and each generation looks at the past through their own gaze. For example, History of Thai Nation are developed by view of elite for the nationalize purpose, event it has many version of them but it still remind Thainess, the idea that portray every people no matter who you are, race culture religious as Thais whole nation. This idea is so stereotype, over-generalized about a category of people, it made somethings or someone invisible form their own society even in fact societies have many types of people who live together. Nowadays the idea of extremism that affect from nationalism, more become serious problem around the world.
Hence, I think that is the reason why I choose this article it’s because I’m interested in the gaze of generation that looks thought History. Everyone has their own perspective and interpretation which relate their background like age gender race. So, it makes History more interesting. Back to our acritical “Why we can’t get enough of the Tudors”, The House of Tudor was an English royal house that ruled England and Wales from 1485 to 1603. At that time, Britain have to facing a great change, they need to reform their country. For 400 years gone by same story same character still inspiring entertainment scene like fashion novel especially, Movie and TV series. Movie and TV series have many aspects of Tudors. Sadly, all of those stick around sexual desire, For example The Spanish Princess (2019) The Tudors (2007) The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972). It makes us learn nothing for that.
In this article point out that it’s still has novel name Wolf Hall written by English author Hilary Mantel. It's a trilogy that adapted fictional character for Tudors. This story covers the last four years of Cromwell's life, King Henry's ministers. this is the reason why I’m interested because the trilogy focuses about political games lives of ordinary people, I think it made Wolf Hall outstanding from any other.
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Question
In your opinion, why are we so obsessed with period dramas?
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Reference
- Anderson, H. Why we can’t get enough of the Tudors (2020, February, 28). BBC Culture http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20200227-why-we-cant-get-enough-of-the-tudors
Your blog post is a trap. And I am a mouse getting caught by this trap! I strongly agree with your opinion on what history is, which is misunderstood by many people. When I taught my students in history class, I always began with this question, "What is History?" "Stories in the past" is the most popular answer, but it is not all correct. As you have said, history is not just the past, but it is the past that is constructed by historians, and it can have more than one narrative. Nationalism history, of course, is the most popular narrative in our country. Moreover, it is reproduced by television dramas, films, and the most important one, education.
ReplyDeleteAs a history student and Social Studies teacher, I really hated the nationalist narrative because it is the only narrative that dominates the history and does not give a chance to other interpretations. This narrative has been learned and accepted by people of several generations. And anyone who does not believe in mainstream history is often considered "anti-nation." Then, history becomes a tool for the government to control the idea of its citizens. I think that this nationalist history is problematic in many ways. I agree with all you have mentioned. The Thai history is lack of ordinary social lives aspect as the renowned history professor, Thongchai Winichakul, described it as "royal-nationalist." Actually, his books have enlightened my thoughts about history. Also, Thai nationalist history has stereotyped people in this country. It does marginalize the local history and local people, such as Lanna, and especially Patani, which still affects the tense situation in southern Thailand now.
Lastly, I would like to end with the quote from one of the world most famous book, Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, "... the best reason to learn history: not in order to predict the future, but to free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies." This explained that we should study history, definitely not the way we do today.
I loved Yuval Noah Harari's series of three books about human history. My favourite is his first one, the 2015 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Harari gives a brilliant introduction not only to the history of our species, but also shows us how history helps us to understand what we are and where we might go. From the opening sentences, he makes the connection between stories and histories, from the story of physics, the story of chemsistry and the story of biology, to the history of homo sapiens, our murderous species that has been killing ourselves and our relatives since we began around 300,000 years ago. As Tung explains by relating it to the Thai experience, political, religious and other story tellers have been telling their stories of history to make societies in the images that they want for a very long time.
DeleteAnd at this point I'm also reminded again of the point that Naam makes in her comment on Phing's post about the shoe maker: we need to be thinking critically all the time. Is the history believable? Whose purposes does it serve? What sort of society will it create? What alternative stories might the facts support?