Ah, The Young Victoria. Who could deny the lavish costumes, the lovely sets, the Rupert Friend? Not I, not I. But just how Victorian was the eponymous royal?
Not very, I guess, if the movie is to be believed (please let me believe the movie). I mean, yes, there were little dogs and corsets and hats, and she apparently had to be accompanied up or down any staircase, until she became queen and told everyone in favor of this rule that they were as loony as loons on loon tablets (I so want her to have died from falling down some stairs, though, just for the universe's sake. The universe needs things like that to keep it going). She was all, get that scary Mark Strong away from me, he didn't let me learn things when I was a girl, and even though I'm still a lowly female I'm the QUEEN, DAMMIT. And scary Mark Strong was sent away! And of course, she had lots and lots of sex with her dreamy husband. At one point, Albert is shot, and I told my sister, "Not to worry, he doesn't die, they have about eight hundred more kids." I mean, Victoria dies at the age of 81 (the movie didn't say whether or not stairs were involved, pity), which is basically her just laughing in the face of Victorianism if you ask me. "You thought I was going to die from a case of the sniffles when I was 17, didn't you! DIDN'T YOU! Well take that, 1800's!"
And they did take it, because it was 1901 by then. But also, she had provided basically every European royal family on the map with a rousing case of hemophilia, which is a pretty Victorian thing to do if you ask me.
When you get right down to it, it was a feature-length version of this comic, and really, what more could you ask for?
(harkavagrant.com)
