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Prequel Problems: Endeavour

I think this discussion has gone a different and more general place than the point I was trying to make in the article. It's not that Endeavour should present young Morse as Gene Hunt, because Morse has never been Gene Hunt; I don't think he was ever presented as racist in the original series, for example, and I think I recall in the aforementioned episode "Greeks Bearing Gifts" that his classical education made him less dismissive of the Greek characters than some other officers. I was referring to the specific point that if Morse in the 80s has to be convinced of the value of women in the police force, it doesn't make any sense for him to be the one defending women in the police force in the 60s (especially when there wasn't an integrated police force in reality at all). It is not as if that prevents one featuring Morse sparring with strong female characters, because they already do that successfully with Abigail Thaw's editor character.

This is distinct from the point of shifting values over time and whether this alienates an audience. Morse in the original series was often seen as old-fashioned and out of step with the modern world in many ways (such as his musical tastes) and often Lewis had to be the one telling him to move with the times when it came to certain values. That didn't stop Morse being a sympathetic character who we felt had a heart in the right place (which, as I said in the article, is much more apparent in the TV series than the books where he comes across as more amoral). What I was objecting to is not putting modern values in the 60s (which, as I said, Endeavour doesn't actually do that much) but the idea that our protagonist has to be the one taking the more modern standpoint, when we never cared before if Morse was crusty and backward and had to be tactfully corrected by Lewis. It feels like the writers of Endeavour are determined to make young Morse the audience surrogate and bang square peg into round hole (aren't we all Oxonian college dropouts named after Captain Cook's ship?), when in the past, if anything, the everyman Lewis was probably the audience surrogate (as the traditional 'Watson').

Only vaguely related: I am far from the first person to observe this, but on watching the 1979 Alec Guinness adaptation of Le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, one thing period pieces will never get right (and for understandable reasons) is just how much people smoked in the mid-20th century. There's usually a nod to it in modern period pieces, but in the real thing it's so omnipresent that it almost feels like an exaggerated parody.
 
Which isn't necessarily a good thing or a bad thing.
Yes, I have certainly participated in interesting discussions that have wandered from the original article before, I was just concerned that people (perhaps inadvertently) were implying my position in the original article was "everyone in period pieces should be Gene Hunt and beat their wives" or words to that effect, which was certainly not what I was getting at.
 
I was referring to the specific point that if Morse in the 80s has to be convinced of the value of women in the police force, it doesn't make any sense for him to be the one defending women in the police force in the 60s (especially when there wasn't an integrated police force in reality at all).
I've actually just remembered what my first thought was when they introduced the character of Trewlove - "Oh God, they're going to fridge her in front of Morse at some point to justify why he doesn't want women in the force later as a tragic backstory, aren't they?"

At least that didn't happen, albeit possibly only because the actress left in between series and we pretty quickly got to "will never be referred to again" status.
 
for example, and I think I recall in the aforementioned episode "Greeks Bearing Gifts" that his classical education made him less dismissive of the Greek characters than some other officers

Press X for doubt.

The considerable Hellenophilia of the late eighteenth century was followed by a very intense backlash into prolonged (arguably never ended) Hellenophobia when people visited Greece, either to help in the independence fight, as Byron did, or simply to visit and explore. They couldn't reconcile that their picture of Greece through more than two-millenia-old texts from a specific cultural elite didn't fit the modern Greeks through all the migrations and sheer history that had taken place and they deployed a very violent rhetoric against people they condemned in Orientalist and racial coded language. Maybe Morse himself would be able to escape it, but it's not an automatic assumption to make because people often defied it.

Only vaguely related: I am far from the first person to observe this, but on watching the 1979 Alec Guinness adaptation of Le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, one thing period pieces will never get right (and for understandable reasons) is just how much people smoked in the mid-20th century. There's usually a nod to it in modern period pieces, but in the real thing it's so omnipresent that it almost feels like an exaggerated parody.

Spoken like somebody who has not watched French media.
 
Period dramas made in the past don't seem to have been any different in changing things to be more 'acceptable' to their contemporary mores either.

I was referring more to how the very topics touched on modernly where touched on in the past when it was contemporary. So the "this man can only be evil cause he used the N word" is not always required as media from the very period shows other ways to do it.
 
a Gerry Anderson episode sounds both Retro Theme Park and the one I most want to see

Century 21 posted their own behind the scenes look at the making of Moon Rangers



It’s interesting that this is another example of a cameo appearance of Colin Dexter. The marionette of Colonel Crater was modelled on him, and was voiced by David Graham.
 
Anyone seen "Murder at White House Farm"? That has an interesting 1980s. Namely it both is dropped deep into the weird style and music, but it also has houses lost in a specific time period. The White House Farm looks like a mixture of the 1950s, 60s, and touches of the 80s sprinkled in. It looks lived in but also alien compared to others.

Likewise it does well in showing the oddity of color in the 1980s set against the bland and drab government buildings of brick, steel and glass.
 
Of course one element of the 'oddly modern attitudes' is basically one of audience demands.

I'm quite aware that it would be more realistic for even a generally nice and heroic person in the 19th Century to be a massive sexist and racist. I can certainly tolerate somebody who is casually one of those when it comes up and contrasted with somebody else who perhaps has some other massive flaw.

But honestly if the entire cast of the TV show are period-appropriate sexists and racists, and period-appropriate in terms of being extremely vocal about this, and the point isn't that our Heroic Main Character has to actually overcome his preconceptions on something, then honestly it doesn't really matter how accurate this is, I'm probably not going to care enough about the characters to watch it.
Someday they're going to make a biopic of HP Lovecraft, and either everyone will denounce it for whitewashing his racist views or denounce it because it's literally just 120 minutes of Lovecraft screaming slurs at passing African-Americans.
 
Someday they're going to make a biopic of HP Lovecraft, and either everyone will denounce it for whitewashing his racist views or denounce it because it's literally just 120 minutes of Lovecraft screaming slurs at passing African-Americans.

Make it a feel good story about Lovecraft's relationship with his pet cat. There's no way that could be controversial.
 
Someday they're going to make a biopic of HP Lovecraft, and either everyone will denounce it for whitewashing his racist views or denounce it because it's literally just 120 minutes of Lovecraft screaming slurs at passing African-Americans.

I think one issue in that vein is how if one is racist they must ALWAYS be racist. No filters at all.
 
Someday they're going to make a biopic of HP Lovecraft, and either everyone will denounce it for whitewashing his racist views or denounce it because it's literally just 120 minutes of Lovecraft screaming slurs at passing African-Americans.

By all accounts, he was horribly polite to everybody (if frequently strained and nervous) in actual encounters. His racism was largely a weird intellectual exercise.
 
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