A Black Actress as Anne Boleyn?
Casting Jodie Turner-Smith to play Anne Boleyn in a new Channel 5 series is not only historical inaccuracy, it’s a part of a long-term cultural shift that will not heal racial tensions but only stoke them further.
Tudor Britain was ‘problematic’ for many reasons.
Firstly, life was tough. Really tough. There was no welfare state, no NHS and no criminal justice system, which meant disease, starvation and crime were rife. People might’ve stolen to survive, but theft greater than five pence would often result in a brutal (and very public) execution.
Even if you led a moral existence, the average life expectancy was only 35 years. And they would’ve been tough, testing years under the tyrannical reign of Henry VIII.
After electing himself the head of the English Church, he swiftly passed the 1534 Treason Act, which brutally punished people for wrongthink. Reckon former US President Donald Trump was bad? Any criticism of Henry VIII would lead straight to the chopping block. Which, by modern-day standards, means he was ‘literally Hitler’ four centuries before the Fuhrer even existed.
However, worse than all of these flaws is the fact Tudor England was sorely lacking in diversity and inclusion. In other words, it was white. Very, very white. Levels of immigration were negligible in England from 1400-1600, so the county was caucasian by innocent circum
Article from LewRockwell
