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Legrand-Mastersthesis-2018 Chapter I: Introduction For many individuals, learning about a historical figure like Queen Victoria will be through viewing visual medias like film and television miniseries. With the general public using films and television miniseries to acquire historical knowledge the means to analyze and assess this form of study is impertinent. Even after her death, Queen Victoria remains a popular figure often depicted in films and television miniseries due to her long life and her paradoxical role as sovereign. Part of this film analysis is to evaluate Queen Victoria’s agency and her intentions to make a particular effect on her family and the monarchy. Queen Victoria’s agency is analyzed through films and television miniseries because of the visual representations of how filmmakers interpret Victoria’s life and how she approaches events during her reign. By using the representa- tions of Queen Victoria in films and television miniseries, I apply historical and film analysis to examine how filmmakers have communicated a specific interpretation of Queen Victoria and her agency. Films and television miniseries also depict Queen Victoria’s relationship with her family members, politicians and subjects, which can be interpreted and analyzed to understand her agency in a boarder context. The films and television miniseries have an added historical value by depicting a wider cultural, social and political context of Queen Victoria’s life and how filmmakers interpret her agency. In this thesis, agency refers to Victoria’s actions and interventions to the social, political and cultural factors that are viewed in the films and miniseries. How Victoria asserted herself throughout her life is viewed in the films and miniseries selected for this thesis. In order to un- derstand the analysis on Victoria’s agency, a survey on Victoria’s reign and how historians have assessed her performance on power and gender are part of this thesis. For Queen Victoria, her power was not solely hers to control because of her gender. In the nineteenth-century, women 2 were deemed the inferior sex and were meant to stay in the private sphere of home and family. Women were thought to be too emotional to have any position of power and men were thought to be the more logical of the two sexes. Victoria was the sole ruler of England yet, for her advi- sors and subjects, she could never truly rule their country alone. Even Victoria herself felt that her position, as Queen of England, was too much to handle given her inferior sex.1 Victoria’s ac- tions were also influenced by her subjects and the continued survival of the monarchy because of her predecessors. As a young and unmarried women, Victoria had to be feminine and moral to have the support of the people. In the first two years of her reign, Victoria would face scandals like the Bedchamber Crisis of 1839 that would threaten her power, her reputation, and her image. To improve Victoria’s image and stop further criticism of the monarchy, eligible men were se- lected for the queen for marriage. A suitable husband by Victoria’s side was important for the continuation of the monarchy and the queen’s first cousin, Prince Albert, was a preferable choice. Albert was a smart and moral man who wanted to influence the British government and society through his wife, who happily gave her power to him. Her marriage to Prince Albert curbed fears of a woman who had sole power because of the perception that men were more equipped to handle the pressure of ruling a country. This thesis is organized into chapters on biographical survey, an overview to the films and miniseries, an analysis of the films and miniseries, and a conclusion. Historiography is the subject of the second chapter of the thesis because it describes the various historians who have written about Victoria’s life. This will also give more detail about Victoria’s life and the events that were pivotal in her life. The third chapter introduces the films and miniseries that were used in this study on Victoria’s agency. The films and televisions miniseries examined in this thesis 1 Lassiter Pamela S, "Exploring Power and Gender-Role Expectations: A Historical Interpretive Analysis of Queen Victoria” (PhD diss., Georgia State University, 2004). 3 were produced between 1937 and 2016. Historical accuracy was not a factor in the choosing of the films and miniseries but instead films were chosen base on the varying interpretations of Queen Victoria’s representation and her agency. During the eighty-year time period in which these films and television miniseries were made gender and societal norms were changing in the United Kingdom and thus reflects the various ways Queen Victoria is represented over time. All these films and television miniseries have some basis with historical content and are mainstream production and not experimental. Some of these films focus on the early years of Victoria’s reign and others focus on her life after the death of husband Albert. Each of the films and miniseries goes into detail of the plot and the critical reception it received. The fourth chapter analyzes what the films and miniseries reveal about Victoria’s agency. The final chapter is on the conclusion of the films and miniseries and how Victoria’s agency was represented. For the thesis, Victoria’s agency is analyzed through films and miniseries on the queen’s life. The nine films and miniseries were chosen from the 1930’s to the present day, focusing largely on Victoria’s life as queen and her marriage with Prince Albert. Through the analysis of these films and miniseries on Victoria’s life, five common themes were examined: morality, gen- der roles, assassination, intruders and seclusion. For Queen Victoria the person, morality played a big part in how she wanted be represented to the public. In films such as Victoria and Albert (2001), Victoria’s is apathetic to the immorality with the royal court until her marriage to Prince Albert. He takes charge of the household and wants to improve the image of the royal family. Victoria’s agency is then expressed by emulating her husband, who greatly influences her and the need to improve the monarchy’s reputation. This also plays into the next theme of gender roles in which Queen Victoria was in a masculine position, yet she had to remain strictly femi- nine in a male dominant society. Films like Edward the Seventh (1975), Victoria and Albert 4 (2001), and The Young Victoria (2009) characterize Victoria as enjoying her role as queen, espe- cially when she is with Lord Melbourne. However, her devotion to Lord Melbourne and her im- maturity threaten the monarchy and a marriage is arranged for the young queen. Victoria’s ac- tions transform with her marriage to Prince Albert, who wants to influence his wife but also wants to influence the British government. Queen Victoria begins to relinquish her power to Prince Albert, who performs royal duty in the absence of his wife due to multiple pregnancies. Albert wants to assert his dominance not only on Victoria, but also on her servants, changing the way the palaces are run and making them run more efficiently. Her subjects approved of Albert asserting his male superiority over his wife who was acting as a many of her ordinary counter- parts throughout Britain. Victoria was acting as a passive, middle class wife and making her more relatable to her middle class subjects. Victoria’s people did not want a queen to have too much freedom or power and having a husband allows the public to believe that their female mon- arch was being guided by a capable Prince Albert. Victoria’s agency is no longer that of a woman in control, but instead giving away her power to her husband. Albert’s death in 1861 is a major turning point for the queen who must take on the sole task of performing royal duties. Assassination attempts and intruders were both common themes in the films and minise- ries on Victoria’s life. There were seven assassination attempts on Victoria’s life and two are portrayed on film. The first assassination attempt and the sixth assassination attempt are por- trayed on film and analyzed because it displays Victoria’s reactions to nearly being killed and her affection for the men at different time in her reign. In the first assassination attempt, Victoria is a young newlywed and is riding in a carriage, along with Prince Albert, when a young man named Edward Oxford shoots at the royal couple. Oxford is apprehend by a bystander and is taken into custody where he is declared insane. In Victoria and Albert, and Victoria, the young 5 queen’s reacts to the assassination attempt in two distinct ways. In Victoria and Albert, Victoria is unfazed by the attempt on her life and willing rides in her carriage through the crowds to show her trust in her people. By doing this action, Victoria’s people know that their queen will not let one assassin’s bullet deter her from public life. In Victoria, Victoria is portrayed as disturbed by the possibility that Oxford could go free and she would be unable to leave her palace out of fear. When Oxford is found not guilty, Victoria accepts her people’s verdict and returns to public life. In The Young Victoria, Victoria is hysterical when Albert is struck by the assassin’s bullet and fearful that he may die. In the film, Victoria displays her love and devotion for Albert who saved her from the assassin’s bullet. The sixth assassination attempt occurs when the queen is a wid- owed woman and her servant, John Brown, saves her after leaving a church service.
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