Royal Amnesia: “The Crown” Dresses Up Brutal Colonialism

British history has always fascinated me. I was an English major in college, and I studied abroad in London (i.e. drank for 4ish month straight whilst getting school credit. Wild.) I do indeed love the Netflix series The Crown. I mean, the jewelry, the lipstick, Vanessa Kirby, the hushed whispers - OH MY!!

Nevertheless, I do not live under a rock, and critiques like this one by Sohel Sarkar at Bitch Media are essential to hold storytellers accountable, particularly when those stories are based on actual events and actual people.

“Pop culture narratives are more than entertainment; they have archival significance, capture the pulse of prevailing public sentiment and politics, and determine how certain moments in history are (or will be) remembered. In its casual colonial references, The Crown has neglected the defining and lasting trauma of postcolonial generations. Instead, it has unabashedly and unequivocally channeled the imperial gaze and rhetoric, regurgitating well-worn racist narratives, whitewashing colonial atrocities, humanizing empire apologists, and undermining anticolonial struggles. No matter how many potshots the series takes at the “royal family” through the portrayal of Princess Diana or a somewhat out-of-touch Queen, The Crown has firmly placed itself as yet another vehicle of Britain’s colonial amnesia, blissfully neglectful of the collective traumas of postcolonial nations.”

It burns because it is true, especially the “archival significance” comment.