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SpoilerThe Tudors S01E01
Well I am rewatching The Tudors and not only do they have a sex scene before even 10 minutes in (because of course), and they have a second sex scene, less explicit, where the king takes one of the ladies in waiting because his wife Queen Catherine is not present. In the following scene King Henry says, "Do you consent?"
OK first of all, there's zero chance he would have considered a woman's consent.
Second, there's zero chance a woman in that situation, with the most dangerous man in the country, would have said, "No."
This insertion of the consent line is to make men feel better about the fact that this man raped numerous women who had no agency to decline him.
Another gripe: they chose a woman who looks old enough to be his auntie to play Catherine, the too-old-queen (I like this actress, it isn't a dig on her at all).
IRL Henry BEGGED to marry her and even went to the pope for permission. That's why he couldn't divorce later, because the new pope refused to extinguish something the last pope granted permission for.
She was 5, FIVE, years older than him. She was 24 and he was 19 when they married. She wasn't some middle-aged cougar. But the producers decided to make her look extremely old in comparison, so we would feel sorry for the king with his wife going through 'the change'. The truth is there would have likely been no discernible difference in appearance age-wise.
Also, nit pick but Catherine was a blonde.
Yes I almost mentioned that too. Maybe not in adulthood but in her younger years she was very blonde
I'm ok with them making this aesthetic choice though, to give the audience more of what they expect a Spanish princess to look like. Also MDK is such an amazing actress in this role!
The actress portraying Katherine of Aragon is 13 years older than the actor playing Henry.
She was his older brother's widow. He needed papal permission because of conflicting religious views, from the old testament. One view is that was incest. The other view was that if a man died without offspring, his brother should marry the widow and in a sense, any child would be as if the late brother had one. The loophole Henry later used to divorce her was to claim that her marriage to his late brother was consummated, when the claim when he wanted to marry was that it was not. Supposedly his brother said "marriage was a thirsty business" as if he was worn out after the physical effort, but it was also felt the late brother was just saving face by claiming consummation.
They were literally both children when married.
Also the old testament of the Bible doesn't require that the brother only marry his sister-in-law law if she's a virgin, actually that would be totally stupid. The Bible clearly states the brother should marry his brother's widow to give his brother offspring. Henry's complaint was due to him not knowing scripture, and/or hoping no-one else did
I think you'll find, if you choose to watch all of the Tudors, that him asking if the woman consents isn't about modern consent. It's because he's a giant narcissist who has to be told that he's desirable. Being king isn't enough, Henry is desperate to be universally admired as a man as well. This is what his sex life (I was going to say love life but who are we kidding), his ridiculous dangerous athletics, even his foreign policy are all about.
I don't think, generally, that the show tries to make you feel better about Henry. He's definitely not a hero.
That said I really love the Tudors, one of my favorite historical shows,