Once more, the saddle departs without the horse as everyone’s favourite constituency, People On Twitter, gets in high dudgeon about culture that doesn’t actually exist yet. This time it’s Gillian Anderson’s reported (although unconfirmed) turn as Margaret Thatcher in series four of The Crown, due to shoot later this summer.
The apparent issue is that Anderson is too hot to play Thatcher, and her beauty will humanise the reviled politician while making Anderson herself less likable. This, in turn, will compromise Anderson fans’ sexual fantasies – does this mean I’m hot for Thatch? – while bringing undue satisfaction to Tories prone to moist-browed reminiscences of “Mrs T”. “Does Margaret Thatcher even deserve to be played by Gillian Anderson?” asks Irish culture site the Daily Edge.
All of which is easily solved: presumably, prosthetics will be involved in Anderson’s transformation, and everyone else can grow the hell up. Who does Thatcher deserve to be played by? Katie Hopkins? The only valid question of “deserving” here is that of talented female actors to play the complex roles that are still depressingly rare.
Anderson’s evidently leftwing fans will be aware of the double standard of “likability” to which female politicians are held and the reductiveness of perceiving women based solely on their looks, yet they they are apparently happy to hold an actor to these standards when their choices threaten their adolescent fantasies.
And it is pea-brained feminism to assume that a woman’s choices must reflect her politics. For perspective, Vice recently published a piece about an upcoming biopic titled: “Zac Efron as Serial Killer Ted Bundy Is Disturbingly Hot”. Presumably, his portrayal hasn’t been interpreted as a ringing endorsement of the noted necrophile.
And Peter Morgan’s royal saga isn’t propaganda. Princess Margaret is portrayed as a spoilt brat, Prince Philip a whiny MRA and even Churchill deluded to the point of reckless endangerment. Claire Foy’s performance is compelling, but her queen remains icy. And Morgan has form here: his play The Audience imagined Thatcher’s meetings with the Queen, depicting the former as hectoring and threatened. The likelihood of him instructing Anderson to play Thatcher as an aspirational #girlboss seems as unlikely as the highbrow actor agreeing to do so.
