Dame Judi Dench wrote an open letter to Netflix demanding disclaimer before every episode of The Crown. The seventh season of the famed s...
Dame Judi Dench wrote an open letter to Netflix demanding disclaimer before every episode of The Crown.
The seventh season of the famed show has been talk of the town since former prime minister of UK Sir John Major dubbed the plotline as a "barrel-load of nonsense."
As reported by Entertainent Weekly, the Oscar-winning actress lashed out on the streaming platform in an open letter that she wrote to a British newspaper The Times, for the show’s "crude sensationalism" and "inaccurate and harmful account of history."
Dench wrote. "Indeed, the closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism."
Dench went on further and demanded the streaming platform to add disclaimers in the beginning of episodes, fearing that viewers might confuse the dramatization with the actual facts.
"While many will recognize The Crown for the brilliant but fictionalized account of events that it is, I fear that a significant number of viewers, particularly overseas, may take its version of history as being wholly true," she added. "This is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent."
The actress specifically called out the abdication scene, as well as the show's depiction of Queen Elizabeth II's parenting.
"No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged," Dench continued. "Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a 'fictionalized drama' the program makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode."
"The time has come for Netflix to reconsider for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve its reputation in the eyes of its British subscribers," Dench wrote.
Dench has also played British monarchs before (though not Queen Elizabeth II), and also bagged Oscar for her role of Elizabeth I in Shakespeare and Love.
The seventh and final season of the show is releasing on Netflix on November 9, 2022.
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