Slandering Thomas Tallis
The absurd, historically inaccurate series on Showtime, "The Tudors," has slandered the reputation of one of England's greatest composers, Thomas Tallis (1505-85). As it is now de rigeur to include gay and lesbian scenes in television mini-series, someone thought it would be nice to have young Tallis engage in homosex with Lord Compton. The problem is Tallis was not present at the court of Henry VIII until 1543, well past the time period depicted on the program. We also know that Tallis married a woman named Joan, and there is not even a whiff of scandal attached to his name. Indeed he managed to negotiate the religious turmoil of the sucessive reigns of Henry, and his children Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth.I was looking forward to "The Tudors," but it has turned out to be an over the top soap opera, which has now slandered a great musical genius. They should be ashamed of themselves, but gay themes are now all the rage, so we can only expect more of them. Those of us who love Thomas Tallis are deeply offended.
posted by Scribe at 11:43 AM
8 Comments:
You ought to send your thoughts to Showtime.
Hi-you're absolutely right. There is no evidence to suggest that Tallis was gay. On the other hand, I would put it to you that there have been men and women throughout history with predominantly homosexual tendencies who have been portrayed as completely heterosexual. If you find all inaccuracies such as this unacceptable I would understand. However, if that is acceptable, and this is not, I'm afraid we must differ, as being wrongly portrayed as homosexual is certainly not worse than wrongly portrayed as heterosexual.
It is very offensive that you think that portraying him as gay is "slandering" him. It is not. Well, only if you bigoted about same-sex relationships. It might be inaccurate, but slanderous it is not.
If I, or any producers wanted to slander Tallis, all we would need to say is that he was a second class composer that is mostly remembered for being associated with King Henry. It also helps that the english have turned out so few memorable composers, music historians have chosen him to serve as an answer on one of their music history tests.(seeing as the rest of the test for this era was about italy and france.) Tallis never produced a Matthew Passion, the Firebird, Don Juan, or Beethoven 9. (I could go on) None of his work gets any attention or has survived the test of time.
As for people freaking out about him being gay, who cares.This can not be the only inaccurate, or most misconstrued fact fact on the show.
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Why denigrate Tallis while exalting other composers, as did a previous blogger? There's room for all of them. I happen to prefer a beautiful rendition of "Spem in alium" or "O nata lux" to most other pieces of the Tudor period. To each his own. No one needs musical Fascism.
Ok, this may be historically inaccurate, however, more offensive to this is the way you refer to this inaccuracy [being homosexual] as 'slandering'. Would you refer to an heterosexual portrayal of Benjamin Britten as slandering? Would this upset you in such a way? I think not.
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