What a mess, eh? Coogan and his cowriter to add some drama to their movie depicted the whole of University of Leichester, and Taylor especially as bullying, misogynistic men trying to sideline a poor outsider woman, playing into the usual oppressor-oppressed dichotomy so popular today with the progressive Left: Da Patriarchy (especially the evil, elitist snobs- in this case, academics) trying to walk over the poor women who bravely stand up to them. You could see this in the Enola Holmes movie, too; this is a very popular theme which can be used and reused ad nauseum, apparently, as it sells well among a certain group of people. A small group at that, though.) While they do have influence to make something happen, they are not numerous enough to actually make these slops profitable.
The problem is that it is a, well, fabrication. In other words, a lie. A lie to twist reality to depict actual events in a way that conforms the narrative, rather than fit the narrative to the facts. And they can do it because they have the bullhorns. The problem is that while this can be done for a while, sooner or later the cracks will show. In this case it happened when one of their victims -Taylor, who was depicted as the main villain of the movie- actually dared to sue them for defamation. (No wonder; he started getting hate mail from the Guardian reading crowd for his evil deeds depicted in the movie.) Very telling how confident in their case were Coogan and his company: they settled with him out of court paying him a (hopefully) large sum of money, and were also forced to putt a notice in the movie about fictionizing Taylor. But then they turned around, had the audacity to release the following statement:
"The university's version of events has been extensively documented over the past 10 years. Philippa's recollection of events, as corroborated by the filmmakers' research, is very different.
It is strange, as I said, since they were very keen on settling out of court, and they were also forced to put a note in the beginning of their movie that their Taylor is not the real Taylor. So what is very different here? The inability to admit you fucked up, perhaps, as evidence suggests that the corroborating research of those filmmakers may not be as correct as they say, and they themselves are very acutely aware of this fact. Yet they are doubling down. Why?
The Philippa (Langley) mentioned is the heroine of the movie- she is the person who originally pushed for the excavation that led to the finding of King Eduard's remains. For reasons only known to her, she tainted the movie with some grievance against her collaborators, who, by all evidence available, were not elitist, women-hating assholes who tried to steal her glory. (And they were not all men, either.)
She had the following to say:
"Contrary to the misleading media statement issued by the University, I did feel side-lined (and continue to feel side-lined) by the University wrongly taking my credit for leading the search for the King's remains"
Again, no evidence whatsoever presented. I am sorry, lady, but "feelings" amount for exactly nothing. Just because you feel something does not mean it is true, and it does not mean the world owe you something. I feel I am owed the adoration of billions, the Nobel Peace Prize, an Oscar, ten billion dollars, an enormous golden statue facing Manhattan, a blowjob each morning from the current Playmate of the month, yet here we both are, eh? (I have the feeling this is the problem of most of the adherents of intersectionality.)
The truth is she was consistently credited; she was not excluded. She was part of every interview panel about the find and was featured in (and also produced) two documentaries about the find. I am not sure what else she expected to get that she did not get, to make her feel this way. Coogan apparently was only too happy to accommodate her -after all, as we said, it is a very good narrative lately. Bad Penis Owners trying to screw over poor Vagina Owner.
The funny thing is, though, that by doing this, by inventing a make-believe case where the contribution of women was belittled and ignored, they themselves actually created an actual case where the contribution of real women was ignored. Langley is portrayed as a lone woman fighting the evil phalanx of Patriarchic Academia, a veritable sausage-club, when in fact almost half of the archaeologist field is made up by women, and some of these women were on site. Not to mention that it is not just a case of some faceless female extras gently brushing stones with a paintbrush in the background- key contributions of actual women were ignored by the makers of this move in order to present their version of events, which is, I think safe to say, somewhat, khm, biased. I guess it is OK when they are doing it - it is done for the Greater Good after all. Or something. I would really be curious how they can justify doing this if they were serious about this whole oppression thingy. My suspicion is that they cynically tried to ride a cultural wave and did not care one way or another -tellingly the writers here (and in most of similar "lone woman" stories) are male.
(As a side-note: this "new" progressive Left now treats academia, which used to be THE place for leftist thought and ideas, as a place of insular ivory tower supporting the current oppressive power structures. You know, the very same way the Right used to treat it -and still does- and for which it was sneeringly called anti-intellectual... Weird how things change.)
Now what comes out of this mess? Instead of trying to make something that is entertaining and as truthful as possible, they decided to go the easier way. In the process they managed to tarnish the reputation of a person, they managed to tarnish the reputation of their own creation, and it is safe to say they deepened (or even started) a pretty bad blood between parties of this interesting historical find. Mission accomplished, I guess? Wouldn't have it been better to actually try to make a good movie instead? (I would like to ask the same question from many "creatives", by the way)
Oh well. One movie less I need to watch.
