Thanks to a link from metafilter.com some time back, I finally got around to looking at the blog Ex Urbe (subtitle: History, Philosophy, Books, Food, & Fandom). It's a great read so far, and I highly recommend it.

I thought folks might be particularly interested in the July 26th post, "The Borgias" vs. "Borgia: Faith and Fear" (accuracy in historical fiction). It's a fascinating and funny read, using an analysis of two TV series about the Borgias to reflect on issues of historical representation in fiction.

Some friends and I were discussing this sort of issue recently, and I love the points that this essay lays out. It's not 100% on the side of, you know, "Historical accuracy is paramount" or "Historical accuracy is not important"; it's more nuanced than that. And they explain why they personally have stopped evaluating historical fiction for its accuracy, or at least they no longer let historical mistakes stop them from enjoying things.

Not that historical mistakes can't still be funny, though. Like, in episode 1 of the Showtimes series "The Borgias", there's a Cardinal who confronts Rodrigo Borgia and is all shocked at Borgia's excesses/bribe-taking. Ex Urbe writes:

In fact, Cardinal Shocked-all-the-time, according to the writers you are supposed to be none other than Giuliano della Rovere. Giuliano "Battle-Pope" della Rovere! You have a mistress! And a daughter! And a brothel! And an elephant! And take your elephant to your brothel!

Hee hee. But then, having said that, Ex Urbe goes on to hypothesize why the writers might have chosen to use della Rovere this way (other than ignorance); and it makes sense to me, if you're trying to pitch your Showtime series at the widest possible US audience and you don't trust them to navigate the ins and outs of the history, to structure in some very obvious representatives of the modern sensibility as tour guides of a sort. (Even though, in the end, Ex Urbe shows why this decision actually detracts from the show's potential.)

Anyway, the essay also makes some very good points about possible pitfalls of prioritizing historical accuracy per se. For instance, there are times when accuracy could too-easily interfere with the tone/understanding/etc. of your story:

I recently had to costume some Vikings, and was lent a pair of extremely nice period Viking pants which had bold white and orange stripes about two inches wide. I know enough to realize how perfect they were, and that both the expense of the dye and the purity of the white would mark them as the pants of an important man, but that if someone walked on stage in them the whole audience would think: "Why is that Viking wearing clown pants?" Which do you want, to communicate with the audience, or to be accurate? I choose A.

And the next bit really boils it down, for me:

Thus, rather than by accuracy, I judge this type of show by how successfully the creators of an historical piece have chosen wisely from what history offered them in order to make a good story. The product needs to communicate to the audience, use the material in a lively way, change what has to be changed, and keep what’s awesome.

It then goes into what it calls "historicity", versus accuracy--how to use chosen bits of accuracy in ways that enrich the narrative and make it the very best it can be. And in the end, Showtime's The Borgias does not use historicity as productively and richly as the other Borgia show under examination (which sadly makes sense to me given the different network demands of a Showtime program vs. an international production released via Netflix).

Anyway, you might enjoy checking that out. I hear the rest of the blog is also excellent, and I'm looking forward to it.