fciwomenswrestling.com femcompetitor.com article, Universal Intl photo credit
Sanitizing history has often been a frustrating critique of modern television.
In reviewing the comments focused on the television series Jamestown, there seemed to be an overwhelming animus towards the notion that women were sexually defiant, aware of their female rights and strong enough to voice them back in the good old days of the early colonies.
Jamestown is a 2017 British drama television series, written by Bill Gallagher and produced by Carnival Films, the makers of Downton Abbey. Set in 1619, Jamestown follows the first English settlers as they establish a community in the New World.
Among those landing onshore are a group of women destined to be married to the men of Jamestown, including three spirited women from England.
Spirited is the operative word.
Make that very spirited.
In a May 5, 2017 article written by Mark Lawson at theguardian.com he expresses, “From Downton Abbey to Call the Midwife and now Jamestown, period dramas always fall into the classic trap – characters with laughably liberal values for their day. Stop the madness, TV-makers!”
He summarizes, “You wonder, though, if the real 17th-century spouses were as feisty, cheeky and rebellious as Jocelyn, Alice and Verity, the main characters here. They slap men’s faces, joke about their sexual failures, campaign for tougher sentencing for sex criminals.”
Okay, that does sound a little modern.
Life in 1600s Jamestown for women? Shutter the thought.
Oh by the way. Despite being set in the United States, most of the series was filmed in Hungary.
How is that for accuracy?
Look, why do you think so many TV series and movies as well state “based upon true events”?
What percentage is true? Trust us, you don’t want to know.
At least the show got an “A” for casting Naomi Battrick.
Now that was true accuracy.
She plays Jocelyn Castel a woman who has left England to start a new life in Jamestown, Virginia.
Our beauty speaks to the whole Budapest scenario in an interview with radiotimes.com. “The production company bought a field with a stunning lake and built an exact copy of Jamestown. They even grew the tobacco plantations. They had to chop it all down and burn it after filming because Hungary has strict tobacco laws.”
How ironic.
Naomi Battrick is an English actress, predominantly known for her television roles as Toyah Swann in the CBBC show My Almost Famous Family and as Grace Jacobs in Doctors.
She has also appeared in films, including the 2012 thriller film Blood as Miriam Fairburn. In January of 2014, she joined the cast of BBC One school drama Waterloo Road as new girl Gabriella Wark.
That is a wonderful thespian resume.
She came to our attention when we were fixated on her in the television series Crossing Lines.
From the moment that we saw her we were mesmerized. Are there ever enough British Princesses?
We sure can’t get enough of them.
Crossing Lines is a German-French-Italian-American television series created by Edward Allen Bernero and Rola Bauer.
Netflix carried the series’ first two seasons, and announced the debut of season three on February 19, 2015.
The show’s plot revolves around the International Criminal Court‘s special crime unit (a fictional unit). Based in The Hague, it investigates a variety of crimes that cross international boundaries. The unit includes an anti-organized crime, covert specialist from Italy, a technical specialist from Germany, a crimes analyst and a human-trafficking specialist from France, and a weapons specialist and tactical expert from Northern Ireland.
Very international wouldn’t you say?
Naomi appears in the third season and what struck us most about her was the contrast between her spirited character in Jamestown and her more subdued and even somewhat submissive and less confident one in Crossing Lines.
If someone ever dreamed of a traditional, feminine and beautiful wife, Naomi’s character in Crossing Lines fulfills that fantasy. It was so easy to pull for her especially since a few of her colleagues in the unit didn’t strongly believe in her.
Even though she carries a gun.
She knows how to use it too.
Her character did come shining through on the screen and in our hearts.
That’s the beauty of Naomi’s acting. She can play a rebellious British school girl in knickers as well as a terrified heroine in Cheery Tree.
To get a nice sense of her personality please click on the link at YouTube while it lasts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1LqkmKSDaI
Now we would like to get a sense of her upbringing. Where do fairytale princesses come from? Many places. Have you ever heard of Kettering?
Naomi is from there.
Kettering is a town in Northamptonshire, England, about 81 miles north of London and 15 miles from Northampton, on the west side of the River Ise, a tributary of the River Nene. The name means “the place (or territory) of Ketter’s people (or kinsfolk)”.
At the 2011 census, the borough had a population of 93,475.
The town is twinned with Lahnstein, in Germany and Kettering, Ohio, in the United States.
The present town grew in the 19th century with the development of the boot and shoe industry, for which Northamptonshire as a whole became famous. Many large homes in both the Headlands and Rockingham Road were built for factory owners, while terraced streets provided accommodation for the workers.
Kettering has remained a prosperous town, with exceptional roads as well as rail connections.
In terms of the larger region the travel masters at Lonely Planet paint an enchanting picture. “Dotted with villages full of pincushion cottages with thatched roofs and Tudor timbers, Northamptonshire also has a string of stately manors, including the ancestral homes of George Washington and Diana, Princess of Wales.”
It’s fitting that a fairytale princess like Naomi comes from a region which is the home of a very famous princess.
“Deep in every heart slumbers a dream, and the couturier knows it: every woman is a princess.”…Christian Dior
Part of the magic of life in a sometimes harsh world is to keep believing in magic and we sense, princesses too.
If you decide to follow the career of Naomi Battrick you will receive a double blessing.
She has the ability to keep both the magic and princess fantasy alive with accuracy.
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Opening photo Universal Intl photo credit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown_(TV_series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_Lines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettering
https://www.britannica.com/place/Kettering-England
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/england/the-midlands/northamptonshire
https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/princess
