Pre-Raphaelite Bros

 

The cast of Desperate Romantics

So my love for Victorian things and ethereal paintings of redheads posing as mythological characters lead me to watch Desperate Romantics despite bad reviews. In my head the Pre Raphaelites paint a window into beauty, tragedy, feminine sexuality, spirituality and in that sense are kind of distant from the swaggering bros that we see here, but that's the very point of the show. Their paintings were like reveries in a grim time period, some of them had revolutionary ideas themselves (Rossetti's father was part of the Carbonari and he himself had Chartist sympathies).

The show starts with a disclaimer, an attempt to compensate for ahistoricity by claiming artistic license like the Brotherhood did to project honest, raw humanity to mythology (Millais' Christ in the House of his Parents). "Entourage with Easles", it's been called and the laddish Oasis style title theme brings that out. 

Rossetti is a wolfish Aidan Turner

Millais is the beautiful English rose Samuel Barnett

 

(I first spotten him in History Boys, where he did in fact play a gay dude, in case my dear friends were going to come up with an accusation of "tujhe toh yeh chakke type ke ladke hi pasand hain", I know. But his sweetly sad cherub face just begs to be saved. And maybe, um...roughed up a bit)

William Holman Hunt (Rafe Spall) has been shown to be a gruff fellow who tries to abstain from sex by channeling his energies at a punching bag and has the reputation of a 'maniac'. 

      

The story is introduced by Sam Crane as Fred Walters (A fictional character designed to be the sutradhaar of the show, in a way. A composite of several characters, Walter Deverell and most notably Fred Stephens)

  

I love the opening scene where Fred runs through the city after seeing Liz Siddal (Amy Manson)

             through the opium dens, the whorehouses, the pubs.

Already Rossetti seems like a douche. And highly jealous of Millais (I mean, there were jealousies undoubtedly, but nothing as petulant as this I think, it was more along the lines of who slept with whose girl and who will have the model first or about how someone leaves the brotherhood, ideologically or by leaving the country and such).

"Drink disagrees with me" - Fred

"Me too, but I enjoy the argument" - Rossetti

I'm not trying to dislike the show because I can put aside historical accuracy for the sake of good TV but I find that the show so far (only been one episode) seems to be one of those things that you show to disinterested school/college kids to spark an interest, like Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth topless. Which is not necessarily always a bad thing. 

The ones who really fascinate me here are the women. Effie Gray (critic John Ruskin's wife and later Millais') demanding her rights as a wife from her stone-cold husband. "Whores" and "fallen women" as the great tragic and mythological heroines. Liz Siddal has more character in a lock of her firey red hair than all the other characters put together. We love a woman with a mouth and we love the mousy wide eyed boy in love with her (Fred). Rossetti steals Fred's lines and all he can say is "Perhaps next time I'll have the courage to tell her how I really feel". And we all know the badboy will get the girl. Sadly this story doesn't end well. The Muse, Ophelia ends up overdosing on laudanum after a strained marriage with Rossetti (strained probably due to his many infidelities).

I love watching Aidan Turner getting punched in the face. Notice the Sex Pistols/Kidnapper style lettering on their exhibition invite (tongue in cheek in the style of Coppola's Marie Antoinette with the converse sneakers in her room).

Ruskin declares the Bros to be the next big thing and I'm obviously going to watch the next episode for my love of 19th century period shows/films/books and those fabulous mens' clothes (the frock coats, waistcoats, bowler hats and top hats!) and the curiosity of seeing great men interpreted as just one of the boys, however disappointingly close to our regular fighting, cheating, drinking, fucking, creating everyday life it may seem. 

 

More about the Bromance from the creator's mouth.

PS: I'll write more later, maybe. I'm watching Tipping the Velvet these days too, so maybe about that as well.