let them eat cake...

so, meeg bought me the "marie antoinette" soundtrack for christmas (i think it was christmas), and i've been listening to it non-stop lately. it doesn't hurt that the movie has been on television constantly in the last couple of weeks.
i did see the beginning of it ages ago, when it first came out, and wasn't interested. i ended up turning it off after all of 5 minutes.
i have since watched it and i have to say that i really like it a lot. i think that our sophia has done a really good job of showing the progression of the young woman who was so vilified and who became the symbol of everything that was wrong with the french monarchy.
this is what i know of her (from school, etc). she was austrian and about 14 or 15 when she married louis, the dauphin of france (they were married by proxy). when she finally came to france she was completely lost in the decadence and ritual of the french court, versailles, and being the dauphine. it didn't help her much that her husband, louis, was kind of a freak (i'm going to go so far as to say that he was a boy who never grew up). i don't think he was gay- i think he was more scared of sex, or even a-sexual altogether. the rumor goes that they were married for seven years before their marriage was consummated (recall, though, that she was still in austria for some of that time). she was under intense pressure from her mother and the french king (and just about everyone else in the world) to produce an heir, but what is a young woman to do when her husband won't sleep with her? it's been pretty well documented that it wasn't her fault- she was attractive and wanted to please louis and produce and heir- he was the one who wasn't interested for unknown reasons.
during the years when she wasn't sleeping with her husband (the king died before a child was born by marie and thus she was queen before her husband slept with her), she fell into the debauchery of the french court. she held lavish parties, gambled, went to the opera in paris quite a bit... by this time she was around 18 years old and little older. i completely understand why she would behave this way! you are the queen of france. people think it's your fault that the king won't have sex with you, you are devastated by the fact that you have not produced an heir and you feel like there's nothing you can do to seduce your husband. imagine that you're 18 and a queen living at versailles... what would you do? you would buy the latest fashions... you would have parties... you would eat decadent food... you would do anything and everything to live frivolously enough to forget that you feel that it is your fault that you cannot fulfill your life's purpose!! she was but a young girl and she acted as such!
when she did finally have a child (a girl) she retreated to her own home, away from versailles, and spent most of her time there. she became reclusive, no longer threw the huge bashes, no longer bought the crazy clothes... she spent years with her daughter living in quiet serenity. she later bore a son (the dauphin louis, who was executed along with her and his father), and had another child who died.
she did take to the life that she was brought into when she entered into the french court, but she did not create the decadence. it was there when she arrived, she merely became a part of it.
i think that she was a very sad figure. very misunderstood and blamed for things that history now shows she did not do nor say (she never said, 'let them eat cake'). it must also be mentioned that she was blamed by the people (i think it was because it was easier to blame the foreign queen than to blame the rightful king- even though his head ended up on the block, too) for her lavish spending when it came to her parties and clothes and gambling and such. we must remember that louis was spending a FORTUNE at the time helping the US with their (our) revolution. both he and his grandfather (the previous king) were even more decadent than marie. they ate and had parties and waged war and lived at versailles... they bought insane estates, and did all of the things that the french kings of the time thought was their right. she was blamed for the overspending and decadence of the whole royal court, and in this i think she got the rawest of all possible deals. she was truly hated for things that she did not do and were not her fault. it is a small comfort that history has come to show that the things she was hated for at the time of the french revolution were not her fault or were not done or said by her at all.

i think that the film does a good job of showing a young girl trying to adapt to a new life, trying to cope with pressures that are too great for her, being the child that she was, being a loving wife and mother, and just trying her best to find her place in what could only have been the most difficult and bizarre of situations. i recommend watching it (even though i don't like kirsten dunst).

and of course, all of this is set to a pretty damn fantastic soundtrack (thanks, meeg!).



next time...
the election, hillary, obama, the old guy, and what the next few months have in store for us.