Monarchists and Entertainment

The combination of a Facebook discussion yesterday on The King's Speech, and my recent "discovery" of Stranger Things last month nearly a year and a half after everyone else got into it, prompts this observation. As much as I love movies and TV shows about my pet topic of royalty, like The Crown and Victoria, when I watch them, even if I basically enjoy it, there's always a part of me that's judging. "No, that's not right!" Same with classical music (e.g. Mozart in the Jungle). I can't help it. To a lesser extent I suppose that's true even with quasi-medieval fantasy like Game of Thrones. With Stranger Things, and also Breaking Bad (the other modern mainstream show I belatedly decided I liked), there is something liberating about not having to be like that and just being captivated, as millions of others have been, by how extraordinarily well done it is.

That said, Dungeons and Dragons (which I never played as a kid, though I attempted it a couple times in 2014-15 thanks to a younger friend) plays an important role in Stranger Things, and over the years I've occasionally seen republicans in online arguments accuse monarchists of just wanting to play Dungeons and Dragons. So, there's that. Probably not many people are aware that Finn Wolfhard (2002) has the same birthday (December 23) as Emperor Akihito of Japan (1933), Queen Silvia of Sweden (1943), and Grand Duchess Maria of Russia (1953).