Abstract
This paper focuses on the disempowered queen as portrayed in modern Hollywood film, analyzing why medieval queens, specifically Isabella of France, Sibylla of Jerusalem, and Isabel of Castile are frequently silenced in terms of their power, authority, and their very voices in modern film. It explores why medievalism, which has often allowed writers and artists to comment on controversial social and cultural issues has deliberately stripped these women of the power they exercised in the Middle Ages and why, in the creation of romanticized historical narratives, modern film requires a queen that is best seen as a silent shadow of her male counterparts.
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Harper, A. (2018). Silencing Queens: The Dominated Discourse of Historical Queens in Film. In: North, J., Alvestad, K., Woodacre, E. (eds) Premodern Rulers and Postmodern Viewers . Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68771-1_3
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