#frev media

[saint-jussy]

im cryin laughing at this French Revolution video that drew Robespierre as a gigachad

[usergreenpixel]

Guys, I didn’t manage to endure watching that “Napoleon” thing. Lasted for about 45 minutes or so before my ears and head had enough of the blasting noises at the movie theater. To be honest, my head still hurts a bit.

And… so far I haven’t managed to understand SHIT of the plot and I can’t even describe the characters in terms of what they are about. So anyone with no prior knowledge of the context would be even more confused than I was.

Also… Robespierre looked like Danton for some reason… and gave a speech that is an amalgamation of all the Frev propaganda… but at least he didn’t accuse the queen of incest…

I really don’t understand the point of Frev scenes. Napoleon wasn’t there to witness the death of Marie Antoinette and I’m pretty sure he didn’t have a front row seat for Thermidor either, so I wish there wasn’t that much screen time related to the bullet points of Frev, so to speak.

And yeah, everyone has said it before me, but Napoleon is lacking expression to the point that Moai 🗿 would seem expressive compared to him!

Honestly, I highly doubt it gets better afterwards so yeah… don’t watch this shit. I will make a proper review, most likely, but I guess I will need to watch it on streaming sites for that. Oh well!

[privateandshamefulvices]

Brief moment of someone being in character lmao.

[ninasarchive]

Don't be deceived when our Revolution has been finally stamped out, and they tell you that things are better now. Even if there's no poverty to be seen, because the poverty's been hidden. Even if you've got more wages and can afford to buy more of these new and useless goods. And even if it seemed to you that you'd never had so much - that is only the slogan of those who have that much more than you. Don't be taken in when they pat you paternally on the shoulder and tell you there's no more inequality worth speaking of, no more reason for fighting. If you believe them, they will be completely in charge in their shining homes and granite banks, from which they rob the people of the world under the pretense of bringing them freedom. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them, they will send you out to protect their wealth, in war - whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can, with the flick of a finger, tear a million of you to pieces.

Marat/Sade (1967) by Peter Weiss

[maicenaconmate]

Look how cute he looks 🩷

[aedesluminis]

It's the anniversary of Louis' death and YouTube recommends me this. O.O

I wonder if evil bloodthirsty Robespierre is in there🧐

[artfullyplacedsemicolon]

Look, A Place of Greater Safety is a book of... shall we say uhhh... uneven quality, but when it gets to the evil law and order bit at the end with Fouquier-Tinville it never fails to crack me up.

[filipinawritcr]

Has somebody made a Frev Masquerade playlist yet? If not, can we make one cuz I got a few songs here:

1. Careless Whisper by George Michael

2. Love Game by Lady Gaga

3. Moments in Love by Charli XCX (not really sure if this is on Spotify tho)

4. Love Story by Indila

5. The Night We Met by Lord Huron

6. From Eden by Hozier

7. Like Real People Do by Hozier

We can make it spicy if you want so hehe~

[transrevolutions]

happy 264th birthday camille desmoulins! to celebrate this momentous occasion I will be getting into petty fights with people on the internet

[pigeonrobespierre]

Soo today I decided to look further into whathever happened to the I Giacobini screenplay - buckle in, I did my best to include as much info as I could find!!

"I Giacobini" (the jacobins) is an Italian screenplay from 1962 based on Federico Zardi's homonymous drama and it is, as of today, a lost media.

The cause for the disappearance of the screenplay from the RAI (Italian national public broadcasting company) archives is either reconduced to the lack of care for the preservation of medias at the time or to the theory which believes the cause to be due to political circumstances.

According to Wikipedia (eh):

...while Italy was in the hands of the Democrazia Cristiana, RAI for the first time broadcast to the public a screenplay «practically entirely aligned with the left and in which Robespierre doesn't come off as a bloody monster but rather like a Che Guevara of reason»

The Democrazia Cristiana or DC (Christian Democracy) was a centrist christian democratic political party in Italy.

The screenplay became largely appreciated by the public, as well as receiving praises from Palmiro Togliatti, exponent of the PCI (Italian communist party) - which happens to be one of the DC 's political opponents at the time.

(source)

Palmiro Togliatti on "Rinascita" wrote that television was bringing a change, since «for the first time it brought a representation of the French revolution inside Italian households»

I went ahead and looked through the archives of Rinascita but found this.

Here I found Togliatti's comment on the screenplay - the below image is a section of it:

The screenplay I Giacobini can be considered an important event of national culture. [...] What matters is that for some weeks a few billions of Italians, have seen and have had in front of their minds a revolution, have been brought to think about about it and to discuss it, seeing it as a political, social and human conflict.

It's then necessary to understand the political contexts of the time both within and outside of Italy:

(source)

...In 1962, under the threat of the cold war, a few months before the Cuban Missile Crisis, a screenplay remarked positively by the leader of a communist party in a NATO country could've raised any kind of reaction.

Thus, the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the screenplay is believed to be caused by some archivist involved with the democristian party.

While this is widely believed to be the reasoning behind it there's not much clear evidence and it's likely impossible to investigate since so much time has passed.

About the screenplay: it was broadcast in 6 episodes, of 90 minutes each, between 11th March - 15th April of 1962 (with a rerun in 1963 after which the tapes disappeared).

It originally featured La Marseillaise, La Carmagnole and Ça ira as well as 4 songs produced for the theater play by Gino Negri.

Audio Recording

In 2012 a man came forward with a (illegally) recorded copy of the audio from the screenplay and sent it over to the Rai archives. The studio managed to recover and digitalize the audios of the six episodes - sadly the video recording is still missing.

Funnily enough, the archive page on which the audios were supposedly made public is gone as of today - but I have found YouTube uploads here: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Also here's a doc that wast broadcast on Italian television on the 11th March of 2012, in honor of the 50 years since the first run of the screenplay - (it's in Italian, if anyone's interested I'll gladly sub it/provide a translation)

In short - bless that viewer for pirating the audio in 1962 and lots of hate to whoever lost the tapes..

Maybe I Giacobini was the friends we made along the way 🍊

[werewolfetone]

Also the thing about the "what if Marie Antoinette was secretly... a girlboss... 🥺" movies is that the idea of taking the side of the pre revolutionary French monarchy sounds so cartoonishly evil it's unreal. I know that people like to make her into a victim but actually saying that you think that the woman most known to popular culture for telling starving peasants to be more like her did nothing wrong genuinely makes you sound like your political views never moved beyond those of the English upper classes circa 1792

[saint-jussy]

Has anyone seen that Nilaya Frev documentary where it's filmed like a reality TV show, complete with talking head interviews

Cause I'm thinking of hosting a group watch after I get back from Europe

[usergreenpixel]

JACOBIN FICTION CONVENTION MEETING 33: MADEMOISELLE REVOLUTION (2022)

1. The Introduction

Well, hello there, my dearest Citizens! Welcome back to Jacobin Fiction Convention! I missed you but, unfortunately, real life ™️ was a bit complicated yet again.

Either way, I’m back at it again, roasting analyzing historical fiction. Today’s “masterpiece” was graciously sent to me by @suburbanbeatnik in PDF form as a future review subject. And boy is it one hell of a ride.

Now, on paper, I was intrigued by a story of a Haitian biracial bisexual female protagonist, as there are many possibilities for that kind of story to unfold in a Frev setting.

Besides, it was written by an author who is promoting the #OwnVoices stories, which is a good intention in my opinion. Let’s see if the execution matches though.

(Spoiler alert: IT DOES NOT!)

Unfortunately, it looks like the book is only available in English at the moment and has to be purchased, mainly through Amazon. But maybe both of those things are for the best, since, upon finishing the book, I will be happy if it stays as contained and inaccessible to the wide audience as humanly possible.

Why? Well, more on that later.

This review will be longer than the ones I usually post, so please keep that in mind and grab some popcorn.

Also, it’s a very explicit book with scenes of sexual assault and gore. Goya’s “Disasters of War” and even “Innocent Rouge” levels of gore. So yeah, please be warned.

Anyway, this review is dedicated to @suburbanbeatnik , @jefflion , @lanterne , @on-holidays-by-mistake and @amypihcs . Love you, guys!

Now, let’s tear this sucker apart!!!

2. The Summary

The book follows the story of Sylvie de Rosiers, an aristocratic young woman born to a slave but raised by her plantation owner father as a free member of local nobility. Although not enslaved, Sylvie never felt truly accepted by the elites of Sainte Domingue.

However, following the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution, Sylvie and one of her half-brothers manage to escape to France, where another revolution is unfolding.

Intrigued by the ideas of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, Sylvie must fight to find acceptance in this new context and carve out a place for herself.

Sounds interesting so far, right? Let’s see if the story lives up to expectations or not.

3. The Story

I have to admit that the first few chapters, the ones taking place on Haiti, were actually pretty good, or at least not bad. The pacing was good, the storyline building up to the uprising made sense and the introductions of the characters and the world building were fine.

Too bad that this lasted only for about four beginning chapters. The French chapters making up the bulk of the book were awful.

The characters suffer from assassination like they’re mafia snitches, the pacing turns into a speed run, the historical context isn’t explained well at all and the story rapidly stops making sense:

First Sylvie arrives and quickly meets Robespierre and the Duplay family, then becomes an ardent revolutionary, then flip flops between loving Eleonore Duplay and pining for Robespierre, then just so happens to meet Danton and Marat, then becomes a spy, then murders Marat… No, I’m not joking.

All of this is in the book with very little justification that makes sense. The worst part? The book isn’t stated as alternative history, so the author is very dishonest and presents everything in the book as actual history that is accurate to reality when it’s definitely not.

Oh, and flashbacks. The fucking flashbacks breaking immersion like a cat breaking a vase don’t help at all.

There’s also a ton of Thermidorian propaganda as well, so yeah… Fail.

4. The Original Characters

Let’s tackle the OCs first because the historical peeps deserve a separate category here.

First and foremost, I don’t like Sylvie as a character. She starts out as a vain spoiled brat growing up surrounded by privilege and luxury and openly looking down on slaves, especially on women.

Then she witnesses the execution of a rebel and very suddenly goes: “Fuck, slavery is awful!”, renounces her old ways, disowns her father and does a 180. It’s not written well though and is more like a teenage tantrum than character development.

Sylvie keeps flip flopping like this throughout the entire story too. Yay…

Oh, and she’s a Mary Sue. Everyone adores her except the villains, she’s able to charm her way through anything and obviously plays an important role in almost all of Frev! Robespierre even calls her The Mother of the Revolution at several points, even though she did nothing to earn that title.

She also pines for Robespierre for no reason at all, except for “he’s cool and charming I guess”, but in order to get closer to him, Sylvie Sue ™️ starts an intimate relationship with Eleonore Duplay.

So yeah, our protagonist manipulates another person (which is abuse) and plays Eleonore like a fiddle, but she also flip flops between only using Eleonore and actually loving her. Is Sylvie ever called out for that? Technically yes, but it gets resolved too quickly so it doesn’t count.

Also, Sylvie is INCREDIBLY selfish. She’s fine with manipulating Eleonore, fine with Charlotte Corday being executed for killing Marat (in the book Sylvie did it) and taking the blame… Again, everything revolves around Sylvie and she never gets called out on that either and never gets better.

She lacks consistent personality aside from those traits, however. She claims to want safety yet always takes the risky option and refuses to emigrate when it would help her obtain actual safety, for instance.

Gaspard, one of her half-brothers, is a much better character in my opinion, but still underdeveloped. But at least his journey from privileged fop to a revolutionary is less clunky. Too bad he dies with the Montagnards in the end.

Sylvie also has another half-brother, Edmond, who is cartoonishly evil and tries to murder Sylvie at one point.

Sylvie also has a standard issue evil stepmother who is eager to marry her off and thus get rid of her but at least has enough decency to not be actively malicious.

Her dad is loving, but painfully ignorant.

Sylvie’s aunt Euphemie de Rohmer is a good character, always looking out for Gaspard and Sylvie. She does emigrate to London during the reign of terror though.

Okay, now let’s discuss the historical figures.

5. The Historical Characters

I know that I usually don’t discuss accuracy, but an exception must be made here.

Maximilien Robespierre seems to undergo a typical “character arc” of “actual revolutionary turned ruthless dictator”. He is also one again coded as asexual and thus shown as not giving two shits about his lover, Eleonore Duplay. He tries to marry Sylvie for political reasons only later in the book and it’s all but stated that he condones all the violence going on and is called a hypocrite multiple times. Oh, and he also kisses Sylvie without her consent… Err… DID SIVAK CONFUSE HIM FOR DANTON?!!! Okay, one sec…

(Shows up with a bloody face) Okay, let’s continue…

Eleonore Duplay is a promising artist who is fiercely loyal to Robespierre but cheats on him with Sylvie and later turns out to be a member of a women’s secret society that is trying to curb the terror. She’s on board with murdering Marat and is also friends with Olympe de Gouges and Charlotte Corday. Wtf?!

(Checks that the antidepressants didn’t cause a hallucination)

Elisabeth Duplay falls in love with Gaspard and her marriage to Le Bas is portrayed as arranged by Robespierre to “reward” Le Bas for being a loyal Jacobin, but at least she is relatively happy in said marriage. Uhm, okay…

Olympe de Gouges and Charlotte Corday are portrayed as basically saints and also part of the secret society.

Corday in particular is willing to sacrifice herself for the sake of France and Sylvie is fine with that because, apparently, Corday has nothing to live for anyway but Sylvie does.

It’s not like in reality Corday actually had a family and Girondist friends or anything so yeah, TOTALLY OKAY to throw her under the bus amirite?!

Danton, luckily, is portrayed fairly accurately as a crass womanizing brute so at least that’s correct.

Marat is a stereotypical bloodthirsty monster who is supposed to be very smart yet acts like an idiot in the presence of our dear Sylvie Sue.

Charlotte Robespierre makes exactly one cameo and acts like a total ass to both Duplay sisters and to Sylvie (who she just met). Don’t get me wrong, Charlotte was at odds with the Duplay family but not all of them and certainly she wasn’t a bitch to every single fucking stranger.

Augustin Robespierre is merry, a gentleman, loyal to his ideas but also a part of that secret society and also supports the idea of offing Marat. Nice…

Surprisingly, Henriette Robespierre makes a cameo alongside Charlotte and also acts like an ass but at least less so than Charlotte. Except she shouldn’t even be in the book because the cameo happens in 1792, yet Henriette died in 1780. So it’s either a ghost or the author doesn’t care. I’m kind of inclined to believe the latter.

Where are Camille Desmoulins and Saint-Just, you may act? ABSENT, believe it or not! No, I’m not kidding! They’re nowhere to be seen for some reason!!! I have no idea why. They’re not even fucking mentioned!!!

Anyway, let’s move on before I lose my sanity.

6. The Setting

Again, the first chapters are much better than the rest. In the majority of the book the descriptions are not that great and the world building is laughably inaccurate, to the point that, if I were told that it’s a joke fanfic, I’d have believed it instantly!!!

7. The Writing

Thankfully, there’s no “First Person Present Tense” bullshit, but the writing is still full of problems. The aforementioned flashbacks are just one problem, but there are others.

For example, extremely clunky use of French. I’m the beginning of every chapter we get a date and the months are in French. This would’ve been fine but gets ridiculous in cases like “early avril 1793”. What’s wrong with writing “early APRIL”?!

Oh, and in another instance, the houses of families are called “Chez + Family name”, like Chez Rohmer and Chez Marat. It gets weird when the text has phrases like “went at Chez Marat”. Chez already means “at” in this context, so it’s extremely redundant and a damn eyesore. Wouldn’t it be better to say “Went to Marat’s apartment”? Apparently, not for Zoe Sivak!

Also, the author describes all the brutal and gory scenes of executions and torture at an alarming length and with a concerning amount of details, to the point that I got very uncomfortable despite not being squeamish most of the time.

8. The Conclusion

Phew, it’s finally over. As you may have guessed, I don’t recommend wasting your time and money on this pile of trash.

A 13-year old here on tumblr can write a better novel than whatever the fuck this author published.

It’s poorly researched with inaccuracies that even a quick Wikipedia search could fix, the protagonist is an awful Mary Sue, the historical characters get constantly fucked over… so yeah, please skip this shit.

Anyway, on that note, let’s conclude today’s meeting. I think I might need time to recover from reading this book…

Stay tuned for updates!

Love,

Citizen Green Pixel.

[privateandshamefulvices]

A take so hot it has liquefied my brain.

[little-desi-historian]

OP--turned off reblogs and it is bad tumblr etiquette to try reblog it again, but I am sharing this with two cents cause I have opinions + media criticism credentials + done archivist historian work + my current wip centres largely around this nuance and the nuance of inherent human unreliability. See here, and here. Meaningful citation I am gonna quote a lot… also this is just my opinion having read Das Kapital and worked at a unions museum and being a historical fiction writer + gothic horror writer.

when I say "apologize" for Robespierre I don't mean take away his humanity or complexity. The same applies to Marie Antoinette as much as I don't like at all what she stood for or her irl views, she was still a person, as well Napoleon I Bonaparte (the first 'Liberal' Dictator) are all people, not necessarily 'moral' or 'good' people, and we don't have to erase their humanity to talk about how they were not 'good.'

As competent as Louis XIV nicknamed, Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or Sun King (le Roi Soleil) for his competence and ability to win France's colonial wars (a thing shockingly-- historians of all political leanings agree upon), could've spared France and all of its citizenry a lot of hurt if he just took away the ancien regimes social powers but left them their titles etc. TLDR: if France became a constitutional monarchy none of the French revolution would've happened.

Robespierre was by no means an "avenging angel" but it is important to keep in mind most of what he fought for was warranted and he was the victim of a posthumous smear campaign.

I cannot possibly reiterate enough times just how messed up the ancien regime was, yeah, not all nobility had power or wealth, like country nobility. But, unless you are the bourgeoise new money, titled and wealthy or court nobility. You along with the 99.9% (who is not the clergy or the second estate) might as well be getting by on scraps, Dangerous Liaisons (the book) touches on this conflict a lot.

Historical fiction is by nature fiction it shouldn't be moralized differently from any other fiction.

The French (and by extension European + American) empires never really 'died' they just rebranded themselves a lot.

[maicenaconmate]

During the execution on July 28, 1794, Robespierre's followers were executed first, beginning with Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, Georges Couthon, and Augustin Robespierre. Then it was the turn of Maximilien Robespierre. It can be said that Maximilien Robespierre was one of the last to be executed that day.

Can you imagine the whole situation? Because I'm crying