MovieChat Forums > Ammonite (2020) Discussion > already controversial

already controversial


Warning Signs: Some members of Anning’s family have publicly protested because they insist her sexuality was never confirmed. Director Francis Lee shot back, saying it’s not hard to imagine she was gay because there’s “no evidence whatsoever” that she was ever in a heterosexual relationship. Will controversy overshadow the final film?

reply

Looks like another run of the mill lesbian melodrama period film that Hollyweird makes a point of pumping out annually. This years Oscar bait. Anyway, dealing with fictional characters is one thing but frankly it is disrespectful & disingenuous to take such drastic liberties in assuming the homosexuality of actual historical persons because they presumably never married or had a verified relationship and to depict that narrative in something that is presenting itself as a historical film.

reply

You have no history. All history will be tore up and run through the Social Justice Machine.

reply

"Director Francis Lee shot back, saying it’s not hard to imagine she was gay because there’s “no evidence whatsoever” that she was ever in a heterosexual relationship."

Aha, so that's how history works these days. We do have evidence that Charlotte Murchison was in a heterosexual relationship, so he's talking out of his ass.

reply

I haven't looked, but I'm sure Wikipedia has already updated her page to reflect the director's wishes, and now -- from beyond the grave -- this poor woman has been turned, against her will, into a raging lesbian being used as a propaganda tool to bludgeon the sensibilities of the mentally sound.

reply

That's so typical. And the director's logic is bullshit, as if heterosexual and homosexual relationships were some 50/50 distribution. So one guess is as good as another.

reply

It's a precarious slope to present it as fact w/o evidence. I remember that Lizzie Borden movie from a couple years ago that was also a lesbian drama, and the evidence for that premise turned out to be faulty claims by some crime writer in the '80s or '90s.

reply

not all spinsters were lesbian.

reply

Well if a spinster lives with another spinster and they have a tumultuous relationship and act as life partners until they have a nasty breakup, we do have our suspicions, dont we?

As for Anning, unless we she left an unusually honest diary, we'll never know. But when it comes to biopics, there have been plenty of movies where a fictional opposite-sex love interest was included, I dont see that a same-sex love interest is any different.

reply

It's a shame, as Mary Anning was a very interesting person in real life. Her achievements were often stolen by those around her, and even though she wasn't an educated scientist, they discovered and correctly identified many, many species.

Why they have to turn her story into a romantic one, heterosexual or otherwise, is beyond me. Would having a lead with no romantic interests who has to deal with the prejudice of her own time be too boring for people nowadays?

One day we'll get a biopic of Dr. Mantel and have him leave his wife to pursue a gay relationship. After all, being one of the first modern fossil hunters is too boring of a life! Have to bring in the woke crowd to win that Oscar.

reply

And why exactly is the sex scene essential? Just to stir up interest.

reply

It's how you sell a movie about an 1840's paleontologist digging up fossils in a non-exotic location. Otherwise, hard to get anyone interested. But since that was all anyone was really interested in anyway, and since the relationship is pure fiction, they should have just done it like a 70's erotica Emannuelle style story. Then it least it would have been entertaining.

reply