I love Pogo’s mixes, but he makes me sad: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/01/29/tro…
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina, the last Hapsburg ruler of the Holy Roman Empire and the only woman to ever rule the empire. Her taking power led to the War of Austrian Succession, which set the stage for the Seven Years' War, which set the stage for the American Revolution, which inspired the French…
Empress Sissi. Maybe it's because of the musical "Elisabeth" which is loosely based on her life.
Sexy is one thing but this is exploitative at best. It's a bit hard to make the argument that you're being inclusive of women when you portray them this way. It would be like having a Hindu character and then having him running a gas station.
Zipping up doesn't get rid of the mile high midriff or the denim booty shorts. Sexism aside, those just look uncomfortable.
I was waiting for someone to bring up Elisabeth Das Musical. It's one of my favorite musicals ever. It was commissioned by an Austrian theatre company and the creators and staff did a lot of research. All the costumes Elisabeth wears are reproductions of her actual clothes. A lot of the lyrics, too, are quotes from…
Luigi Lucheni - he was just a complete ahole from the get-go, from what I understand. His parents put him in an orphanage because he was too much to handle. Legend in the family goes that he didn't care who he killed: he just wanted to be famous. He would have killed any royal he heard was coming to town; it just so…
My grandmother was born in Bavaria (not very far from Austria, honestly) and grew up watching the Sissi movies at her local cinema. She owns all of the DVDs and made me watch every single one with her. They really didn't have a plot, other than women with beautiful hair and incest (Sissi married her cousin in the…
Wow this is a thorough piece. I've read Hamann's book and I've read Sisi original poetry in German. But some issues:
Love the musical. It is great. I especially love her love-hate-relationship with Death whom she in the end finally surrenders too. The music is GREAT!
Yes! Any time a woman threatened to have too much power in politics or the public sphere, the pornographic cartoons and pamphlets and rumors suddenly flourish. One cannot but hear echoes of this today: e.g. 4chan's nude-leaking, Gamergate's antiwoman scare-tactics, the gross caricatures of Sarah Palin & Hillary…
It is, but I'm actually glad the Broadway adaptation didn't happen. They wanted to make Lucheni and Death the same character, which would have destroyed the show. Michael Kunze, the man behind the libretto, said he didn't want to work with people who had failed to understand either character and what they brought to…
There's a musical about her life - narrated by her murderer - in which Death is a main character who is wooing her - and still the musical is more authentic to her life and her person than any film adaption I've ever seen. Look at how pretty it is.
For anybody who'd like to read further: My two big sources were The Lonely Empress, by Joan Haslip, and The Reluctant Empress, by Brigitte Hamann. If you're curious about the Habsburgs more generally (and really they are FASCINATING, the most important royal family nobody gives a shit about anymore) check out The…
My avatar approves of this article. *Goes back to read it completely*