While one would think that, based upon the previews, Mary, Queen of Scots was destined to be a more historically accurate foil to The Favourite in terms of two women competing mercilessly for positions of power, it instead reframes Mary, Queen of Scots’ (Saoirse Ronan) narrative as one of a woman fighting for an indelible birthright that no man would ever have to. Frequently having to remind the male subjects of her court of who she is–their leader–watching Mary have to endure so much red tape (red, incidentally, is a color that comes up time and time again in the film) to perform or express even the most basic of tasks and opinions gives one sharp insight into the struggles of being a female ruler during a period even more backward than the one we’re in now (where a female politician with “damning emails” in her past is less likely to be nominated for president than a man with no political experience at all screaming about grabbing women’s pussies).
The combined theater background of director Josie Rourke (deviating from plays for the first time) and playwright/screenwriter Beau Willimon (who also wrote the political drama The Ides of March) brings a certain straightforwardness to the film, paired with the occasional over the top symbolism that “hints” at things to come–as is the case with Mary getting her period and the drops of sangue spilling into the basin below her, foreshadowing bloodshed, of course–and maybe just how much her blood has perverted the so-called purity of the crown–specifically Elizabeth’s (Margot Robbie, who made a more impressive bid for the Oscars last year with I, Tonya). With the death of Mary’s French king of a husband, Francis, her sudden reappearance to the country of her birth ruffles more than a few hen-like male feathers as they cluck away about how this will affect the tenuous relations between Protestants and Catholics, Mary herself more allied with the latter.
That Scarlett Johansson was originally slated to star in the titular role circa 2007 reminds one of that other period piece she soon after seemed to opt for instead, 2008’s The Other Boleyn Girl, starring Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn and Johansson as her sister, Mary, for optimal splooge cachet as compensation for the fact that if the two tropes of Hollywood women (blonde and brunette) were going to be cast together, it was going to have to be in a vehicle that wouldn’t allow them much in the way of “sexy” costume design.
Indeed, there is something very similar to the tragic tales of these two “wily” figures, Anne Boleyn and Mary, Queen of Scots–women beheaded for their “insolence” that results in the ultimate beyond the grave revenge of having given birth to an ultimately powerful monarch, Elizabeth I in Boleyn’s case, and James I in Mary’s. The allusions to Henry VIII aren’t without their value either, with Mary balking at the idea of yet another marriage as she insists, “I will not become a lady Henry VIII, dispensing with husbands as he did with wives.” Mary also feels inclined to throw Elizabeth I’s parentage in her face, as she brings up that Henry VIII had no problem beheading people, so what’s to stop Elizabeth from doing the same to her?
This occurs during one of the most revisionist (therefore most interesting) scenes of the film, a clandestine meeting imagined between the two monarchs that plays out like a game of cat and mouse as Mary pursues a coy and unexpectedly nervous Elizabeth through a series of beige sheets as she admits, “I long to see your face.” Wanting to commiserate with the only other woman who could possibly understand how trapped she is between a rock and a hard place (particularly with regard to her willingness to sacrifice her life for her crown and country), Mary finally gets Elizabeth to turn around, her fear of facing Mary’s beauty no longer something she can fight against. Admitting that she had a wig made to meet her, Elizabeth tears it off to admit that she only did so as a testament to her jealousy, remarking, “You seem to surpass me in every way. But it is your gifts that are your downfall.” “Gifts” meaning not just youth and beauty, but her “fieriness” and determination, an unprecedented unwillingness to compromise during a period when women–regardless of royal blood–were expected to stand back and shut up. The emotional exchange between the two queens is one of the key moments in summing up not just the struggles of being a female in power, constantly having to justify her decisions and actions even more so than usual, but also the cliche fashion in which women must constantly be pitted against one another through the grotesque divide of virgin and whore. With both letting their guards down to express mutual admiration, Mary praises Elizabeth for avoiding the useless quagmire of men altogether, commenting, “I should’ve followed your example and never married.”
Throughout the rest of the film, however, both fall prey to the trap of jealousy set up for them by their male “advisors,” and there are moments when each succumbs to the ease of being green with envy by tearing the other one down with words. As is the case when Mary declares, “I shall produce an heir, unlike her barren self.” This, Elizabeth’s ultimate Achilles’ heel in terms of feeling inadequate (or so the movie positions it), is further compounded by her refusal to marry, not even to her court favorite, Robert Dudley (Joe Alwyn, who also plays the pawn-like Samuel Masham in The Favourite).
Mary, on the other hand, has a separate slew of problems that do not include infertility and lack of desirability. With a legion of Protestants against both Mary’s Catholicism and desire to accept and welcome both religions in Scotland, it becomes no wonder that even her own half-brother, James (James McArdle), and Protestant cleric/sexist John Knox (David Tennant, always a great villain) conspire against her, the latter writing a biting diatribe called The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women, lambasting the unnaturalness of women in power, even before Mary arrived back in Scotland to rule.
To this point, the men of Mary, Queen of Scots are very much in possession of the so-called “feminine” traits of temper tantrums and irascibility, from Mary’s second husband, Lord Henry Darnley (Jack Lowden), to John Knox to Elizabeth’s deliverer of missives, George Dalgleish (Adrian Derrick-Palmer), a man who sees fit to lament with a fellow subject, “How did the world come to this?,” to which Dalgleish responds, “Wise men servicing the whims of women.” Alas, this is how so many still view the potential for a matriarchy, so quick to write us off as unable to govern because of our “overemotional” nature (a none too subtle dig at menstruation).
Elsewhere, the long-standing divide between England and Scotland shines through at every turn, with England’s hoity-toity air of superiority evidenced by Elizabeth declaring with hauteur, “England is not Scotland.” And yet, Mary would argue, “England does not look so different from Scotland.” Her cohort replies, “Aye, they are sisters.” But lord knows sisters don’t always share the friendliest of rapports.
Eventually, however, sisters can consistently unite through the unavoidable revelation that: “Men are cruel.” So states Elizabeth as her lover talks of Mary’s inevitable destiny for what the French would call a guillotine (the English a.k.a Scottish, instead and surprisingly, keep it more visceral with direct contact to the neck). And yes, at every turn of tragic events that befall Mary, it would seem there can be no other fate. Particularly when the smear campaign against her escalates after her discovery of her husband in bed with her close confidant, David Rizzio (Ismael Cruz Cordova), finds Mary putting up with less and less of Darnley. Besides, there’s really no need of him after getting inseminated anyway (during which she tells him to picture Rizzio so he can get it up, leading him to take pleasure in a more rape-like approach. In fact, the only way Mary can seem to get any action in her life is through this violent evil twin to the presumed joy of sex. Because there is nothing a threatened and angered male loves more than to exert and assert his “power” in this way).
“Death to the hoor,” Knox gets everyone to chant with him while he stands on his soapbox, reverting to the classic method of discrediting a woman: calling her out for being “promiscuous.” Therefore, in short, a witch capable of sexual sorcery. So it is that Mary’s warning to her ladies in waiting, “Be wary of men. Their love is not the same as their respect,” holds all the more veracity.
But even for as wary as both monarchs were, each one was still forced to bend her will to the caprice of men as a result of the epoch. Elizabeth simply managed to do it with more success for her “virginal” qualities, therefore evasion of being pigeonholed as a harlot witch bitch slut temptress. “Bow to no one,” the tag line demands. But that is exactly what it means to be a female. More specifically, a female in a role of power.
Rolling his eyes just before Mary is about to lose her head, a subject balks, “She thinks herself a martyr.” This diminishment of her “deserved” death is telling of the notion that there remain many men who think this way with regard to women even attempting to explain the discrimination they endure in government and everywhere else. Thusly, it would seem Mary, Queen of Scots seeks to provide unequivocal proof of that heinous prejudice men in politics and beyond still have yet to shake.
