Thursday, October 18, 2007

Writing, procrastination, and movies

So I'm working away today on an article that has to be in absolutely, with no more extensions next Friday. But nothing has changed since I was an undergrad, I want to research forever and write in a night leaving me no time to edit.

I should have stayed home to write last night but instead, since it was the only evening this week when I didn't have a commitment I went to the movies with friends. We went and saw Elizabeth 2 and enjoyed it immensely. I guess it hasn't had very good reviews but I thought it was really well done. I've been a huge admirer of the first Queen Elizabeth since watching the mini series Elizabeth R with Glenda Jackson as a kid. Everything I've ever read about her since has convinced me that she was a truly remarkable woman. And she was an Anglican!

My favourite part of the movie? when it becomes clear that God really does like the English Protestants best! (big grin here in case you want to take offense - and bear in mind that I consider myself a catholic, not a protestant).

5 comments:

Tim Chesterton said...

Actually, I think she was Church of England, wasn't she?

Anglican hadn't been invented yet!

Tell you one thing - she sure didn't like Anabaptists. Burned a couple at the stake, in fact.

Erin said...

Okay, she wasn't a saint. But she was pretty cool. Unless you were an anabaptist...or a scottish queen...or a lover who fell out of favour....

Hjördís said...

Compared to her father Henry VIII, or her half-sister Mary Tudor (someone who REALLY seemed to enjoy barbequeing religious dissidents), or pretty much anyone else who was a leader around that time, I'd say she was a saint.

Her problem is obvious: she had no posive role models.

John Calvin burned Michael Severtus(sp?) at the stake, and Martin Luther was happy when Ulrich Zwingli was killed, because his views on the Eucharist were wrong.

Everybody was pretty bloodthirsty back then, I would say. And they all lacked positive role models (aside from, like, Christ himself).

It therefore follows that Elizabeth II should be sainted.

Impeccable logic.

I also have a list of people whose sainthood should be revoked. But maybe I'll put that on my blog ...

Hjördís said...

ok:

she had no positive role models, and I meant to say that Elizabeth I should be sainted, not Elizabeth II (although I must say she's pretty cool herself)

Erin said...

Just as a side note - I heard there was a move back in 1992 - 500 years after Columbus sailed the ocean blue - to canonize Queen Isabella and John Paul II of blessed memory stepped in and said - NO. Ah yes, the miracles she performed...casting all the Jews out of Spain, killing all the heretics, sending the sword and plague to kill all the Indians of South America...