The entire campaign against The Crown’s Season 4 has been nothing more than a taxpayer-subsidized self-own from Prince Charles. I still don’t really believe that Kensington Palace (Prince William) or Buckingham Palace (the Queen) really care one way or the other. But Clarence House launched a full-blown hate campaign against the series, against Peter Morgan and against anyone who enjoys the show. Even Margaret Thatcher’s family and friends haven’t been as upset as Charles. Charles spent decades carefully rehabilitating his image and Camilla’s image only to see it all destroyed in ten hours of streaming drama. LOL. That still cracks me up. Anyway, just in case you thought maybe Charles and his allies were giving up, they are not!

Oliver Dowden last night demanded that Netflix make clear The Crown is ‘fiction’. In a dramatic intervention, the Culture Secretary added his voice to mounting concern that fabricated scenes in the drama series were so damaging to the Royal Family that viewers should be warned at the start of each episode that it was not ‘fact’.

‘It’s a beautifully produced work of fiction, so as with other TV productions, Netflix should be very clear at the beginning it is just that,’ he told The Mail on Sunday. ‘Without this, I fear a generation of viewers who did not live through these events may mistake fiction for fact.’

Mr Dowden is expected to write to the streaming giant to formally request that it adds what others have called a ‘health warning’ at the start of each episode.

It comes amid deepening concern that fabricated scenes written by screenwriter Peter Morgan are doing lasting damage to the monarchy and Prince Charles in particular. Last night, a friend of the Prince said: ‘It is quite sinister the way that Morgan is clearly using light entertainment to drive a very overt republican agenda and people just don’t see it. They have been lured in over the first few series until they can’t see how they are being manipulated. It is highly sophisticated propaganda.’

The Mail on Sunday has led calls for a disclaimer to be added to the series, amid claims it has already been watched by more people than tuned in for Charles’s real-life wedding to Princess Diana. It was reported last week that 29 million logged on to the streaming service to watch the drama in the week after its release earlier this month – 600,000 more than the British TV audience for the actual wedding in 1981.

[From The Daily Mail]

I can’t stop laughing. Again, literally no one has claimed that this is a documentary series. Netflix has made no secret of the fact that Peter Morgan is a screenwriter and showrunner. They have actors in bad wigs playing all of the characters. The reason why Charles is so upset is NOT because people think The Crown is 100% accurate. It’s because The Crown got enough of the broad strokes of history correct and Charles simply doesn’t like to be reminded of how poorly he treated Diana. How poorly they ALL treated her. It’s not republican propaganda, for christsake.

Also, in another dramatic self-own, it turns out that The Crown’s British production got £16 million worth of tax breaks from the government because of the show’s contribution to Britain’s “culture and heritage,” two things Charles cares about deeply. So, British taxpayers are subsidizing The Crown through tax breaks/incentives and British taxpayers are also paying the salaries of Charles’ staff, the same staff which orchestrated this ham-fisted hate campaign against The Crown. Perfect.

Photos courtesy of Netflix, Avalon Red, Backgrid.