Nikki K

Excellent! new people! Welcome Lana!

Nonie - maybe on LJ too? Idek.

Nonie

Hi, Lana welcome!

Hope you'll join us for the episode Rewatch and do post around on this board

Roxy87

Welcome to the board Lana!

So I just started the first episode and it's the one you can see for free on showtime.com. And under the vid, it has this recap of the episode:

I didn't realize that's what they were going for, especially with this version of Lucrezia

Nikki K

As long as seductive Lucrezia inspires Cesare's ruthlessness and vice versa ruthless Cesare inspires Lucrezia's seductiveness all is well?

Roxy87

I just thought that description was weird since in this show, Cesare doesn't seem to start out that ruthless and this Lucrezia is more innocent and curious than seductive.

But anyway, back to the episode. I forgot how many derogatory ape/monkey references were initially made against the Spanish in the first episode. I wonder why the racial slur isn't used anywhere but these episodes.

Nikki K

Admittedly, I haven't re-watched it yet. So... is that a racial slur? Or just an animal reference, as in - well - a monkey could do my job and better. I remember that they were often called "murrano" - as for Christians who just recently converted and were Jews before? Did they bring that up in the first episode already or was that later? I remember Juan had a total freak out about that.

And yes, of course what you said in your first paragraph is the initial impression you get especially in the first half of the first episode but I think you soon realise that they got on that downward spiral. As in - Cesare has no qualms to do as his father tells him, even his confession sounds not like he is asking God for forgiveness but his father just to leave him be. And Lucrezia... first you think her spying is innocent (on the other hand, who is really keen on watching his brother naked/having sexual relations... shouldn't that be a bit like "OMG, I caught my parents in the bedroom, my eyes are bleeding... I don't want to know this!!!") but then when she talks to her brother as he looks after the pidgeon - I actually thought when I watched that again, that Cesare put a bit of sarcasm in his voice when he talked about her purity/innocence. Perhaps he realises there for the first time that even though he is working against it for the first few episodes, he cannot control and protect her.

Nonie

Maybe it's because it's the only episode we saw Cesare with a monkey

I'm going to do the rewatch in 3 hours time. I've got things to do in the meantime

Nikki K

The monkey was key...

Roxy87

Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're using the monkey/ape references as racial slurs. A lot of the characters seem to be against the Borgias partly because they are Spanish and not "pure" Italians. We see it when that guy has a fight with Juan about how the new pope is going to get rid of them. The other cardinals also bring up how Rodrigo is Spanish and connect it with him being an ape or a monkey. When Cesare brought the monkey to the dinner party, they kept making even more connections between the Borgias and monkeys.

Maybe you'll have a different interpretation when you see the show, but that's just how I read it.

Nikki K

There is no doubt that they are not accepted because they are not Italians. Perhaps the monkey reference stands for they are "less refined", possess "less culture". In this case Cesare bringing the monkey to the banquet shows a certain amount of humour and cyncism.

I didn't identify it as a common racial slur for the Spanish since I've never heard or read it in any other Borgia related material as far as I remember. So that I thought was a unique "joke"/"reference" to this particular show.

At the dinner party, I think it was a battle of wits and games and polemic eloquenz - mainly between Della Rovere and Cesare.

Just a thought.

Roxy87

I still see it as a racial slur. Even if they are using the term to mean the Spanish are "less refined" and possess "less culture," that is still racist imo. They are seeing this ethnicity as less than them and are assigning derogatory names to the people in that ethnicity. The fact that they kept using the fact that he is Spanish as a reason why he is an "ape," "monkey," and "white moor" shows that they are racist against him and do consider him and others in the Spanish ethnicity to be "less" than them.

But, JMO

Nikki K

It's not an ethnicity in the strict sense though. They are all white, they are all European. Therefore, I would personally would not call it racist but just your usual prejudice you have towards your other European neighbours - sometimes that's even true for groups of different regions within a country. Germany for instance is an extreme example - since it hasn't been a country for all that long, people from different states call each other heaps of things. In the end they are all German though. Same for this. In the end they are all Europeans.


Again my argument - they just hate him because they do not want to see anyone but an Italian on the papal throne. It wouldn't have made a difference had he been French, or Greek or Portuguese or had a candidate from any of these countries done what he did - buy the papacy. They also see him as a parvenu, a social climber who doesn't fit into the old established "Italian" nobility. And since Italy was still divided in oh so many city states, they saw the papacy as something that would give the idea of "Italy" a basis to loosely unite the people. Especially after the schism that had ended only a bit earlier. To them it must have felt as if a foreigner would take over their country, a foreigner who even more than a national would look after his own interests a lot more than after the interests of his surrounding territories.

Additionally, being pope means you have a certain power over European monarchies, may that be England, France, Spain, Portugal or the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation because they all want to be crowned by the pope. The closest thing Italy has to a king, to execute power over the rest of Europe, is the papacy - and that must make them extremely unhappy to give it to someone not Italian

To take this a level further - that's why the E.U. will always be more of an administrative beast than a forceful political reality. Because do you really think if there were elections for a European president tomorrow that the French would vote for Silvio Berlusconi?

Hence my personal argument - those are insults based on fear and bickering between Europeans. There is nothing new about that. Racism is something I'd define differently.

In addition there is jealousy involved and mistrust because there is nothing noble about the Borgia - as I said, they are social climbers. There another example - you would hardly ever see people from old money socialize with those nouveau-riche. In a way it's a social class issue also next to the foreign heritage.

That's my opinion on this.

Later when they are accused of being 'murranos' - there I agree, that is an anti-semitic and racial slur.

Nonie

Lucrezia playing peeping Tom on Cesare is still wrong. Ans sick. What's wrong with these kids???

lana_

i was slightly astonished by Lucrezia's calm reaction as well. Maybe this is an insight to her character? it proves that she was never innocent and the fact that she asks Cesare how much votes to buy for her father to become pope shows that she is aware of her family's shenanigans.In the first season, she's a BIT streetwise but i think the next season will show a more manipulative Lucrezia.

Nonie

Cesare did pointed out to Lucrezia that she knew more of the dirty details than he expected

And I'm reminded why I love the show so much. I just love the relationship they all have with each other. I love the way Cesare interacted with Joffre when they were playing the cards in the garden, and the way Cesare protected Juan during the sword fight. And how gentle and playful Rodrigo is with Lucrezia.