TW/CW: Discussions of sexual assault, rape Poldark has been a part of my life – personal and academic – for over four decades.

Julie Anne Taddeo

:::: {.et-box .et-info}
::: {.et-box-content}
This blog first appeared on the [Women's Film and Television History
Network --
UK/Ireland](https://womensfilmandtelevisionhistory.wordpress.com/2023/11/24/o-captain-my-captain-my-conflicted-relationship-with-poldark/)
website on Friday 24 November 2023.
:::
::::

**TW/CW: Discussions of sexual assault, rape**

*Poldark* has been a part of my life -- personal and academic -- for
over four decades. I discovered the BBC series about the eponymous hero
of eighteenth-century Cornwall when I first watched the 1975-77
adaptation of Winston Graham's books on Masterpiece Theatre with my
mother (the series aired in the US in 1977-78). Looking back, I realize
I was too young at the time to process the storylines of rape (there are
two: what has since been dubbed Ross's "bedroom encounter" with
Elizabeth, and the ongoing marital rape of Morwenna by her husband, the
odious Reverend Ossie Whitworth). Like many viewers -- most older than
myself at the time -- I idealized Ross's marriage to the working-class
Demelza (even planning one day to name my own daughter Demelza, which
apparently many parents did do in the 1970s -- but which, according to
my now teen daughter who is *not* named Demelza, would have ruined her
life!). And like most *Poldark* fans, I saw the aristocratic Elizabeth
as the homewrecker in the scenario in which Ross, driven by jealousy and
rage over her impending marriage to his rival George Warleggan, stormed
her bedroom at night -- forgetting about Demelza at home as he pushed
Elizabeth onto her bed, even after she initially said "stop" to his
advances; therefore how could what transpired offscreen possibly be
rape?

::: {#attachment_13027 .wp-caption .aligncenter style="width: 510px"}
[![](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-4.png){.wp-image-13027
loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-13027" width="500" height="370"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-4.png 597w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-4-300x222.png 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-4-450x333.png 450w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-4-140x104.png 140w"
sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-4.png)

Fig. 1: *Poldark* (1975): The bedroom encounter
:::

That scene in *Poldark *was no different from so many other filmed
depictions of sex I had witnessed throughout my early years: my mother
made us watch *Gone With the Wind* (1939) every time it aired on TV, so
I assumed Rhett carrying a kicking Scarlet up the grand staircase was a
romantic gesture. After all, she seemed happy the next morning. Poldark
was as much my romantic hero as Rhett Butler was my mother's. And yet,
at age eleven, I also considered myself a budding feminist; my
classmates laughed at my championing of Helen Reddy and Gloria Steinem
while TV culture kept feeding me mixed messages about romance, sex, and
rape. My love of soap operas in the 1980s (again, introduced to me by my
mother) just seemed to reaffirm that things like marital rape
in *Dynasty* (1981-89) maybe weren't that big of a deal and could easily
be assuaged with roses the day after. I recall rushing home from school
every day to catch the latest episode of *General Hospital* (1963-): did
Luke *really* rape Laura if she fell in love with and married him
afterwards? Unlike my teen daughter, who is not named Demelza and who
has come of age in the aftermath of \#MeToo, with middle school sex ed
classes on consent, it took me a long time to admit to myself that my
Captain was indeed a rapist.

When news of another BBC adaptation of *Poldark* was announced prior to
its 2015 airing, I had mixed feelings about how this story would speak
to 21st-century audiences. By this time, I was much older and wiser and
had revisited the "bedroom encounter" presented in Graham's books and
the 1975 TV version multiple times. I joined message boards and Facebook
pages devoted to *Poldark *and saw how the majority of fans of the first
adaptation refused to see their hero as a rapist and made all sorts of
excuses for him, largely blaming Elizabeth. I didn't post myself when I
saw how one Facebook member was kicked out of the group for insisting
Ross was a rapist. Would the 21st-century TV version clear up the
ambiguity around that pivotal moment in Graham's book? By the end of the
first season of the BBC's new series, audiences had fallen in love with
Aidan Turner as Poldark, and newspapers hailed him as the "perfect
romantic hero." On Twitter, however, I noticed a few fans like myself
who knew that trouble lay ahead in the second season as this "perfect
romantic hero" was about to commit, as one poster noted, "a very bad
deed."

::: {#attachment_13025 .wp-caption .aligncenter style="width: 410px"}
[![](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/book.webp){.wp-image-13025
loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-13025" width="400" height="600"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/book.webp 768w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/book-200x300.webp 200w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/book-300x450.webp 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/book-93x140.webp 93w"
sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/book.webp)

Fig. 2: Julie Anne Taddeo's book, *Rape in Period Drama Television:
Consent, Myth, and Fantasy* (2022), co-written with Katherine Byrne
:::

I'm not just a fan of period dramas: I am also a historian of British
history (in fact, my love of *Poldark *steered me to this career path).
Unlike some of my academic colleagues (most of whom won't even admit to
watching period TV for fear they won't be seen as "serious"), I don't
demand authenticity in every period detail recreated on our TV screens.
This misses the point of period drama -- which does and should speak to
its modern audiences' sensibilities and concerns. So, the debate that
centred on whether Demelza's 18th-century dress would have unlaced from
the front or back didn't interest me. Instead, I wondered if, this time
around, Ross would have to rape Elizabeth. If, as Graham's son said in
the media coverage of the 2016 version of the "bedroom encounter," his
father never intended it to be rape, then the BBC writers needed to make
that clear. Instead of Elizabeth saying "stop," instead of Ross grabbing
Elizabeth's face roughly and throwing her onto the bed, let her say
"yes" loud and clear. His cowardly ghosting of her afterwards would be
reason enough for her to regret that one night with such a man -- and
the consequences would, of course, be hers to conceal, as they would
have been for so many women like Elizabeth.

Instead, as my colleague Kate Byrne and I write about in our book, this
latest take on "the bedroom encounter" merely promoted an outdated
fantasy of "consensual ravishment", blurring rape and seduction that
audiences in 1975 (including myself) wouldn't have found offensive, but
to our surprise, neither did many viewers in 2016. After being treated
so roughly by Ross and pushed onto her bed, a moaning Elizabeth seemed
to inform viewers, as one fan posted on Twitter, that "she asked for
it." Thus, Ross remains a hero who merits forgiveness from viewers
who've been invested in this champion of the downtrodden; a cheating
husband he may be -- as Demelza accuses him -- but not a rapist.

::: {#attachment_13026 .wp-caption .aligncenter style="width: 509px"}
[![](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-2.png){.wp-image-13026
loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-13026" width="499" height="281"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-2.png 980w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-2-300x169.png 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-2-450x253.png 450w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-2-140x79.png 140w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-2-768x433.png 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 499px) 100vw, 499px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-2.png)

Fig. 3: *Poldark* (2016): The bedroom encounter
:::

I wasn't alone in my dismay at the way writers tackled this scene in
2016. Feminists and rape crisis advocates slammed the series in the news
the day after it aired. Still, overall, fans were torn, with many on
social media blaming Elizabeth -- the words "homewrecker" and "slut"
were thrown at her. It is only after her death in season 4
that *Poldark* fans who labelled themselves as "Team Demelza" finally
came around to see how she had been a victim of Ross and George's
rivalry -- her body fought over like a trophy of war. I now wonder, had
she aged beyond 35, what would these men have made of her? In the
novels, George is already noticing her dyed hair and lined face as she
approaches her thirties. Graham's feminism was much ahead of his time --
and anyone who reads all 12 of the *Poldark *books will see the
influence of second-wave feminism on him. Graham's Ross frequently
reflects on his past actions and comes to understand how he "wronged"
Elizabeth, and Demelza warns their own son not to "take" a woman without
her permission.

*Poldark* fueled my youthful fantasies of dark romantic heroes, and I
wasn't immune from doing what many fans do -- conflating the hero with
the actor portraying them. In 2013, I fulfilled a girlhood dream and met
the "original Poldark" at a book signing in my hometown. The once
dashing Captain, Robin Ellis, had now become, in his seventies, an
author of cookbooks for diabetics, but little did I know then that he'd
be starring in *Poldark* once again, albeit in a more minor role (as
Ross's nemesis, the Rev. Halsey). I mentioned to him I was an academic
writing about the 1970s TV series in which he starred but carefully
withheld that my focus was on his character's rape of Elizabeth, but
from what we discussed, it was clear to me that he did not interpret
Ross's actions in a negative light.

::: {#attachment_13028 .wp-caption .aligncenter style="width: 451px"}
[![](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-5.png){.wp-image-13028
loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-13028" width="441" height="332"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-5.png 676w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-5-300x226.png 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-5-450x339.png 450w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-5-140x105.png 140w"
sizes="(max-width: 441px) 100vw, 441px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-5.png)

Fig. 4: My Captain: Meeting Robin Ellis in 2013
:::

Likewise, the "new Poldark" Aidan Turner (who sadly I haven't yet met),
in the aftermath of the airing of that bedroom encounter in 2016,
insisted in interviews -- as did the show's lead writer, Debbie
Horsfield -- that his Ross was not a rapist.

Of course, romance has always relied on the rape/seduction trope and
heroes redeemed by love. I don't know if the Captain Poldark portrayed
in two TV versions of Graham's novels is ever truly redeemed. The legacy
of his actions lives on in the later novels (there are 12, after all).
Graham treats this scene as one with lifelong consequences, not just
Elizabeth's death, but the short and sad life of her and Ross's
illegitimate son whom George refuses to love, and in a middle-aged
Demelza's alcoholism which blunts her disappointment in a man she once
idolized. Perhaps that's why the later books that Graham wrote in which
he follows Ross and Demelza into their late middle age -- the age I am
now -- have never been adapted for TV: they feel too real, too sad,
too *authentic*. That "bedroom encounter" -- that rape -- haunts their
marriage and destroys multiple lives, and that's the message more dramas
need to show: that these are not just one-off acts. Indeed, the story
isn't about a hero redeemed but about collective trauma because of a
man's careless actions in his refusal to hear the word "stop."

It *is* possible to present a better version of a romantic hero in the
adaptation from book to screen: *Bridgerton*'s (2020-) first season
failed miserably in ignoring that consent works both ways, that a wife
can indeed rape a husband, as Daphne does to Simon, but I think the
writers heard the criticism from post-#MeToo fans so that in the next
season, Anthony Bridgerton is now more likeable and sensitive than
imagined in Quinn's books. Written in the early 2000s,
the *Bridgerton *novels feel more connected to *Poldark*'s world of
sexual values than our post-#MeToo world. Thankfully, in the 2022 TV
adaptation the Viscount is not stepping on Kate's hand or bruising her
arms, as he does and which seems to excite her, in Quinn's novel. When
he and Kate start to consummate their relationship on our TV screens, he
offers to stop, he waits for consent, and we are left with no doubts
that the sex was mutually enjoyable.

::: {#attachment_13029 .wp-caption .aligncenter style="width: 560px"}
[![](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-6.png){.wp-image-13029
loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-13029" width="550" height="368"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-6.png 975w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-6-300x201.png 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-6-450x301.png 450w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-6-140x94.png 140w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-6-768x514.png 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-6.png)

Fig. 5: *Bridgerton* (2022): "Do not stop"
:::

Period drama doesn't need rape to be "historically accurate" or feel
real, but as we learned in writing our book, just about every period
drama on TV seems intent on having at least one rape scene, just as we
now expect a corset lacing scene as shorthand for women's oppression.

I get it, rape happened in the past -- just as it does now -- but there
are other stories to tell or at least different ways in which to tell
them. Furthermore, we do not have to forgive the hero who does bad
things simply because he is handsome and kind to his employees. I've
grown up and switched to Team Elizabeth, even if it sometimes feels
lonely on my side.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Julie Anne Taddeo** is Research Professor of History at the University
of Maryland, USA. She is the co-author (with Katherine Byrne) of *Rape
in Period Drama Television: Consent, Myth, and Fantasy* (Lexington
2022), the co-editor of multiple books on British and international
period drama television, including *Conflicting Masculinities: Men in
Period Drama Television* (Bloomsbury, 2018) and *Diagnosing History:
Medicine in Television Period Drama *(2022); as well as edited
collections on steampunk; reality TV; and the British novelist Catherine
Cookson. She also has published a monograph on the biographer Lytton
Strachey and articles on golden age mysteries and Victorian and
neo-Victorian popular culture. Her current project (with Byrne and
Leggott) is about representations of the National Health Service on TV
since the 1950s. She watches a lot of period drama television.

Pronouns: she/her


This blog first appeared on the Women’s Film and Television History Network – UK/Ireland website on Friday 24 November 2023.

 TW/CW: Discussions of sexual assault, rape


 Poldark

has been a part of my life – personal and academic – for over four decades.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! MY CONFLICTED RELATIONSHIP WITH POLDARK

Gary R Edgerton

Steal a little and they throw you in jail, Steal a lot and they make you king. — Bob Dylan, ‘Sweetheart Like You’ from

 Infidels

(1983) Saturday, 20 January 2018, marked the one-year anniversary of the Trump presidency.  Americans woke up to a federal government in shutdown mode.  Hard core Trump supporters had voted for him to defibrillate the body politic.

HOLLYWOOD APOCALYPSE

Toby Miller

The [current
controversies](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html?_r=0){target="_blank"}
swirling around [Hollywood in
particular](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/business/media/harvey-weinsteins-fall-opens-the-floodgates-in-hollywood.html?hpw&rref=business&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well){target="_blank"}
are a reminder, if any were needed, of just how damaging the use of sex
through and as power can be, by intimidating those exposed to its
horrors. Even if we exclude the notorious era of the studios' "casting
couches," sexual [scandals have
abounded](http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-41646772){target="_blank"}
across the history of the industry. They are virtually all about men
harassing women, as are the stories emerging today.

One factor in this latest series of revelations has been the missteps
and complicity of many men in their responses to the discourse on Harvey
Weinstein. I'm thinking in particular here of Oliver Stone, Ben Affleck,
Tom Jones, Woody Allen, and Quentin Tarantino, whether they denounced,
excused, or sought to trump the Weinstein scandal.

Stone avowed that ['a man shouldn't be condemned by a vigilante
system'](http://variety.com/2017/politics/asia/oliver-stone-harvey-weinstein-1202588878/){target="_blank"}.

Affleck valiantly offered that he wished he'd known earlier about
Weinstein so he could have done something about it. [Rose McGowan said
she'd told him long
ago](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/movies/rose-mcgowan-ben-affleck-matt-damon-weinstein.html){target="_blank"}.

Jones shared with us that recording-industry men had propositioned him
when he was young. Big news? But there did follow [a flow of revelations
about powerful men in popular music abusing
women](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/oct/19/tom-jones-says-he-faced-sexual-harassment-in-music-industry){target="_blank"}.

Allen said he felt ['sad for Harvey that his life is so messed
up'](http://variety.com/2017/film/news/woody-allen-harvey-weinstein-1202590319/){target="_blank"},
while his estranged "son" [Ronan Farrow
reported](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories){target="_blank"}
in gruesome detail on Weinstein's sexual violence.

Tarantino confessed that he knew what was happening and [did nothing
about
it](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/movies/tarantino-weinstein.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news){target="_blank"}.

By contrast, a febrile discussion has been generated and massive
solidarity engendered among women. For example, [Emma
Thompson](http://www.bbc.com/mundo/media-41611982){target="_blank"} has
made extremely important points about how widespread this phenomenon
is---beyond the mere culture industries. In a powerful denunciation,
Molly Ringwald's "[All the Other Harvey
Weinsteins](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/all-the-other-harveys){target="_blank"}"
details her own experiences of him as a bully and her sexualized
mistreatment by others. She likens speaking out about such matters as
akin to discussing the weather---until this new *cri de coeur*. And the
*Los Angeles Times* has compiled [a telling
dossier](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-mn-james-toback-sexual-harassment-allegations-20171018-story.html){target="_blank"}
about James Toback.

[Theater](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/oct/20/theatre-director-max-stafford-clark-was-ousted-over-inappropriate-behaviour){target="_blank"}
has also been disclosed as a site of this reprehensible power-mongering,
along with
[journalism](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/face-epidemic-sexual-harassment-171020091640079.html){target="_blank"}---[even
magic](https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-former-model-accuses-david-blaine-of-rape){target="_blank"}
and
[restaurants](http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2017/10/john_besh_restaurants_fostered.html){target="_blank"}
are  now brought to the bar of public opinion as people feel empowered
to speak out beyond the intimidation suffered for years.

We have entered [what *Vanity Fair* is
callin](http://links.vanityfair.mkt6202.com/ctt?kn=14&ms=MTIxODY4NjQS1&r=MTMzMTgyMzc1NTI0S0&b=0&j=MTI2MTgwOTEwNgS2&mt=1&rt=0){target="_blank"}g
'the Harvey Ripple Effect.'

I am a small part of that effect, and I want to talk to you about my
experience of sexual harassment. I think. In a minute.

It may be that in my various positions of professional responsibility I,
too, have engaged in conduct unbecoming/power mongering. I hope not, but
it is necessary to start by acknowledging that I assuredly benefit, as
do many if not most men, from the opportunities and certainties given to
me as a consequence of a gendered world of work that militates against
equality and justice on the basis of social identity.

But I did have a consistent, repeated experience in which a senior
person did unwanted sexual things to me on the job.

Here's the deal.

In the late 1970s, when an adult teenager, I worked at a radio station
of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. Most weekday mornings, at
around 0645, I had to sign a book located on a rostrum to prove my
attendance, just like everybody else. The rostrum was bracketed to the
wall, and the book and accompanying pen were attached to the rostrum. To
sign in, you had to stand flush with the rostrum, facing the wall, in a
tiny alcove.

Each morning, the producer of the morning show, which succeeded the
breakfast program for which I was the newsreader/JAFA (Just Another
Fucking Announcer) would come up behind me and rub his groin against my
ass and put his arms around me, fondling my genitals.

At that hour of the day, no one ever walked by, as I always hoped they
would.

I was incredibly uncomfortable. I did not know the words 'homophobia' or
'sexual harassment.' I did know I shouldn't remain prey to the anti-gay
sentiment I had encountered at school, even though I had experienced
some violent sexual activity by men there while a pupil. I had no
language to describe what was being done by me, but didn't wish to feel
or act in an anti-gay manner.

I didn't think of asking him to stop. I tried to make jokes of these
encounters. I just wanted it all to go away. I didn't enjoy it, and
feared that I might get an erection as his hands played so persistently
with my groin. It made going to work each day harrowing.

Unlike many of the women whose stories we have spoken, heard, written,
and read over the last few days, I was not looking for a media future. I
had no concept of a profession I wished to pursue. I just worked as a
mere JAFA in a big organization, where this man had power. But that
wasn't the issue for me, in terms of fearing retribution. I had no
desire to rise through the hierarchy of the ABC, and didn't worry that
he might prove an obstacle to my career or life in any way. But I lacked
language and ideas to counter what he was doing.

So quite apart from the gendered differences between my situation and
those of the women concerned, I had fewer medium- to long-term
occupational aspirations at stake. I was not raped, I did not fear for
my life, and my thoughts were not silenced. I just didn't have a
political logic with which to describe and deal with these encounters.

The man who did these things was creative, generous, and funny. Years
later, we got back in contact and everything was fine. I never raised
the subject with him. And nor have I told anyone else until now.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Toby Miller** is Emeritus Distinguished Professor at the University of
California, Riverside, the Sir Walter Murdoch Professor of Cultural
Policy Studies at Murdoch University, Profesor Invitado at the
Universidad del Norte, Professor of Journalism, Media and Cultural
Studies at Cardiff University/Prifysgol Caerdydd and Director of the
Institute for Media & Creative Industries at Loughborough University in
London. His adventures can be scrutinized
at [www.tobymiller.org](http://www.tobymiller.org/){.stylish-link
target="_blank"}.


The current controversies swirling around Hollywood in particular are a reminder, if any were needed, of just how damaging the use of sex through and as power can be, by intimidating those exposed to its horrors. Even if we exclude the notorious era of the studios’ “casting couches,” sexual scandals have abounded across the history of the industry. They are virtually all about men harassing women, as are the stories emerging today.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! MY CONFLICTED RELATIONSHIP WITH POLDARK

HOLLYWOOD APOCALYPSE

MY SEXUAL HARRASSMENT ESSAY – #METOO?