Welcome to 1789...

Here's a thread I have just been dying to start.

To start off, the Worst Piece of Fiction Ever Written Award goes to Carolly Erikson for her absolutely abysmal The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette. She has all the best cliches and all the proof of having done absolutely zero historical research, including:
-a literally green Robespierre as the Source of All Evil, who has smallpox scars, bites his nails so obsessively he can't speak, is quite literally insane with paranoia and who actually  tries to straggle the Sweet, Virtuous Marie Anotoinette
-no other revolutionaries AT ALL! ROBESPIERRE SEEMS TO HAVE KILLED THEM ALL.
-the most unintentionally unsympathetic Antoinette I have ever read. She is a stupid, silly, frivolous twit and I want to hit her over the head with a shovel repeatedly.
-completely made-up events taking place instead of actual historical events!
-a Du Barry who has absolutely no redeeming characteristics at all. She's not even pretty. Why does the king sleep with her? No one knows, not even the freaking king.

And the Worst Representation of Louis Saint-Just Award goes to Rose of Versailles. This anime made Saint-Just a blood-thirsty terrorist who hides underneath the pews in churches, goes out wearing a mask to shoot at Spanish ambassadors, and stabs people in moving carraiges just for the fun of it. however, Saint-Just also managed to outrun a four-horse carriage, too, so that was pretty impressive.

In a close second is that crappy film noire movie I couldn't finish called The Black Book, where Saint-Just acutally KICKS A KITTEN.

The Weirdest Representation of Robespierre Award goes to another anime, Chevalier D'Eon. For no reason I can make out, Robespierre is one of the head members of a secret society trying to overthrow the king and enslave France by creating an army of mercury-filled zombies controlled by the Psalms. He is also blond and wigless.

Then I must go onto the Worst Representation of the Storming of the Bastille. This award goes to the recent Marie Antoinette film with Kirsten Dunst. She finds out while having a tea party. It is never mentioned again. No one knows it happened. No one appears to know what it is.

I think I can give the Most Cliche Representation of Robespierre to the Baroness Orczy, however, since she decided that Robespierre was insane, paranoid, and entirely dependant on the advice of some made-up spiritual medium. Her Robespierre also appears to be a literally green-skinned, "pussy-footing tyrant" who obsessively buffs his nails during meetings of the National Assembly, wishes that all of France had but one head so that he could cut it off easier, appears to be the Source of All Evil mixed with Satan Himself, and stores all important papers in his snuffbox.

The Least Sympathic Representation of the Duplays Award goes to Hilary Mantal for A Place of Greater Safety, where the Duplay girls try to seduce both Robespierre and Desmoulins, and where one of them lies that Danton has raped her. No one know why she does this. Duplay, pere, also appears to have wanted to collect Robespierre and seems to have the view of a breeder with expensive horse to show off when it comes to Robespierre.

The Strangest Representation of David Award goes to the 1980s film, Danton, where David doesn't allow his models to get dressed once he's done with them and redoes all of the work done by his apprentances out of an apparently supressed view of them all as inferior beings.

ETA: I can't believe I forgot Dickens! The Largest Number of Historical Inaccuracies Award (credit to sunliner) goes to Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. I think he was the one who started up the still pervasive rumor that the French governement was excuting about 50-70 people a day, just because they could. I'm sorry. Even the brilliance of Sydney Carton can't make up for all the crap he included.

Do you think the awards ought to go to other people? Have different awards yourself? Agree and want to rant about the wasted hours of your life reading crappy novels? Drop a comment!