Tea at Trianon: The Pornification of Cinema

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, February 20, 2026

The Pornification of Cinema

From Elisabeth Stone:

Desire needs to be surrounded by structure, things such as family, honor, reputation. Without it, desire becomes unbridled lust, a fire that consumes anything it touches. Structure is the only thing that can create tension, and tension creates longing, and longing is what gives us depth.
It turns out that giving in to your every desire does not lead to fulfillment, but to a road of emptiness, to the inability to experience romance or love with true depth and actual meaning.
It is no wonder, then, that in our culture people chase the only high they can find, which is the thrill of new beginnings, the rush of meeting someone new. When you build romance on something as shallow as lust and impulse, the fire will burn bright, yes, but it will die out just as fast.
Look at Bridgerton. It presents itself like an old-world romance. The gowns. The courtship. The family names. The dramatic rules. It wants the aesthetic of tradition. It wants the tension. It wants the feeling of something structured and meaningful.
But it doesn’t actually believe in any of it. (Read more.)