Ranking Every 2023 Historical Drama on Costume Accuracy

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GUEST REVIEWERS (in order of appearance):
Malaika @malaikatheclassicist
Angela Jaarma
Hilal

RESEARCH ASSISTANT

EDITOR

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00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:14 The Ranking
00:03:15 Bingo!
00:03:26 June’s Journey (1920s New York) [AD]
00:04:31 Adipurush (700-300 BCE)
00:06:50 The Chosen (30 CE)
00:08:19 Boudica (60 CE)
00:10:09 Domina S2 (1-100 CE)
00:12:29 The Winter King (700 CE)
00:14:40 Ponniyan Selvan II (900 CE)
00:17:19 Vikings: Valhalla S2 (1001 - 1066)
00:19:41 Zbojník/The Outlaw (1278)
00:21:53 The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die (1200s)
00:24:05 Secret Romantic Guesthouse (1800s)
00:26:20 The Matchmakers (1500-1600s)
00:28:28 The Assassin (General Joseon Dynasty)
00:30:14 Our Blooming Youth (1700-1800)
00:32:26 Under the Microscope (Ming Dynasty)
00:34:51 1521 (1521)
00:38:13 Ripe Town (1572 - 1620)
00:40:01 Tündérkert/Fairy Garden (1600s)
00:42:19 My Dearest (1627, 1636-7)
00:44:32 Filles du Feu (1609)
00:46:25 The Three Musketeers I: D’Artagnan (1627)
00:48:40 The Three Musketeers II: Milady (1627)
00:49:35 Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder (1666)
00:51:43 1670 (1670)
00:53:06 Mayfair Witches (1861)
00:54:45 Our Flag Means Death (1717)
00:55:43 Destined With You (1700s)
00:58:14 Tom Jones (1740s)
01:00:12 Jeanne du Barry (1743)
01:02:16 The Gallows Pole (1760s)
01:04:05 The Great S3 (1760s)
01:06:09 Outlander S7 (1770s)
01:08:20 Chevalier (1770s)
01:10:25 Queen Charlotte (1761 & 1817)
01:11:34 Sanditon S3 (early 1800s)
01:13:53 Perdida (early 1800s)
01:15:21 Napoleon (1800s)
01:17:43 The Lions of Sicily (1860)
01:19:28 Shaka Ilembe (late C18th-1816)
01:22:06 The Confessions of Frannie Langton (1826)
01:26:45 Good Omens S2 (1827)
01:28:54 Dodger S2 (1830s)
01:30:12 Ehrengard (1830s)
01:31:53 The Little Mermaid (1830s)
01:34:46 Sisi & I (1830-50)
01:36:30 The Doll Factory (1850)
01:37:40 Sisi S2 (1850s)
01:38:57 Gold Diggers (1853)
01:40:48 Great Expectations (1860s)
01:43:30 The Buccaneers (1870s)
01:45:46 O Crime Do Padre Amaro (1875)
01:47:13 Unrest (1877)
01:48:30 The Gilded Age S2 (1880s)
01:50:46 The Law According to Lidia Poët (1883)
01:52:01 Bodies (1890s)
01:53:11 Miss Scarlet & the Duke S3 (1890s)
01:54:29 Loki S2 (1893)
01:55:09 The Last Voyage of the Demeter (1897)
01:55:58 The Nevers Part II (1890s)
01:59:24 Godland (1904)
02:00:28 Strange Way of Life (1890-1900)
02:03:37 Creature (late C19th)
02:06:10 The Peasants (1904)
02:09:45 Peter Pan & Wendy (1904)
02:10:44 Paris Police 1905 (1905)
02:12:35 Vienna Blood (1908)
02:14:06 Alma + Oskar (1912)
02:14:41 Kysset (1913)
02:15:13 La Promesa (1913)
02:16:42 Haunted Mansion (present day)
02:17:52 Ghosts S5 (present day)
02:18:51 Final Ranking!

[LeannaRuthJensen]

Perhaps there should be a "This is just Insulting" when the costumes actually put down the culture they are depicting like 1521.

[NerfHerder]

"I haven't really seen glitter polyester in traditional Korean garmenture, but... who's to say?" killed me. This was a great video and very informative.

[SebastianJArt]

That Chinese critic went the extra mile with the graphics and I noticed and appreciated

[liquidl]

My fav character detail in Good Omens is that Crowley is always embracing the new and flashy while Aziraphale is usually lagging behind. Such a wonderful way to illustrate their differences

[greenLimeila]

I love that you didn't just cover English-speaking media, and that you brought in people who specialise in the given places and/or time periods. Fantastic video!

[alessiacavalleri]

I have seen Bernadette mourn the lack of chemises under corsets so many times that the other day I literally exulted when I saw someone wear a corset properly in a manwha🤣

[the_bandcamp_one]

learning that we could have gotten crowley in a corset and didnt is actually heartbreaking

[RandiPoitras]

I love that Bernadette is just crouched on the ground the entirety of Zacks interview trying not to laugh

[PaulaReverbel]

I loved that the critic from the Philippines cited references and pulled up a page from one of the books she was citing :)

[barbarabenoit]

Here in Germany we have a historian who has a youtube channel - Geschichtsfenster - who calls the special filter, that takes away the colours: "The medieval-filter". He calls this out as a problem in a lot of so called "documentaries" about the middle ages. I guess it is something film makers use, when they want to show that the past was worse than today. Well, they are wrong - in respect to colour and clothes. The past was different.

[HeatherBop]

I actually made a costume for The Chosen episode with the crowd of 5000! They sent out a pdf with costuming guidelines for each ethnic group and let extras decide which they wanted to represent. I know for a fact the costume I made was not historically accurate, but she was an extra 😂 it got the job done.

[BB-TheCandleFairy]

1:16:47

“Every time someone calls me Napoleon, the nation of the French gets *a little bit* meaner.”

😂
That bit was so funny, with the straight-faced, matter of fact way he said that. Plus Bernadette absolutely dying on the floor while holding up the mic lmao

[hippogaia]

I just want to comment that a show, like Good Omens 2, actually choosing, okay, we’re only going to have four costumes, but we’re going to do them RIGHT, is actually pretty cool. Because, as was stated, some shows/movies have tight schedules and budgets, so they can’t do every costume perfectly. Maybe if they had infinite resources, it would be better, but they don’t. So GO2 specifically chose, we’re not going to clothe 30 people in approximately period clothing. We’ll do 4 characters well. And I really appreciate that. 🐍

[HeadCannonPrime]

One small note about Peter and Wendy, I don't think Hook is supposed to be from the "modern" 1900's time. I think time in neverland works different and Hook is actually from the late 1700's so his coat and powdered wig are current for HIM but totally out of time for everything else. Afterall, his ship is completely from the wrong century as well.
EDIT: I think you need a category above "gets the job done" and below peak. Something like "Missed it by a Chemise". Because a lot of these are better than just getting it done. And also a category for "Insulting our intelligence" for shows that play into wrong stereotypes, or outright insult cultural heritage for things like Vikings with horned helmets, leather armor, "barbarians" with dirty faces, etc.

[RariettyC]

I almost feel like there should be a separate tier for when substantially more effort and research was clearly put in for the costumes for either the men or the women and the other gender got done dirty

[ulrike]

I feel so sorry for Jimmy🙈 Also, as a fellow archaeologist dealing very occassionally with Celts, can we please stop it with the fur and face painting/tatoo nonsense? Like, we have done research on these cultures. Extensively so. For a good century at this point. You don´t need to guess at how these people were dressing, while exculsively using clichees going directly back to Tacitus filtered through 19th century ideas (and Tacitus wasn´t even writing about Celts!).

[happycommuter]

I think Bernadette needs to resurrect the “blasphemous hair and makeup” category. Modern hair and makeup always takes me right out of a period piece. And maybe add a special dishonorable mention category for blatant cultural misrepresentations.

Seriously, this is a wonderful video, congratulations to all the experts who participated.

I was kinda hoping to see Harry Lloyd’s fantasy-vision Richard III from the Lost King, which was very generic medieval and clearly in modern fabrics. Maybe that was outside the scope of this review, but it would have been fun to see Bernadette’s reaction to this costume.

I feel like GOT has had an outsized influence on anything historical and/or fantasy: they all have to be filmed with those ridiculous blue-gray filters, as if the sun never shone in the Middle Ages. And all the metallic studded leather on peasants makes me ROTFL, wondering where they got the money for such a garment, or when they had the time and tools necessary to make it themselves.

[nahiadiwata]

34:51, my friend Minxie!! She spoke facts regarding how awful 1521 depicted pre colonial Visayan fashion. We didn’t wear rags! So disappointed honestly. There was barely any gold jewellery, no fabrics to showcase weavings and brocades to showcase our rich textile weavings and trade and diplomacy with the rest of Asia. And they also mishmashed cultures in that movie 💀

[JanetCowan]

Every year when you do this, it gets longer, and we all get happier. I also love hearing from so many incredible cultural experts!

[anhu]

Can I just say how incredibly excited I am to see Zbojník (The Outlaw) here? I do think it deserved 'tis peak, especially considering it's a crowdfunded, very low budget, indie, student production that did way better job than most big productions. I do have a bone to pick with the lovely reviewer though, because if you simply look up the name of the king who's wearing the giant feather helmet, one of the first pictures to pop up will be an illustration from a medieval manuscript of him wearing something similar. Also I'm fairly certain that the colors of the clothing are achievable with natural dyes, based solely upon following reenactors who use natural dyes for their costumes.