Warrior Queen

October 12, 2003 11:32 AM

Boudicca (also known as Boadicea) was the queen of the Celtic Iceni tribe in eastern Britain in 60 AD. As recorded by Tacitus and Cassius Dio, she led a brutal revolt against the Romans and razed London and Southwark. There's a famous statue of her at Westminster Bridge, and Masterpiece Theatre has produced a new historical drama about her, Warrior Queen.
posted by homunculus (23 comments total)

Warrior Queen? In the UK it was recently shown under the title Boudica. I wonder, why the need for differing titles?
posted by kaemaril at 11:35 AM on October 12, 2003

I would guess it's because far fewer people in the US are already familiar with the name Boudica.
posted by homunculus at 11:59 AM on October 12, 2003

Anyone notice this slightly out of context piece of sub-editing in the Observer piece:

"Crummy compared the attack to 'ethnic cleansing' in the Balkans."

I don't think that's supposed to be there!
posted by dash_slot- at 12:01 PM on October 12, 2003

The Sun recently described Boudicca as 'inspiring' and a reason 'to be proud to be British'.

Which shows you how well the Sun actually thinks these things through. An English person these days is incalculably more likely to be descended from a later invader (most of whom were if anything much worse to the indigenous people than the Romans were) than from anyone related to Boadicea. All very jingoistic and fun but like most such things bears absolutely no examination.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:10 PM on October 12, 2003

She most recently starred as "that chick from the first tutorial mission in Rise of Nations".

(Everything is related to gaming, dammit.)
posted by DaShiv at 12:11 PM on October 12, 2003

To put it another way, it's rather like saying that Sitting Bull is a reason to be proud to be American. All very well from an inclusiveness standpoint, but a fairly ludicrous sentiment from the Sioux perspective.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:20 PM on October 12, 2003

I don't think that's supposed to be there!

That's not the first time we've heard an archaeologist use the term. Here's an article in which describes the Celtic Britons as victims of ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Anglo-Saxons (discussed here.)
posted by homunculus at 12:33 PM on October 12, 2003

Fascinating... and horrifying.

As to the title "Warrior Queen", I suppose only PBS could produce something that would be taken seriously with that name. I would have at least gone for "Boudica: Warrior Queen".
posted by taz at 1:00 PM on October 12, 2003

Interesting, thanks homunculus.

(The massive psychological blow Boudicca inflicted upon the Roman Empire may well have been comparable to that inflicted upon the United States by 9-11... a great, and timely, post).
posted by plep at 1:05 PM on October 12, 2003

enya wrote a song for boadicea on the celts :D here it is in midi!
posted by kliuless at 1:32 PM on October 12, 2003

Warrior Queen

Dang, that means she outranks Xena!
posted by rushmc at 1:47 PM on October 12, 2003

For the love of god don't watch Warrior Queen. I caught 5 minutes of it when it was on in the UK a couple of weeks ago (that was all I could bare) and it was laugh out loud bad. Some people over here actually thought is was supposed to be funny. And what on earth possessed the director to make the Roman centurions to speak with mockney accents I will never know.
posted by chill at 3:17 PM on October 12, 2003

Good heavens, it is beyond appalling. I haven't heard dialogue this bad in ages.
posted by thomas j wise at 7:02 PM on October 12, 2003

my first cat was named Boadicea.
posted by clavdivs at 7:38 PM on October 12, 2003

What Chill said, it's a terrible, terrible piece of drama full of buzz words about terrorists in a desperate attempt to draw some parallels between then and now. The writer Andrew Davies is quite well respected for his adaptations, but has seriously gone wrong on this one.

And oddly enough we used to have a cat named Claudius.
posted by ciderwoman at 3:39 AM on October 13, 2003

I watched part of it, sitting with a friend who has a degree in archaeology. Usually she won't let me watch these types of reconstruction drama-documentaries because of her flinch reaction to horrendous historical inaccuracies, however in this instance I turned it off before she could even get to the remote. It's purely a fluff piece, designed as a vehicle for glibly inappropriate pop-memes regarding "terrorism". As revisionism goes this wasn't even a terribly well-executed segue, much less enthralling to watch.
posted by walrus at 5:57 AM on October 13, 2003

(not to detract from the job homonculus did with the supporting links)
posted by walrus at 8:56 AM on October 13, 2003

Any linguists out there want to take a stab at linking the warrior queen with this word? It seems so apt, but dictionary.com references Snuffy Smif, ferchrissake. Any insight? Anyone? Bueller?
posted by ubi at 10:06 AM on October 13, 2003

My local PBS station canceled it for some reason so I didn't get to see it, but it sounds like they did me a favor. Poor Boudicca, after all the horrors she experienced in life and now this, the final insult.
posted by homunculus at 10:22 AM on October 13, 2003

(OED) bodacious. U.S. dial. Complete, thorough, arrant. Also as adv.

[Perh. a variant of Eng. dial. boldacious, a combination of bold and audacious.]

1845 W. T. THOMPSON Chron. Pineville 178 She's so bowdacious unreasonable when she's raised. 1887 ‘C. E. CRADDOCK’ Keedon Bluffs 153 Air ye turned a bodacious idjit, Skimp? 1941 Time 17 Mar. 23/2 The bodacious blurt did him no good with his brother Navy men.
posted by rschram at 11:43 AM on October 13, 2003

Bodacious.
posted by homunculus at 12:52 PM on October 13, 2003

Hesiod liked it.
posted by homunculus at 11:19 PM on October 13, 2003

Boudicca (also known as Boadicea)

Also known as Buddug. Still a popular name here on the reservation.
posted by ceiriog at 4:18 AM on October 15, 2003