After reading a bit about the history of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (because of questions that came up after watching The Empress), I learned of another Empress Elisabeth (AKA Sisi) project in the pipeline. The film, Corsage, was reported to look at the darker side of the empress, dealing with her fatphobia, her tightlacing and obsession with her extremely long hair. After the overly romantic fantasy version of this woman in The Empress, I was ready for a thornier Sisi.

I thought this new film might be a more historically accurate version of events because of the inclusion of these less attractive aspects of her personality but as I watched it, I didn’t need to read more history to notice it was just as made-up as The Empress, if not more. The thing about The Empress was it was clear to me why they made up the fictions that they did. A love story between relative equals is a lot more attractive than the Emperor marrying a young teenage girl. It is a beautiful fantasy to imagine an empress wanting to help the poor so much she would give a factory urchin her shoes. I actually understand these impulses, even though they irked me.

To keep reading More Empress Elisabeth Rage Content (Or, Yes, I Watched Corsage) visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.

Song: Landslide

Image of Empress Elisabeth by Franz Xaver Winterhalter via Wikicommons.

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Emily Rainbow Davis