Desperate Romantics
A 2009 miniseries made by the BBC revolving around the lives of Pre-raphaelite brotherhood painters Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, and John Millais. The series is notable for its blatant use of Artistic Licence History, explicitely presented as a meta-commentary on the artistic licence that was used by the artists themselves. The painters are seen as a gang of rowdy young men who drink, fight, fall in love and get wrapped up in drama. Also, there are tits and bums and Everybody Has Lots of Sex.
Tropes used in Desperate Romantics include:
- Candlelit Bath: Lizzie poses for Millais as Ophelia in a tub of water heated by candles. They go out. She loses consciousness and almost drowns...
- Dogged Nice Guy: Fred
- Five-Man Band:
- The Hero - Fred
- The Lancer - Gabriel
- The Big Guy - Holman Hunt
- The Smart Guy - Millais
- The Chick - Elizabeth Siddal
- Handsome Lech: Gabriel
- Hollywood Sex: rampant, but the redeeming feature of it all is that Gabriel and Lizzie, when newly married, talk earnestly of dispensing with contraception and trying for a baby, acknowledging that yes, sheaths do exist (one is graphically brandished early on in the series) and have been used.
- Magnificent Bastard: Gabriel comes across like this some of the time, though to be fair, he's more often using an Indy Ploy than a Xanatos Gambit.
- Smug Snake: What Gabriel is when he's not a Magnificent Bastard.
- Starving Artist: Gabriel