The Crown Season 5 Will Carry A Disclaimer After Protests
Season 5 of Netflix's British royal family biopic series "The Crown" premieres on November 9. In the lead-up to its release, certain relevant parties have shared concerns about its content. A number of people, for instance, are conflicted about "The Crown" Season 5 releasing after Queen Elizabeth's death, given how it sensationalizes the lives of both Queen Elizabeth and the newly-crowned King Charles.
Meanwhile, others have stressed that they find it important viewers understand that the show is ultimately a fictionalized account of real people's lives and not a historical text. In September, for example, a source speaking on behalf of the royal family demanded "The Crown" add a disclaimer making explicitly clear to viewers the fact that the show is indeed fiction. Then, in October, Dame Judi Dench agreed that "The Crown" should include a disclaimer, arguing that the longer the series continues, the more liberties it takes with the facts of its subjects' lives.
On October 20, Netflix released an official trailer for "The Crown" Season 5, giving viewers their most detailed look yet at the upcoming season, which takes place in the 90s. Seemingly responding to pressure from these and other outside parties, Netflix affixed a disclaimer to this video for the first time, explicitly calling attention to the show's fictional nature.
Netflix is emphasizing that The Crown is a work of fiction
As is the case with virtually every trailer Netflix shares to social media, the latest official trailer for "The Crown" Season 5 includes a short summary of its contents in its video description on YouTube. Before this summary, however, is text that reads, "Inspired by real events, this fictional dramatisation tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II and the political and personal events that shaped her reign." This trailer is now the first in the series' history to include multiple phrases that emphasize its fictional nature.
As Deadline notes in a report about this change, Netflix already used the word "fictionalized" in press for the show, but never made this distinction so explicitly in the past.
While its addition is assuredly a response to the various calls for "The Crown" to now include a disclaimer, this text thus far remains only in the video's description on YouTube, rather than in the video itself. So, whether or not episodes of the upcoming season of "The Crown" on Netflix will include such a disclaimer is unclear. Nevertheless, this is the first sign that Netflix intends to institute changes in how it presents "The Crown" based on numerous demands that it do so moving forward.