We’ve been watching the series “Julia” on HBOMax. As a solid member of Gen-X, I’m well aware of who Julia Child is and her inspiring culinary ways. We are enjoying the experience.
I’m always curious as to whether what we’re seeing in a biographical TV outing such as this is actually biographical. Taking a look at this article in The Washington Post, it turns out the show runners tried to keep the series somewhat biographical. There are invented characters and situations made for television, but as they said, they’re trying to stick to what’s written about Julia’s life in Wikipedia. (The fact they’re sourcing Wikipedia for this is a completely different topic). The thing is, they’re “filling in between the lines” to account for some of the circumstances that drives what we see on-screen Julia do with her career.
Apparently, Julia Child was a reasonably private person, separating her public persona from her home life. Admirable. There’s a wide swatch of certain celebrities that I wish would do the same thing (though, what would I gripe about once in a while on this blog?). I don’t know if it’s due to my wiring or an inability to separate fact from fiction or what, but I find it a bit confusing when a known person in being portrayed on television differently, or even with a bigger dose of embellishment than expected, than what actually happened.
Perhaps my expectations are just different or I need to be reminded that series such as “Julia” are for entertainment purposes only.
Well, in that regard, I am certainly being entertained and I look forward to finishing out the series.
