Outlander author Diana Gabaldon has responded to claims the hit Starz TV show portrays a 'deeply distorted' version of Gaelic life.
The TV show, which stars Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe as Jamie and Claire Fraser, has been criticised by Deborah Dennison, the founder of the Historians' Council on Culloden. Dennison claimed the American writer Diana Gabaldon, who wrote the Outlander novels, promoted inaccurate and “reprehensible” portrayals.
In a piece for The Scotsman, she wrote: "Outlander promotes a deeply distorted view of the known nature of the Gàidhealtachd. Presented with lots of raw sex, fantasy and slick Hollywood production values, in Scotland, and around the world, people believe the disinformation."
She went on to attack the show for portraying Jacobite women as “whores” and Bonnie Prince Charlie as either "an effeminate coward or an over-sexed Catholic fanatic".
The storyline is partly set during the 1745 Jacobite rebellion, which has led to an influx of tourism for Scotland. In the show, English nurse Claire Randall, played by Caitriona, travels 200 years back in time to the eve of Culloden and meets Highlander Jamie.
Continuing, she added: “The frequent arguments in which Claire demands her independence do not reflect the role of Highland women. The plotting of Outlander is mostly predictable: Claire gets in trouble, Jamie saves her, they have sex. Then Jamie gets in trouble, Claire saves him, and they have an argument about women not being owned by their husbands.
Gabaldon told The Times she spent a “good deal” of time reading books to inform her characters. She said: “History is largely concerned with collective social events and patterns — as Ms Dennison says, ‘the known nature of the Gàidhealtachd’ — whereas a novel focuses on the specific actions and interactions of a few strongly individual people.
“No one in their right mind would take a television show based on time travel as an absolutely factual representation of anything. I do in fact take some pains to ensure historical accuracy.”
This comes after Outlander was renewed for its eighth and final season, but will then be replaced with a spin-off series. 'Outlander: Blood of My Blood' will look into the lives and relationship of Jamie Fraser's parents, Brian Fraser and Ellen MacKenzie, and is expected to run as 10 episodes.
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