The Diplomat

A few years ago, I wrote a number of articles on Borgen, The Crown, and ARGO – movies or series purportedly based on reality but that were really just dramatizations of institutions that were imagined by the producers and writers of the shows.

The excellent Danish series Borgen portrayed the travails of Denmark’s first fictitious female Prime Minister. It portrayed a politician who had little of Machiavelli and much of the kind of humanism and honesty we would all like to find in our elected leaders. It was fine drama but not a really accurate portrayal of politics in a fractious democracy.

The Crown fictionalized the history of the British royal family under the late Queen Elizabeth Over time, the producers had to add a caveat at the beginning of each episode to advise the audience that the program was not an accurate historical depiction of the Royal Family. There was much controversy at many of the portrayals of their behavior leaving those who had an inkling of royal history wondering.

Finally, ARGO is a film about the escape of six of the U.S. hostages from in 1978. It downplayed the true role played by Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor, diplomat John Sheardown and their wives. Ambassador Taylor was my second Ambassador during my posting to Teheran and a few years later, he told me that while he and his wife watched the film, they asked each other if they had actually escaped – it was so far from any historical accuracy.

It is a shame when media misinform audiences about public figures. Drama is essential in a production, but the truth is also vital if the public are to form a realistic vision of events.

This is why when I first tuned in to the new Netflix series The Diplomat, I turned it off since the first episode about the assignment of a new ambassador to the US embassy in London was so inaccurate.

As a former diplomat who served at six Canadian Embassies, I know how an Embassy functions, how a new Ambassador is treated upon arrival at a new post by his hosts and how his or her own diplomats at an embassy behave. 

I would have continued ignoring the series had not many ex-colleagues and some good friends commented that it was excellent drama despite its lack of accuracy.

I took it up again, divorced it from any sense of reality, and came to enjoy the drama and excellent acting.

My concern springs from the fact that most audiences don’t have a clue about what diplomats do or how an embassy functions. Also, the plethora of four-letter words is really not how diplomats speak with each other or their hosts! 

Again, a potentially educational as well as an entertainment experience falls by the wayside, leaving audiences completely misinformed and entertaining a false view of the world’s second oldest profession. 

This said, taking a more positive view of things, the four series underscore how crises are managed successfully and how messages and their delivery are vital to any endeavor.

In Borgen, the Prime Minister’s adroit handling of the media show how effective communications between governors and governed, sorely lacking in most countries today, can succeed in creating a trusting electorate that appreciates honesty and candor.

In The Crown, audiences view how a lack of proper communications both within the Royal Family and between them and their citizens can produce a credibility gap that calls into question the ability to generate enthusiasm for the institution. Indeed, at this moment, King Charles III, as King of Canada, is not appreciated by three out of every five Canadians.

And in The Diplomat, the Ambassador’s handling of a crisis involving the British, Russian, and Iranian governments is so unrealistic that we must question if the British government is capable of handling a diplomatic and military crisis without the help of those damned Yankees. 

Don’t get me wrong, the acting by Kerri Russell, Rufus Sewell, and David Gyasi is brilliant. 

But the vision of the number two at the US Embassy running after the newly arrived ambassador with an armful of dresses that he wants her to wear is simply ludicrous.

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Keep reading: The End of an Era?

 Edition: Estefanía Cardeña