15 thoughts on “WCW: Gugu Mbatha-Raw

    1. I was coming down to say the same thing; awkward capture of a moment when her hands are directly at boob-level, creating a strange optical illusion (presumably she’s pushing the cape off her shoulders or pulling it around her shoulders?)

  1. The emphasized boobs photo, she’s holding her hands to her chest, kind of like she’s getting ready to shrug her cape off. The angle of the shot makes it look weird.

  2. I loved her in Belle. The clothing was dreamy in that film and it had a great story too. I did see the Christie performance as well. But now I have more to watch. Thank you for profiling this actress.

  3. She’s too young and pretty for Mary Seacole, a forceful middle aged woman at the time of the Crimean War.

    1. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is 39 (though she doesn’t look it) but you’re right in that she’s still 13 years younger than the real Mary Seacole was during the Crimean War.

  4. She is AWESOME and SO BEAUTIFUL!!!! Belle is my favorite of her historical roles. She was also in the TV show Touch (not a FrockFlick) which was very good and unfortunately one or two seasons.

    1. Belle is my favourite, too. I like her Plumette in B&B and disliked the costumes for Belle. Not period. I want to see Seacole.

  5. Loved her in Belle- she is radiant and understated and real. Sarah Gadon is wonderful as her sister, too.

  6. Dido Belle’s aristocratic family was Scottish not English and showed a praiseworthy sense of responsibility towards her in spite of her being illegitimate as well as black. The Murray’s peers were offended by Belle being treated like a member of the family but that didn’t stop her guardians from including her in social events. The Murrays did their best but Belle’s position was difficult both socially and legally in spite of their support and the money left to her.

  7. Mary Seacole wasn’t actually a nurse in the Crimea, she ran a canteen for the troops and a restaurant for officers. She was present at some battles, with food and drink for soldiers and onlookers and she carried bandages so she probably provided some first aid but her real nursing seems to have been caring for cholera patients during epidemics in Kingston and Panama, which shows her courage.

    1. Nursing as a formal profession wasn’t a thing until after the Crimean War (not really until the 20th c.), & much of what women did at battlefields, was generically termed “nursing.” Mary Seacole practiced traditional medicine in Jamaica so it’s as fair to call her a “nurse” as anyone else at the time.

      1. That’s true. Just about every woman in the early nineteenth century learned something about medicine at their mother’s knee, as did Mrs. Seacole. But even she conceeded some of what she’d been taught was ineffective at best, dangerous at worst but in pure justice no more so than the practices of accredited physicians.
        Florence Nightingale is famous for putting nursing on a professional basis.

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