“Anatomy of a scandal”: the true story of the Libertine Club

Anatomy of a Scandal (Anatomy of a Scandal) was a book before a series. Its author, Sarah Hall (she took the pseudonym Vaughan when she moved away from journalism to pursue her role as a writer) published this novel in 2018: it told the story of James Whitehouse, a high-ranking fictitious English politician who was accused of rape by a woman with whom he had an affair.

The series starring Sienna Miller, Rupert Friend and Michelle Dockery managed to rank as one of the most watched fictions on Netflix and revealed the impact that issues such as sexism, university brotherhoods and sexual violence have on the public. The author's visit to Oxford University and her past as a judicial reporter focused on sexual scandals were the basis for telling this story that relates to real-life events.

The series plays a lot with flashbaks and travels back to this politician's past in his years as a student at Oxford University. James, played as an adult by Friend and Ben Radcliffe in his younger years, is part of the Libertine Club with a group of colleagues including Tom Southern (Geoffrey Streatfield and Jack Simmance at various stages of his life), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the present of the narrative. These libertines (a group made up exclusively of males) do nothing but generate excesses and damage, while they get drunk and consume toxic substances.

This club takes as its starting point the Bullingdon Club of Oxford, which was created in 1780 as a hunting and cricket club. One hundred years later, this group shifted towards a circle that gathered to drink and eat, and became more exclusive: only the children of the nobility who had a large income were members. Being part of the Bullingdon Club gave prestige and superiority. They were also known to generate unrest, and in the 1980s it was directly identified as a culture of excesses, protected by class privilege.

According to The Guardian, Bullingdon Club members hired sex workers for their dinners, and sometimes performed at the same shared dining table. They had violent behavior on the premises, such as when they broke wood paneling and furniture in a room at Magdalen College, and with people. A testimony collected in the newspaper supports this theory. “They found it funny that people were intimidated or frightened by their behavior.” They walked through Oxford streets dressed in their fracs, singing misogynistic epithets and breaking bottles.

In the series this attitude is reflected every time the action takes us back to Whitehouse's past and his years at the Club of Libertines, always without limits when it comes to vices and violence. The relationship of the fictitious brotherhood with the Bullingdon Club soon emerged, as several of its members had similar attitudes. Some members of this exclusive club were current British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Prime Minister David Cameron, the British newspaper added.

Several fictions based on the actions of the Bullingdon Club to tell different plots, beyond the Anatomy of a Scandal. The film The Riot Club, released in 2014 and starring Sam Claflin, Max Irons and Douglas Booth, told the story of this group in a fictional way, although its author, Laura Wade, said it was a complete fiction.

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