I just inhaled all seven episodes of the period drama Downton Abbey, set in an English country estate in around 1913. One the one hand, it was very engaging and I got quite attached to the characters. On the other hand, the only way I got through it was by stopping every now and then to be irritated and work on this post, which is serious business enough to be posted here instead of ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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It's that irritatingly common form of modern period drama, which says "Yes, the olden days were unjust, but they had a sort of charming simplicity, and the way things were made better was with politeness and determination and not rocking the boat too hard, and anyone who complained too much was a selfish uppity thug or tragic monster".
Lots and lots of and lots of oppressor as saviour, from upper class people telling lower class people not to be so classist against the middle class (yay?), able bodied people affectionately chiding disabled or ill people for not knowing how to look after themselves, men teaching women to enjoy their sexuality with dubious consent, and gay men being so perverted there's no point even trying.
Also lots of Men being Real Men and Women being Real Women (thus gay men are all sorts of wrong and bad). It feels like it was written in the 1950s (by someone talented and broad minded for the time, mind you. But still)
There's a sympathetic Irish working class socialist character, but he's the most deferential complicit-with-the-establishment socialist ever. Apparently his plan is to join parliament and he's not once shown talking about politics with anyone who isn't upper class. Every single other working class character we see expressing left wing or anti establishment views is a thug or grasping ingrate, and the left wing upper class character is a naive idealist.
All that said, it's fairly well written with interesting and engaging characters, and does allow for moderately different points of view within it's bounds of acceptable behaviour. (Those outside those bounds are two dimensional moustache twirling villains) One of the few shows I can think of which is a bit maiden/whore-ish about the young female characters but gives the older female characters a moderate amount of agency. And the dresses are very pretty.
Plus, while the storylines dealing with disability are heavy handed and full of able-bodied-splaining they're still a cut above most other fictional depictions of disability, mainly because the bar is so low.
I looked up the creator Julian Fellowes, and he's a Tory and a member of the House of Lords. (He also wrote Gosford Park and the movie version of Vanity Fair) Colour me not surprised.
One day I have to figure out what it is that I find so compelling about period dramas, since they usually annoy me with the way they revel in classism/racism/heterosexism etc. At least this was less in your face with it's offensiveness than Game of Thrones, I couldn't even finish episode 2 of that.
alias_sqbr.It's that irritatingly common form of modern period drama, which says "Yes, the olden days were unjust, but they had a sort of charming simplicity, and the way things were made better was with politeness and determination and not rocking the boat too hard, and anyone who complained too much was a selfish uppity thug or tragic monster".
Lots and lots of and lots of oppressor as saviour, from upper class people telling lower class people not to be so classist against the middle class (yay?), able bodied people affectionately chiding disabled or ill people for not knowing how to look after themselves, men teaching women to enjoy their sexuality with dubious consent, and gay men being so perverted there's no point even trying.
Also lots of Men being Real Men and Women being Real Women (thus gay men are all sorts of wrong and bad). It feels like it was written in the 1950s (by someone talented and broad minded for the time, mind you. But still)
There's a sympathetic Irish working class socialist character, but he's the most deferential complicit-with-the-establishment socialist ever. Apparently his plan is to join parliament and he's not once shown talking about politics with anyone who isn't upper class. Every single other working class character we see expressing left wing or anti establishment views is a thug or grasping ingrate, and the left wing upper class character is a naive idealist.
All that said, it's fairly well written with interesting and engaging characters, and does allow for moderately different points of view within it's bounds of acceptable behaviour. (Those outside those bounds are two dimensional moustache twirling villains) One of the few shows I can think of which is a bit maiden/whore-ish about the young female characters but gives the older female characters a moderate amount of agency. And the dresses are very pretty.
Plus, while the storylines dealing with disability are heavy handed and full of able-bodied-splaining they're still a cut above most other fictional depictions of disability, mainly because the bar is so low.
I looked up the creator Julian Fellowes, and he's a Tory and a member of the House of Lords. (He also wrote Gosford Park and the movie version of Vanity Fair) Colour me not surprised.
One day I have to figure out what it is that I find so compelling about period dramas, since they usually annoy me with the way they revel in classism/racism/heterosexism etc. At least this was less in your face with it's offensiveness than Game of Thrones, I couldn't even finish episode 2 of that.
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I loved that the saintly Earl of Grantham was showed to be a total prick when his daughter got hurt and his first response was 'well, I'll fire the chauffeur. It amused me to have an Irish radical as a chauffeur but this has gone too far' and you suddenly see that his supposed lovely beneficent paternal 'good aristocrat' is pretty shallow and basically only lasts as long as no one steps out of line. I loved that it showed the absolute terror of the working class at getting ill - the cook with her eyes, the valet with his leg - and what is made quite clear is that the reason it is such a big deal is that there is no safety net at all. And of course the poor oldest daughter, who basically had an awful experience (which, upon reflection, is pretty close to come of my teenage experiences, of guys assuming I was more experienced that I was and me not really knowing how to deal with it and blaming myself afterwards) and she has been hideously pilloried for it, with the rumours ruining her socially and clearly messing with her head horribly.
I agree the gay characters in it have made me cringe hideously, and I do agree that Julian Fellowes is a little too in love with the class structure he is meant to be dissecting for it to work, but I think it's doing some interesting things, whilst still remaining something that can attract an audience, and specifically the kind of audience who likes period dramas. And it's a lot more self aware than the vast majority of them. Which isn't, of course, to say it doesn't have issues. I am hoping, btw, that Sexy Irish Chauffeur is going to do a lot more next series. In my dream Downton Abbey Season Two he and Youngest Daughter will be much more radical and end up running away to be political, thus making the Earl of Grantham face up to the limitations of his supposed liberalism, just like Chava and her Russian in Fiddler on the Roof. I do not know if Julian Fellowes will, however, disappoint me horribly.
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I also hope that Season 2 isn't going to horribly disappoint me.
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Since that was the only 10 minutes of it I saw at all, the impression I got was quite different!
I am not at all interested in period stuff basically, I'll only watch it if it's fanservice and pretty faces like Merlin or BBC Robin Hood have been and even then I pretty much watch it in spite of the setting not because of it. I suspect this is because I am not a fan of pretty costumes and I find historical stuff is either totally unrealistic in many ways (eg Merlin, RH, etc.) or too depressing to cope with because of all the -isms you outlined above.
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I really don't know why I keep being drawn to costume dramas, they so often annoy me.