In recent months, “Downton Abbey,” the English period drama now airing on PBS, has become a favorite of media-savvy, tastemaking American television viewers. With an audience of 4.2 million per episode, “Downton” hasn’t achieved the lofty heights of “American Idol” in its prime. But like AMC’s “Mad Men” or HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire,” “Downton” has captured the imagination of a culturally and politically influential slice of the population. In cities like New York and Los Angeles, one often hears reference to the show’s soap-opera subplots, particularly among affluent professional women in their 20s and 30s. One can’t help but wonder if there is some deeper meaning to the show’s success.
Set in the second decade of the last century, “Downton Abbey” chronicles the lives of an aristocratic family and its army of servants on a sprawling North Yorkshire estate. The show’s creator, Julian Fellowes, specializes in what we might call the “upstairs, downstairs” genre, having written the screenplay for the excellent 2001 film “Gosford Park,” which also portrays the interweaving lives of servants and the women and men they serve.
Part of the appeal of “Downton Abbey” is that, in a not entirely accurate way, it offers a window into a past with which few Americans are familiar. The first season opens with the news that the Earl and Countess of Grantham have lost their male heir in the sinking of the Titanic, an event that proved a tremendous psychic shock for the real-world English aristocracy. They eventually identify a distant cousin, Matthew Crawley, who is next in the line of succession. Unlike the Crawleys, who’ve spent their lives in and around Downton, middle-class Matthew is unfamiliar with the ways of the titled elite. And though Matthew starts out rather skeptical of Downton’s virtues, he comes to embrace his new life, not least because his cousin, Mary Crawley, is, well, quite compelling. Equally important is the roiling conflict in the servants’ quarters, where rivals jockey for position and at least one character tries to escape the icy clutches of his unfortunate past. The second season centers on the First World War and how it scrambles social relations both upstairs and downstairs.
Recently, Simon Schama published a vicious attack on “Downton Abbey” in Newsweek. While Schama colorfully concedes that “nothing beats British television drama for servicing the instincts of cultural necrophilia,” he sees “Downton” as an example of milquetoast nostalgia at its worst. Rather oddly, Schama links “Downton”-mania to (what he sees as) the reactionary fantasies of the tea party movement. This is despite the fact that the audiences for Glenn Beck and PBS aren’t quite the same.
Indeed, Irin Carmon, writing in Salon, spoke to left-of-center admirers of the series, in part to determine why so many feminists and progressives had embraced such a sympathetic portrait of England’s Tory aristocracy. One of her interlocutors, Bryce Covert, observes that “the rigid class structure is clearly oppressive for everyone involved,” which points at one explanation: Perhaps the show’s biggest, most ardent fans pity those trapped in its world. Others watch it to celebrate the elegance and refined manners of a lost age. And then there are those fascinated by the unanswerable question of where they might have wound up in the social pecking order of that time and place. The success of “Downton Abbey” flows from all of these things.
But I suspect that there is another element. As Covert suggests, being an aristocrat in the world of “Downton Abbey” was in many respects a very strenuous undertaking. One had to uphold a high standard of propriety. One had to be mindful of obligations to family members, to servants and to the wider society. The social elite as portrayed in “Downton” is far from perfect. But in many important respects, it is far more admirable than the self-regarding social elite we have today.
In his provocative new book “Coming Apart,” Charles Murray draws on Arnold Toynbee’s “A Study of History” to offer an indictment of America’s elite. As a civilization rises, Toynbee observed, it is led by “a creative minority with a strong, self-confident sense of style, virtue, and purpose.” Over time, however, this minority entrenches its position and rejects the obligations of citizenship. It discards the high standards it once set for itself. Though this social group remains dominant, it eventually becomes culturally bereft and morally hollow. It loses its ability to inspire others, and so its leadership loses its legitimacy.
Instead of looking at the world of “Downton Abbey” with pity, perhaps many of its fans look to it with envy. The rigid class hierarchies of that era were undoubtedly cruel. Yet at least those at the top cared about something other than themselves.
Set in the second decade of the last century, “Downton Abbey” chronicles the lives of an aristocratic family and its army of servants on a sprawling North Yorkshire estate. The show’s creator, Julian Fellowes, specializes in what we might call the “upstairs, downstairs” genre, having written the screenplay for the excellent 2001 film “Gosford Park,” which also portrays the interweaving lives of servants and the women and men they serve.
Part of the appeal of “Downton Abbey” is that, in a not entirely accurate way, it offers a window into a past with which few Americans are familiar. The first season opens with the news that the Earl and Countess of Grantham have lost their male heir in the sinking of the Titanic, an event that proved a tremendous psychic shock for the real-world English aristocracy. They eventually identify a distant cousin, Matthew Crawley, who is next in the line of succession. Unlike the Crawleys, who’ve spent their lives in and around Downton, middle-class Matthew is unfamiliar with the ways of the titled elite. And though Matthew starts out rather skeptical of Downton’s virtues, he comes to embrace his new life, not least because his cousin, Mary Crawley, is, well, quite compelling. Equally important is the roiling conflict in the servants’ quarters, where rivals jockey for position and at least one character tries to escape the icy clutches of his unfortunate past. The second season centers on the First World War and how it scrambles social relations both upstairs and downstairs.
Recently, Simon Schama published a vicious attack on “Downton Abbey” in Newsweek. While Schama colorfully concedes that “nothing beats British television drama for servicing the instincts of cultural necrophilia,” he sees “Downton” as an example of milquetoast nostalgia at its worst. Rather oddly, Schama links “Downton”-mania to (what he sees as) the reactionary fantasies of the tea party movement. This is despite the fact that the audiences for Glenn Beck and PBS aren’t quite the same.
Indeed, Irin Carmon, writing in Salon, spoke to left-of-center admirers of the series, in part to determine why so many feminists and progressives had embraced such a sympathetic portrait of England’s Tory aristocracy. One of her interlocutors, Bryce Covert, observes that “the rigid class structure is clearly oppressive for everyone involved,” which points at one explanation: Perhaps the show’s biggest, most ardent fans pity those trapped in its world. Others watch it to celebrate the elegance and refined manners of a lost age. And then there are those fascinated by the unanswerable question of where they might have wound up in the social pecking order of that time and place. The success of “Downton Abbey” flows from all of these things.
But I suspect that there is another element. As Covert suggests, being an aristocrat in the world of “Downton Abbey” was in many respects a very strenuous undertaking. One had to uphold a high standard of propriety. One had to be mindful of obligations to family members, to servants and to the wider society. The social elite as portrayed in “Downton” is far from perfect. But in many important respects, it is far more admirable than the self-regarding social elite we have today.
In his provocative new book “Coming Apart,” Charles Murray draws on Arnold Toynbee’s “A Study of History” to offer an indictment of America’s elite. As a civilization rises, Toynbee observed, it is led by “a creative minority with a strong, self-confident sense of style, virtue, and purpose.” Over time, however, this minority entrenches its position and rejects the obligations of citizenship. It discards the high standards it once set for itself. Though this social group remains dominant, it eventually becomes culturally bereft and morally hollow. It loses its ability to inspire others, and so its leadership loses its legitimacy.
Instead of looking at the world of “Downton Abbey” with pity, perhaps many of its fans look to it with envy. The rigid class hierarchies of that era were undoubtedly cruel. Yet at least those at the top cared about something other than themselves.
