[ SECRET POST #5619 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5619 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 12 secrets from Secret Submission Post #804.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[tabaqui]

This exactly. The simple fact that most of the other 'peers' or whatever that the Crawley family know are 'going under', and that they themselves have a hard time finding staff because people don't want that life (and have other options) shows how 'those times' are over, not sustainable, and have to be let go. The younger characters are all about that (other than, maybe, Mary, though she still changes for the better in several ways), and the older ones are shown up for clinging to the past and rigid tradition time after time.

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT

The simple fact that most of the other 'peers' or whatever that the Crawley family know are 'going under', and that they themselves have a hard time finding staff because people don't want that life (and have other options) shows how 'those times' are over, not sustainable, and have to be let go.

I mean..... as accounts of the decline of the British aristocracy go, this is one of the more pro-aristocratic ones possible: the system of the landed gentry is beautiful and magnificent and excellent but sadly cannot endure and its passing is a tragedy, nothing gold can stay, eheu fugaces labuntur anni. It's really only one step from this narrative to the arch-conservative notion that the settled hierarchical class system was in fact the superior state of society, and that the only reason for its demise was the disruption caused by militant lower-class proles and vandals.

Similarly displaying a situation where the Good Aristocrats exercise paternal care and attention over their dependents, and supporting and encouraging everyone around them, and noblesse oblige and so on and so forth - that's the aristocratic account of why the aristocracy is good. That is the aristocracy's own depiction of themselves, and their own justification of why they deserve such enormous privilege and wealth. That's not to say that such things never ever happened and that all aristocrats were wicked and vicious. But for a series to lean on these tropes so much, and to present this version of the aristocracy as normative, does mean that it is essentially mirroring the aristocratic class' own self-serving narrative, that it essentially becomes an apologia for that class and that system.

And the problem with the narrative is that it doesn't get into the reasons that the settled order of aristocratic England ought have changed, that it was by definition a system of enormous inequality and injustice and privilege, that many aristocrats were absolutely hidebound reactionaries, and that in essence the system of concentrated wealth was a massive weight on the lives of everyone in England who was not part of the privileged class. People had very real and legitimate grievances against the system. It's very easy to slip into thinking that the aristocrats were beautiful and the people of England were happy as inferiors under their loving care before the ructions of the 20th century destroyed this sort of edenic idyllic state. And that narrative can be carried across on the whole even when the actions of individual members within the narrative are presented as more nuanced or complex, and where individual aristocrats can be more villainous or can be sympathetic to the perspectives of the lower class, and so on and so forth.

Of course that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy the show; it's fun and pretty and that's fine, but at the same time there are very good reasons that people describe it as propaganda.

[tabaqui]

If it's propaganda, it's kinda funny, 'cause the characters are called out, bad things are pointed out, and how the system is screwy and wrong and needs changed is also pointed out, by more than one person, some of them the self-same 'aristocrats'.

Maybe it's propaganda for people who don't have the slightest clue about any history of any kind ever? But seriously - for anyone with the slightest knowledge of the last 100/150 years or so, it's not gonna change hearts and minds.

The characters are drawn sympathetically so we can enjoy the show - I certainly never got any kind of missionary zeal to run out and revive the 'ruling class' after watching it or anything; their excesses and bad actions are well documented.

[(Anonymous)]

+100000

[(Anonymous)]

I get that it must be hard to see, but trust me the propaganda is there. It's subtle, but it's there. It's not that it's brainwashing the masses, it's more that it's inviting people to remember those times through rose tinted glasses while the remainder of the decaying institution it glamorises is busy fucking us over. It's our problem here in the UK though, and I think it's perfectly legitimate for those of us living in that structure to find it disgusting.

Re: Dunblane, I think the AYRT was drawing the comparison, because the whole reason there havben't been any school shootings since was because the UK brought in gun control. A clear disparity between the UK and the US, where we regularly witness the effect of no gun control. And yet Boris Johnson wrote such an article without reflection. It's an offence to both the UK and the US for him to spout such crap.

[tabaqui]

Re: BoJo - he's a moron, but there's really no line whatsoever between him making assinine comments about gun control and Downton Abbey. I mean...seriously.

If looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses and/or making *some* characters sympathetic or giving them personal growth that puts them in a better light (but clearly shows their peers in a less flattering light) is 'propaganda', than every single show in the 'Downton Abbey' genre is 'propaganda'. I find the notion ludicrous.

However, I think everything that can be said, has been said, so ta ever for the conversation, and enjoy your day.

[(Anonymous)]

Wow. I was just offering a friendly POV from someone actually living in the country in question. Honestly, Americans man. 'Ta ever so'. Wtf.

[tabaqui]

And if you're the same Anon, you made it SEVERAL times, and the conversation is past over, yeesh.