BY JOANNA WEISS New York Times News Service ADVERTISING In politics, we don’t know exactly what to do with rich people. Do we admire them? Envy them? Mistrust them? Want to tax them to oblivion? But when they turn up
BY JOANNA WEISS
New York Times News Service
In politics, we don’t know exactly what to do with rich people. Do we admire them? Envy them? Mistrust them? Want to tax them to oblivion?
But when they turn up on PBS, we know precisely what to do: Watch them flounder, and feel better about ourselves.
That’s one key to the success of “Downton Abbey,” the “Masterpiece Classic” series that has been a surprise ratings hit. It’s a standard primetime soap — the plot is driven by star-crossed lovers and scheming exes — but it’s also a chronicle of early 20th-century Britain, featuring the gentry and staff of a vast estate.
Part of its appeal is the smugness of hindsight. Just like “Mad Men” helps us think, “At least we’re not that sexist,” “Downton” lets us congratulate ourselves about American social mobility. Sure, we’ve got our 1 percent, the series reassures us, but we’re not all consigned to being masters and servants forever. Actually, the “Downton” folks aren’t, either, which gives all of the dishiness some heft; this second season is set during World War I, when the necessities of war (plus some dark stuff happening in Russia) are setting the stage for a social shift in Britain. Characters greet the end of an era with varying levels of hope and dread; some of the older servants seem to cling the hardest to old ideas about order.
But the show seems most entranced with the notion of downward mobility. Consider the coming-of-age daughters of the wealthy Crawley family, raised in a palace that’s even bigger than Mitt Romney’s house in New Hampshire. Lady Mary is about to marry a common-born newspaper mogul, who sees their union as a business partnership. Lady Sybil is flirting with her Bolshevik chauffeur. Lady Edith steals a snog with a local farmer. Some beaus are more suitable than others, but at least these women have a post-Jane-Austen sense of determination, the chance to replace the torpor of wealth with real love, or at least with accomplishment. As they help with the war effort, they discover that social standing can be a trap, and that life is more interesting when they’re doing something useful.
Of course, this is TV. In Britain, “Downton Abbey” has drawn flak for painting too pretty a portrait of the master-servant relationship. In last Sunday’s episode, a dowager countess browbeat a range of religious and military men to help a wounded footman. The Brits say a real-life countess wouldn’t have cared, and that one of her throwaway lines rang more true: “When you give these little people power, it goes to their heads like strong drink.”
That’s enough to make American viewers even happier: Those British nobles were snootier than we thought! Then again, how satisfied should Americans be that our own country replaced rigid class with opportunity? In a 2007 study funded by the Russell Sage Foundation, researchers found that the United States lags behind most developed countries in social mobility, defined as the likelihood that someone will grow up to be better off than his parents.
In large part, that has to do with education: the type of schooling parents can afford, and what they expect their kids to become. Social strata perpetuate themselves. And given the growing American income gap, downward mobility has never felt so widespread. This has created a rhetorical problem for our national politicians. Even if you didn’t start with Romney-style cash, politics — with its connections and corporate speaking opportunities — turns out to be an excellent path to fortune. Rick Santorum lost his Senate seat and became a multimillion-dollar consultant. Newt Gingrich has a line of credit at Tiffany. Elizabeth Warren, champion of the middle class, lives in a $5 million house.
It’s hard to fault any of them for cashing in; making the most of what you’ve got is still the American dream. But it’s odd, and a little ugly, to watch them talk as if they’re struggling along with the masses. A show like “Downton Abbey” is a better salve: By highlighting the woes of Britain’s 1 percent, it at least puts a positive spin on lowered expectations.
