Those of us who enjoy soap operas with the cast and production value of prestige television have truly been spoiled in the past months, with the addition of Downton Abbey to Netflix, and creator Julian Fellowes’ newest concoction, The Gilded Age, now streaming on HBO.
Although the former ran for six seasons, while the latter is yet to conclude its first one, similarities are already becoming obvious. Both shows feature roughly the same cast of stock characters: the conservative (but ultimately just) snarky grand dame played by the most established actress in the cast. The conniving homosexual, the hysterical cook and the cold-hearted lady’s maid. Both series also start as the death of a relative forces one of the main characters to assume their place in high society, and learn to navigate its rules while also figuring out matters of the heart. But the most glaringly obvious thread bearing Fellowes’ mark through both series is, of course, their class politics.
Socially, both shows lean liberal: Downton Abbey especially features a remarkable cast of well-rounded, complex female characters with their individual desires and drives, and both narratives center and reward characters who successfully bend social norms and advance themselves through wit, ambition, and hard work. Both shows faithfully showcase the individualistic best-case scenarios for their respective milieus; in Downton Abbey, the paternal aristocrat dutifully looks after his naïve, childlike underlings. In The Gilded Age, the budding American capitalism of the 1880s boosts up those willing to pull themselves up buy the bootstraps, and fortunes can be made from nothing. Social security, of course, is unnecessary, as the lower classes can always depend on the charity and the gentle guiding hand of the upper ones.
But the conservative undercurrent of the shows is betrayed exactly through this dynamic. The lower class characters are encouraged to advance themselves, but only in ways condoned and supported by their employers. While both shows devote significant screentime to the upper-class women’s troubles in selecting a suitable husband, servant women getting their comeuppance for daring to pursue a man above them is a reoccuring plot through Fellowes’ oeuvre. The inhabitants of both shows’ respective servants’ halls are chronically underwritten, and divided into the honest workers who reap the rewards of knowing their place, and the unlikable upstarts who dare to think themselves equal to the rich people whose chamber pots they empty. Rule bending is rewarded, but only as long as the social order is not permanently upset.
These dynamics make the shows an absolutely fascinating peek into minds that finds social inequality to be quite natural. The strangeness of it is addictive; despite, frankly, disagreeing with everything Fellowes seems to be saying about the world, I have binged Downton Abbey two or three times already, and follow (the so far inferior in almost everything but costume budget) The Gilded Age with keen interest. Picking apart the political implications of each plot point is satisfying much in the same way as popping a pimple, and the complex writing of the upper class characters effectively highlights the tantalizing potential of the under written working class ones.
Thus, there is a concession to be made to Fellowes’ skills as a writer, and especially as a creator of characters:
it is perfectly possible to enjoy both his shows while only rooting for the conniving homosexual.