Whovians and Downton-ers, Unite!

After spending the day grading Women's Literature Mid-Term, I ending it by watching Downton Abbey. In it, one woman from the upstairs said she'd had a personal awakening in regards to herself and the changing world. Simultaneously, a woman from the downstairs staff discovers the world of knowledge through some rudimentary education and becomes fearless in the process.

So many of the books I teach share these two themes; awakening to a new understanding of your self and the power of words to build a bridge between an old identity to a  new one.

Watching Downton tonight had me telescoping back to watching Upstairs Downstairs as a tweenager.
Jean Marsh was on of the actresses from the downstairs cast. What I remember also about her as an actress is that she played Sara Something on Dr. Who around that same time period. It's strange how everything old is new again. That my kids watch Dr. Who and could watch Downton Abbey, but are usually either in bed or on their other monitors of choice by 9PM on Sunday.

What's also strange is that Downtown Abbey is on it's 5th season, which is the sum total of Upstairs Downstairs seasons. It started at the turn of the last century and went up to the stock market crash or thereabouts. DA and UD also both have young elites growing up in a  rapidly changing world. The new generations, both up and down, are having to adjust to a new social order and finding their way through uncharted territory. There is The Great War and the The Great Depression, with financial woes leading to an Us vs Them mentality on the Continent. Tonight brown shirts were mentioned on DA.

Now here I sit in a new century with children of my own, a generation later, watching history from 100 years ago played out as a comedy of manners and social commentary. Meanwhile, in our real world the wars are no longer chess piece wars (even in the Great War, that no longer worked as the technology had gone beyond cavalries and calculated moves, only they hadn't figured that out yet, thus the bloody and gas filled stalemates). No we have wars of systems disruptions, drones being directed over various countries in the Far East being directed by men who go home to dinner in the Western US and terror cells. Financial markets in the EU are unstable and the Us vs Them mentality is going way back, to religious extremist instead of fascist dictators.

When I was a tweenager, we watched M*A*S*H, while the bloody images from Vietnam were displayed for all to see on the nightly news. Now we see night attacks with infrared cameras from long distances onto unknowable targets, if we see anything at all. We don't see the soldiers coming home alive or in their caskets. We are increasingly seeing the statistics that more US soldiers are dying from suicide after they return home than are actually dying fighting terror and for Democracy over seas.

The future we envisioned in the 70's was imagined while we were living under the very real but invisible Cold War. Part of the 70's that young people don't understand now is that there was a certain perverse liberty in believing that a red phone might ring in Moscow or Washington, a button could be pushed and we might all be turned to ash before we even knew the decision had been made. We lived more in the moment. We wanted to feel alive; sex and drugs and rock-n-roll was a a part of that. We were also fearful. Numbing that fear had the same result: sex, and drugs, and rock-n-roll. The 70's and 80's had many American "conflicts" in Central America and British Colonial Islands that were troubling, confusing, and even illegal. But then that's not new for our country. There is a reason Bush and Cheney don't travel abroad. They'd be arrested for War Crimes as soon as they landed on a foreign tarmac.

Born just a year after the Bay of Pigs, being very aware of Watergate, and knowing Vietnam veterans who didn't feel supported or proud, during the Cold War colored how I think of war and governments.

I kept hoping technology would bring about peace. Reagan and his Star Wars plan was scary. In my mind it escalated the very real threat of Nuclear War. I was still waiting for my jet-pack in the 80s, not wanting a missile defense system! Instead it's brought more fractured fighting positions supported by us around the globe. Many of which I'm sure we'll never know about in our lifetimes, if ever.

Dr. Who was a morality show hidden in a time travel drama. I loved it then, and as you know, it's enjoying a phenomenal run right now. I think that is because we are craving the sort of action-solution that a time traveling Tardis could provide.  In the 70's the Communist threat of Big Brother coming over the Atlantic was the fearful propaganda of the day. Here we are 40 years later, and Big Brother is EVERYWHERE. Digital eyes-everywhere-all-the-time-realworld-virtualworld. You name it.

As PoGo Possium would say, ala Walt Kelly, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

I don't remember the women of Dr. Who or Upstairs Downstairs getting as much reflection time or meaty slices of each episodes pie as they do in now in their parallel shows. So perhaps that is progress after all. But I do remember Jean Marsh. Both characters were bright and fearless.

So on that note, I must go to sleep so I can be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning!

Good Night, Whovians and Downton-ers, G'night!