Here is an excerpt from a recent article in the NYT by the wonderful Anand Giridharadas:
You can find the complete article here: http://nyti.ms/DowntonToGirls
I have not seen Girls though I think at least one of my daughters has. As to Downton, Anand has zeroed in on the one point of serious interest, over and above the show's entertainment value. But I would like to try to make a wider point.
When we watch period dramas such as Downton Abbey, Parade's End, Upstairs Downstairs and many adaptations of Jane Austen novels, we of course find ourselves rooting for the hero or heroine. But who are these heroes and heroines? Invariably, they are people who are in some way or another modern, or at least more modern than their contemporaries. My point is that, given reasonable health anf freedom from abject poverty, we are happiest when we are in at the start of something new. Historically, this might take the form of things as diverse as the Renaissance, the Suffragette movement here in England or the Algonquin Round Table in New York! Nearer our own time, what fun Bill Gates and his contemporaries must have had in the 1980s, and the Mountain View set a little later on!
So, regardless of age, it's marvellous to to be "in at the outset", but that does not mean we should turn our back on the past. I'm only guessing, but perhaps the tragedy of the girls in Girls is that they have lost touch with their past, just as it is the misfortune of the "old guard" in Downton not to be able or willing to adapt to the present and future.
“Downton Abbey” and “Girls,” both hugely popular, sometimes seem to be talking to each other. And it is a conversation of richer importance to our politics and culture than the nudity on one show and the costumes on the other might initially suggest.
On issue after issue, Americans continue to debate the limits of individual freedom — whether to abort a fetus or own a gun or sell stocks or buy drugs. And in different ways, the two television shows address the promise and limitations of the modern, Western emphasis on — even sacralization of — the individual.
“Downton” and “Girls” serve as bookends in an era defined by a growing cult of the self. “Downton” is about the flourishing of selfhood in a rigid, early-20th-century society of roles. “Girls” is about the chaos and exhaustion of selfhood in a fluid, early-21st-century society that says you can be anything but does not show you how.
You can find the complete article here: http://nyti.ms/DowntonToGirls
I have not seen Girls though I think at least one of my daughters has. As to Downton, Anand has zeroed in on the one point of serious interest, over and above the show's entertainment value. But I would like to try to make a wider point.
When we watch period dramas such as Downton Abbey, Parade's End, Upstairs Downstairs and many adaptations of Jane Austen novels, we of course find ourselves rooting for the hero or heroine. But who are these heroes and heroines? Invariably, they are people who are in some way or another modern, or at least more modern than their contemporaries. My point is that, given reasonable health anf freedom from abject poverty, we are happiest when we are in at the start of something new. Historically, this might take the form of things as diverse as the Renaissance, the Suffragette movement here in England or the Algonquin Round Table in New York! Nearer our own time, what fun Bill Gates and his contemporaries must have had in the 1980s, and the Mountain View set a little later on!
So, regardless of age, it's marvellous to to be "in at the outset", but that does not mean we should turn our back on the past. I'm only guessing, but perhaps the tragedy of the girls in Girls is that they have lost touch with their past, just as it is the misfortune of the "old guard" in Downton not to be able or willing to adapt to the present and future.
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