No one was more distraught than me when Downton Abbey went off the air.
I loved the British costume drama on PBS for the opportunity it gave me to irritate my wife and friends, who really were devoted to that show. I thought Downton Abbey had all the intrigue of watching paint dry on a humid day.
I made myself even more annoying by mocking it every chance I could, even while having only caught glimpses of the program now and then. (It later turned out that being strongly opinionated about matters a guy knows nothing about can get him elected president.)
But I did watch one episode from start to finish. The plot — and I am not making this up — had to do with somebody downstairs (or was it upstairs, I can never keep that straight) getting appointed to a committee that another person upstairs (or maybe downstairs) thought they should get. A lot of mumbling ensued. Believe me, there’s nothing more riveting than a British drama about committee assignments.
So, I surprise myself by genuinely liking what seems on the surface to be another serial about upper-class Brits, Netflix’s The Crown.
The story follows Queen Elizabeth from the death of her father through her coronation and her first years as monarch. Much of it is historically accurate. Dianne and I are just finishing up season one and we have season two to look forward to. The producers are working on a third season with a new cast to depict an older queen and royal family.
I think what captures my interest about The Crown is its exploration of something very alien to the current times. A central theme in the program is the value and importance of reticence, of not expressing your individuality, of subsuming your personal identity to the larger institution. Elizabeth is constantly being reminded that a big part of her role is to be seen and not heard, and that the hardest part of her job is to squelch her own views and just be silent. She becomes expert at giving speeches in which she says nothing, but does so with great dignity — and the dignity, not the content of the talk, is the point.
In one memorable scene late in the first season, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, played brilliantly by John Lithgow, lectures the queen’s sister Margaret, who, when standing in for the queen, goes too far in personalizing some remarks. “This is about the monarchy; not about the monarch,” Lithgow growls.
New York Times columnist David Brooks has been making a related point consistently since the Trump election. Brooks, who is what passes for a conservative on the Times’ opinion page, sees the narcissist-in-chief as a perverse reflection of a problem in the broader society, which is that we’ve taken self-indulgence and individualism too far. Some conservatives do this, for example, in their embrace of an irresponsible extremist view of gun rights. They’re basically saying that their belief in an individual right to possess firearms pretty much anywhere at any time should overrule any consideration for public safety.
Brooks laments the weakening of institutions like churches, political parties and civic clubs. Without some notion of a national purpose or obligation to a broader community, without anything to sacrifice for except maybe our very own families, we degenerate into a society of sharp-elbowed hucksters out for our own gain. In other words, in its purest and ugliest form, we become Donald Trump.
Aside from some really great writing, storytelling and acting, The Crown is worth watching if it gets us to think a little bit more about the value of not expressing everything we feel immediately and without a filter, and of taking on the responsibility of playing a role in a bigger play instead of being a one-person show.
There’s a lot to be said for saying nothing.
