Oh, yeah. Whole lot of queenin’ going on these days. I just finished moaning (loudly) over The Crown, Netflix’s multi-part suck-up to Elizabeth II and now PBS has embarked on a similar enterprise, devoted to Victoria Regina and suitably titled “Victoria”, though I think “Victoria!” would have been more fun.
I confess that I haven’t gotten around to watching Victoria. I did start watching the preview shown above, largely devoted to Vickie (I guess it was her) flouncing around in a flounce dress and folks galloping tempestuously across the lush English countryside. Since I’m not much for either flouncing or galloping, I bailed.
It’s amusing that today, when most of us are down with the idea that all men are created equal, that we are such suckers for shows devoted to the notion that some folks, by mere accidents of birth, deserve to live lives of grotesque luxury, with maids who get up at five in the morning to iron the pleats in their petticoats and polish the pearls in their diadems—which, clearly, is how we all wish we could live. We’d like to be the lord of all we survey—to have everything we want just the way we want it—which, of course, is exactly how we don’t live.
The topper to all this nonsense is the notion that those at the very top of the snobbery totem pole really are better than the rest of us—really, in fact, deserve all the undeserved privilege heaped upon them—because, unlike us poor strivers at the bottom, they aren’t snobs, because they don’t have anything to prove. In fact, those at the top are the hugest snobs. They have to be, because their world is defined by snobbery. If it wasn’t for snobbery, they’d come crashing down to earth with the rest of us.
It’s often said that life in Manhattan is “high school with money”—people compete for status by throwing around wads of cash. Shows like The Crown and Victoria are like high school with castles.
Afterwords
Watch if you must, but if you must, why not smarten yourself up a little by reading Maggie Fremont’s witty précis for New York.
