The lockdown allure of period dramas
Taking stock of the collective viewing habits of my household, I’ve recently started to notice a pattern. Three of us are, in parallel, watching three different Netflix period dramas: The Crown, The Queen’s Gambit, and Bridgerton. And while we three can’t exactly be broadly representative, I’ve noticed what seems to be a theme for many these days, reflected in the reviews, raves, and debates online and in print media showing a wide embrace of the genre. The wide range of offerings available to us now reflect this too; beyond these three, Netflix alone has also released Selena: The Series, Hollywood, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, among others. And let’s certainly not forget Mrs. America back in spring. Some are sombre and serious, some a bit soapy, but they all take place in eras that it’s safe to say many viewers never lived through. And even when we haven’t been watching period dramas, many of us have been watching pure throwback content whether we watched it the first time around or not (yes, I mean Dawson’s Creek). Ultimately, it seems that when we’re in front of the tv these days, we want anything but the present moment.
Period dramas are nothing new – BBC mastered the format long ago – but the steady stream of them into our living rooms (or kitchens, or beds, or wherever our laptops are) at this moment in time is notable. Lockdown seems to have amplified our need for beautifully designed historical content beyond the Masterpiece Classics: if our lives have been confined spatially, these films and series mean that temporally we are free to explore to our hearts’ content.
This may seem, well, obvious: tv and film have long been embraced as a form of temporary escapism. But these particular films and shows offer us narratives that are not just engaging stories into which we can immerse ourselves emotionally, but that also present us with fully formed worlds outside our own in everything from grammar to costume to what the telephone looks like (if it exists at all). This seems a very particular type of escapism, and one that is particularly important as it reflects our emotional and cultural needs at a time when our “real” social worlds (and linear time itself) seem to be constantly in flux.
There is something deeply comforting about an artfully controlled world, in which we are the future, so our own is irrelevant. In theory, we know everything about how this world works – and how it will evolve and unfold. In reality no period of history emerges fully-formed, and it is only through our attempts to make sense of it that we can identify it as a discrete period with specific norms and aesthetics. However in the form of a book, film, or television show, an era has been polished and encapsulated as a moment on a timeline, bookended by other defined periods, styles, and events. The designers and directors on these sets have well defined visual codes to play on, often dialling up the saturation of them, so to speak, just to the point of caricature. And we, as viewers, can revel in a world perfectly defined and distilled. Bridgerton is an example of this on the micro as well as macro level: few would suggest that the world it portrays is an accurate representation of 19th century England, and there is good reason for some re-interpretation. But beyond the broader social world it portrays, each household has its own specific set of aesthetics (characters speak of “family colors” to dress in, which seem to forever coordinate with their interiors), as if the family unit is as defined as the society in which it is situated. This lends a sense of solidity around a narrative – the characters may learn and evolve but they are wrapped up in the comforting blanket of aesthetic certainty. Even if we don’t yet know the how or why of these cues, we can situate them as an unmoving point in history defined by something like “Regency style” (even if we know it is a reinterpretation). Now, more than ever, this kind of definitive societal and cultural moment works as an antidote to our “uncertain times” and endless speculation of what is and what will be.
And this is not only a temporary escapism found through viewing habits. There has followed a popular attempt to bring these worlds, and their certainty, into our own in a very tangible way. The response to these period dramas, in some cases, has not just been to enjoy and praise the shows, but to actively emulate them in our real lives in everything from the clothes we wear to how we decorate our homes to the food we feel inspired to eat. This is now especially evident in fashion, where each show we binge watch inspires a flurry of shopping lists to bring the look from the screen into our own wardrobes - for example re-creating the streamlined Mod looks in The Queen’s Gambit, Erdem’s regency empire-waists and puff sleeves, or Simone Rocha collars reminiscent of the ruff necklines in Emma. While fashion is often to some extent circular, this particular cycle of looks rooted in specific period costumes has arrived as if to bring a sense of historical solidity to life – creating a link to these past worlds as a way to ward off dramatic, unwanted change.
There is perhaps a sense of conservatism here, in looking to cues from the past to make sense of and situate our own lives within a social narrative: effectively claiming “this is where we come from, and we don’t need to let it all go so easily.” As we experience what feels like an event with the potential for massive social shifts, we are looking to these idealized visions of our collective pasts to make sense of the present and the future. Fundamentally, there is something important to understand in this. In the short term this trend points to our collective emotional need for comfort whether from real or fictionalized nostalgia – give us things we know wrapped up and neatly sorted, let us look backwards to build a narrative of how we choose to believe things have been, and how we got to where we are now.
Ultimately, while we sit with an uncertain future, we are working with past narratives that provide a perfectly cohesive view of history and society rather to avoid the messy, disorganized present that makes it even more difficult to project effectively into the future. This goes beyond media and high fashion into our homes (think “cottagecore”), and the things we want to see from the brands we buy. If anything is inevitable it is that we will go through “unprecedented” changes again and understanding this expression of conservatism now will be relevant in the future. In the slow-burning long term, however, I’m curious to see which elements from these cultural throwbacks will remain relevant. Maybe we will see an even greater look to analogue technologies and ways of approaching life as a way to emotionally counteract what feels like a rapid leap through cultural and technological shifts (such as the rise in hand-written letters in lockdown and growth of specialty stationery, or an interest in hands-on baking and crafts), or maybe our release from this state of stagnation will create a whiplash into forward-facing attitudes: maybe the Art Deco of the 2020s? At least then we can look forward to a real-life Gatsby party, instead of one on screen.
