I gobbled up The Guided Age. I was a massive Downton Abbey fan so it was my sacred duty. And now I’m all like Crawley who?
I admit I’m fascinated by the “historical look at America” angle, even though, as Brandon and his newsletter sweater weather point out, it’s not exactly concerned with accuracy:
A period drama presents a detached, stylized view of the past that is at bottom only concerned with gratifying our contemporary bourgeois sensibility. A period drama’s primary theme is the satisfaction of its contemporary audience and flattering their moral security. A period drama has nothing to do with history, not really.