ABSTRACT
Drama on television deploys the nostalgia mode in many forms, most notably the costume drama. Such ‘heritage’ product has been criticised for its appeal to a solely middle-class audience, its interest in superficial costume and the artifices of class. ‘Heritage’ product such as the classic adaptation is watched, on this model, by women, tends towards cultural conservatism and enshrines particular erroneous myths about historical identity. Historical television drama is generally associated with an educated middle-class audience.1 Much of the fulminating about ‘heritage’, though, relates solely to film, and in particular was written during the 1980s and, as Claire Monk has argued, the ‘monolithic critique’ of them is ‘a historically specific discourse, rooted in and responsive to particular cultural conditions and events’.2 The classic serial on British television has been generally included in this criticism, part of a selling of heritage Britishness to the world. While this is in great part true – the series have established a cultural orthodoxy, a set of recognisable generic tropes and, in Pride and Prejudice, a cross-over hit – at the same time they can invoke complex models of historical subjectivity, confound expectations, and consider key political issues of the past in order to educate the viewer. As a consequence, they are not dry, conservative mythmakers and, in their later manifestations, are flexible and innovative. The dramatic representation of the past can emphasise a comfortable, easy set of recognisable ‘heritage’ tropes; at the same time it can also be problematic or challenging.3
The ability of the postmodern nostalgic text to renegotiate form and include complexity and possible dissidence is theorised by Frederic Jameson as ‘postnostalgia’, a mode in which the text’s plurality and self-awareness in many ways allow it to critique through self-consciousness and ambiguity.4
