''Welcome to a New Era'?: Downton Abbey in 2019'

Just as Downton Abbey Seasons 1-6 coincided with the Coalition government, the production schedule for the 2019 movie paralleled key moments in the Brexit campaign. The film offers a comforting, optimistic narrative to an audience expected to have recently severed ties with Europe, bidding viewers “welcome to a new era”. Like the series, however, which has been read as an apologia for the new Conservatism, the film has a deeply reactionary narrative, pretending that technological and sartorial advances constitute progress. The article pursues this argument from a feminist perspective, proceeding down the film’s social hierarchy from the Princess Royal to the under-cook