Brideshead

I went to the movies tonight and saw Brideshead Revisited.  I love the British and I love the study in “class” that is so much a part of the history of the British.  It is assumed that the “upper class” have the best manners.  However, in this movie, the main character, although not having the correct “pedigree” has impeccable manners.  He is a student at Oxford and befriends a gentlemen who’s family (you guessed it) own Brideshead and is “to the manor born”.  He fits in by being agreeable to all.  He is so in awe of the house and its art and sculpture, he has to be reminded to bring his tuxedo for the formal dinner parties. He wants to fit in and is drawn in to their “dramas”.

I love that era and I think it is because not everything was available for “public consumption”.  People kept that which was to be “private”  ~ “private”.  What a concept?  In this day of tell all books, one can’t help but long for the time when it was considered appropriate to keep certain things to yourself. 

Barbara Walter’s tell all book is a cause in point.  Why do I care that she had an affair with a senator or for that matter, with any one?  Why does she feel the need to tell the whole world.  Everything in our society has a price tag attached to it and if you can “make it sell” good for you!

Call me old-fashioned, but I long for a time when certain events were kept “private”.  One, in polite society, didn’t “air their dirty laundry”.  Is that too much to ask?

 

 

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