"Has she been a good Queen?" Well I don't think we can really judge that based on just the first 100 years of her reign when she still has until the heat death of the sun to go. She's done an alright job so far I'd say.
@@HamishDuh2ndUhm what? There‘s no reason NOT to throw her out? Y‘know, its always easiest to keep the status quo. In order for people to actually do something, there has to be a reason. And as long as the queen doesn‘t create problems or prove herself to be an annoyance, theres not really any reason to remove her
Takes me back to the episode where Queen Elizabeth tells the Prime Minister that after 3 Prime Ministers nothing has really change only a " confederacy of elected quitters"
@DwRockett I agree. In the Crown the collective family, its traditions and the institution of the Crown are sort of the main villain that seem to torture and/or challenge pretty much every character in the show.
The best episodes are the moronic Royal media idiots making comments on dailymail about how this show is fictional. Just like Trump they try to rewrite history for the Royal loyalty losers. Putting a crown on the noggin seems to make the mind dumb as a stump.
@@tropicthndr While it's based on the fact a lot of it is fiction. They just think that the crown should put more effort into making that clear. To someone who doesn't pay much attention, and just casually watching it, they could easily assume that it's all true, and that a lot of stuff happened at the same time.
“You have no enemies, you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor. He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure, must have made foes. If you have none, small is the work that you have done. You’ve hit no traitor on the hip. You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip. You’ve never turned the wrong to right. You’ve been a coward in the fight.” ― Charles Mackay
I think you've missed half of the point because you're a bit removed from British political discourse and culture. You're right to point out that the show has critiques of the stuffy traditions and overly hierarchical nature of the royals, but you missed one of the really critical and commonly discussed ideological divides from the thatcher era. They are constantly nodding and winking at the divide between the city oriented capital class conservatives and the country side based traditions/family values village conservatives . This is emphasised heavily when they are going for a hike/playing family parlour games. I know it sounds ridiculous but the chosen activities through out and attire of the royals (at points) are a really really crude suggestion that the royals live as a sort of small village farmer family (just with a really big gold house...) - The images of thatcher uncomfortable in the mud and outdoors are a depiction of her divide from the provinces. Thatchers biggest (social and cultural) conservative critics say her economic policies put money before everything, even allowing market forces to destroy the family institution, church and the traditional British way of life (Peter Hitchens et al) and the royals are used to depict this in the show. Which is why it's been extremely controversial in the UK because it draws to attention a massive divide in the conservative voter coalition and is embodied by the two biggest sacred cows for British conservatives (Thatcherism and royalists).
@@HamishDuh2nd same with Republicans. In fact, it would be interesting to imagine an episode of some show where some very right wing urban character from New York or something - a Ben Shapiro type - was forced to spend a weekend with some conservative farm family in Kansas or something.
The queen has absolutely been successful on her own terms, maintaining the existence of the monarchy while upholding its prestige. But I think that's in part what makes her fail somewhat. She's continued the monarchies march towards irrelevance, by not truly being a leader, just a face. I'm sure she's done her part to help British causes but ultimately she hasn't led them. That really makes me wonder what her purpose is beyond the tradition that she upholds. What really is a point of a Queen who doesn't rule and doesn't lead? Consequently she cant rule or lead, because if she did she'd be undermining the monarchies long term success, as nobody wants her to rule them anymore. She's really doing all she can do in the modern democratic era
I think your analysis is pretty spot on, but at the same time she could have chosen to exert a bit more leadership on some issues. Diana is a good example of someone who was never "political," but she did still exert herself on some issues, like AIDS and landmines, and I think will have a much better legacy in the long term.
@@JJMcCullough Prince Charles has shown string leadership on the issue of climate change and conservation. Perhaps as this comes to the forefront of political priorities, or perceived priorities, of the public, then he will fit more into the role of "leader" as King.
@@JJMcCullough I also think part of that is the way she was raised and the way she was taught to interact with the public. Diana's death is perfect example, of this as the Queen reacted the same way her father or a British royal from the 30s would've reacted. It's the biggest conservative conundrum, conservatives want things to change slowly and want to prevent mob rule and anarchy, thus aristocracy arises to defend against the constant changes, however when the unchanged is irrelevant, how do you change the unchanged.
I think the main goal of the monarchy now is to give British people a sense of patriotism maybe. I mean right now the queen and the whole royal family is very popular right now in the U.K. so that must mean they have some importance to the people? I think a big part of what the crown tries to portray is that the royal family is like a stabilizing force. The monarch will always be there while political leaders are constantly changing. As long as the monarch is calm and stable and collected, the state of the county won’t look ALL that bad. At least that’s what The Crown tries to say. Also she does have 60+ years of political experience and consulting with her 12 prime ministers so she probably has some sort of wisdom to give to the current prime minister during their weekly audience.
I legitimately wonder how the British monarchy will survive in a post-Elizabethian Britian... will King Charles continue to inspire its continued existence, or will it begin to unravel to where a King William doesnt happen? And what circumstances would happen to allow for either? I'm very curious...
I dated a girl who's family was super wealthy once, I come from a middle class background. I went to one of their family Christmas and it was surreal. They all payed lip service to their host, their grandmother/mother, and in private talked openly about how they all hate the Christmas party. Talking about how they only cared about the money given out each year at the actual gift opening. They all were extremely unhappy, with constant tension between the family members. It's so odd to me, that you could take your grand wealth for granted and still want more money, enough that your able to openly talk about how you hate being around the rest of your family. At a Christmas party, which for me and my family growing up was a time to celebrate the hard work you had done. With getting to see people happy for what you had given them, and being able to have the time from work to enjoy one another.
Honestly, glad to be in the solid middle class, I have some work experience and didn't get spoiled too much, but still got to enjoy some nice things in life (I'mma be honest, games) that would be harder for those from a lower class background to have as much of as I have had, thus I think us middle class people are those who are truly privileged, as we get the best of both worlds.
I'm a middle lower class individual, meaning I'm in the lower class category, but in the middle of it, my family couldn't miss a week of work, we'd need to scramble to make ends meet. We have a few nice things, like I got a xbox one two or three years ago using some money I was given. We have mid sized flat screen tvs all which were won or given. Its always so odd when people talk about how they have money to just do things....
@@dr.jackbright963 Right? Like, I medically died and got recussitated on Halloween and that Friday was the only day of work I missed, I was right back to work on Monday morning because I couldn't even afford the one day off, even before the medical bills.
@@Julianna.Domina Im mentally basically a flan in a cupboard, but at some points I've had 3 jobs just to afford things I wanted, I was able to get ssi, that only pays my share of bills which is fustrating. I fear going to the dr even if I have medical insurance, it's like will this make me miss work? Will this have a high copay? Will they just tell me I'm fat again?
The series massively overdoes Thatcher being “anti-upper class” and dismissive of the monarchy. In real life Thatcher was firmly pro-monarchy and had almost too much respect for the Queen, to the point where she was unable to relax around her and become somewhat of her friend, unlike all the queen’s other PMs. Also, Thatcher literally accepted to be made a noble by the queen after she resigned as PM. She became the Baroness Thatcher, and entered the House of Lords. She also requested that the Queen make her husband a hereditary Baronet (the lowest ranked noble title in Britain), so that her son Mark would inherit the title.
@@jimmytwo-times4394 Not really. Thatcher was a giant hypocrite so I'm not surprised she coveted the same nobility she shunned in others. This was the same woman who cut defense spending in the South Atlantic practically inviting the Argentinians to invade the Falklands and then used the subsequent war (which cost FAR more than her previous cuts) to bolster her failing government which was deeply unpopular due to Thatcher's massive domestic spending cuts and her fire sales of state assets.
@@jimmytwo-times4394 But other episodes show the Queen and Thatcher to be very close (albeit with major disagreements on government policy both foreign and domestic) so I think she's more anti-upper class recreational activities than anything else. Before Thatcher requested the barony, the Queen chose to award her the Order of Merit which is done at the pleasure of the monarch so they obviously respected each other to some extent. I think the comment she made to Denis in the episode was supposed to be more out of spite than anything else after a day of constant embarrassments.
icemachine79 I think it portrays Thatcher as anti aristocrat - other than the monarchy as she saw the monarchy as the figurehead of Britain and British culture, but saw the rest of the family as rather undeserving snobs who won the birth lottery. Key to remember Thatcher was religiously meritocratic, believing that you get what you work for and that your status shouldn’t be determined by who your parents are - whether that was/is possible in the UK or success is more up to pot luck due to the current system is up for debate, but that’s at least what I interpreted it as.
I think the series gets both Thatcher and the Queen wrong. Queen Elizabeth is actually a very down to earth woman, she served in the war and is a certified diesel mechanic. Certainly no stranger to work.
because everyone needs to rest and its the weekend. Royals literally never have to work a day in their lives. They play at working, and spend most of their time finding ways to amuse themselves and be less bored
Moderation is key. Work hard, play hard. But you should fight for your rights too. 9-3³⁰ workday (mirroring an Aussie school day) should be the norm, with universal healthcare and housing for all.
This is definitely a different take from what I took from the series. I thought the episode was actually about a conflict between the two types of wealthy people, the inheritance "old money" wealthy, and the "self made" "new money" wealthy.
@@JJMcCullough thatcher was the reason that wealthy class rose up, her ideology of deregulation made it possible for capital to ramp up their exploitation of the real working class, because thatcher was not working class, her father was a business owner, he didnt work, he owned for a living.
As an Korean-American, I'm not at all cognizant of how the British class system works. Like, my perspective of the American class system is simply one of how rich someone is, and maybe what kind of work they do... because basically there is an understanding that EVERYONE works here, even rich people like Bill Gates, at least until they retire. Furthermore, the whole hunting thing I saw as being more LOW class, because "only" low class American "hillbillies" would want or need to hunt anything (I mean, not really only them, but that is the general idea being promoted here)... so for the Royals to hunt, as well as wear the "normal" clothes they had on when the Thatchers were overdressed... I saw that as maybe their way to remain _grounded_ and not let their upperclassness overtake them too much. So ultimately I interpreted the episode as the Thatchers being _unwilling_ to fit in, as well as the Royals trying their best (though still failing in the end) to try to accommodate the Thatchers... afterall, they're going to be working with each other for a while. I'm certainly not claiming that I'm at all right in my interpretation, just that this was how my American (and Korean) experience peppered my own experiences and therefore what I saw play out in front of my eyes. If anything it clearly shows how different Americans and the British (or at least the English) are... and I guess then I wonder how Canada balances the two.
@@alicestaley2285 I don't know how Thatcher's father worked, but for sure being a business owner is a lot of work. "to own rather than to work" is a privilege very few people have. These people are mostly from the nobility or from dynasties of cronies in corrupted countries, like in Russia or in South America. These are the disgustingly rich people that are (or feel like they are) literally "too big to fail".
Hey J. J. I think a good idea for a video would be analysing governments-in-exiles. Like the Royal Lao Government-in-Exile, the Central Tibetan Administration and the most recent Belarus Coordination Council for The Transfer of Power.
Hmm. Or the self and american proclaimed Venezuelan president Guaido. Imagine if China or Russia said trump wasn't the legitimate president and named Nancy Pelosi as president, and replaced trumps ambassador and staff in russia/china with Pelosi staff (Guaido was the equivalent house speaker in Venezuela).
That bit about middle class folks' "anxiety" of getting knocked down is spot on, at least in my family. My father is a mid-level state public servant, and his position is a political appointment so our family was biting our nails over the outcomes of the last election.
Same for my closest friend, her father is a public servant at the city hall of Istanbul. Last year, the government's candidate lost at the municipal election and they were so anxious on that process because many officers were fired by the new administration.
I'm working class from a former industrial town in the north west of England and I have to say that Thatcher is despised in my town and due to raising a brood of self entitled children as well as taking a noble title people from Grantham don't exactly line up to defend her middle class status. She didn't triumph over the upper class she joined them having destroyed the working class communities below her.
From Grantham myself; I never met anyone who liked her. It’s a Conservative area on paper but the locals you’ll find in the street tend much more often to be working-class Labour-voters.
I agree with you on the sentiment that Margaret Thatcher is a more compelling character with a better story who'll certainly be more fiercely debated than the Queen (even though I think Elizabeth II will end up being remembered longer just for the trivia of her long reign) but I wonder whether a life of idleness is necessarily one that's been corrupted or made pointless. I'm sure there are a lot of pointless upper class traditions and I share that feeling of wanting to have direction in my life, but I feel like it's gotta be freeing if you're able to actually find happiness in some sort of a routine without constantly struggling to hold onto it, so it feels weird to say someone's corrupted for doing that. Not to simp for the poor pitiful upper class or anything 😆
One problem with upper class life is just that the stakes seem quite low. Middle class anxiety is a source of a lot of negative stress obviously, but I do think there’s a sort of corruption of the spirit that happens when you can take everything for granted. I think it makes you less ambitious, less creative, less curious, less bold, and so on. I think a lot of happiness in life comes from being able to achieve things and triumph over challenges and adversity, and it just doesn’t seem like the upper class face much of that. Except maybe within their personal lives, which is certainly where it seems most of the drama in the royals’ lives come from.
Margaret Thatcher might be a compelling story, but more for the damage she did when in politics than for anything she ever really formulated herself. She was an ideologue who was not really conversant with the ideology she was pushing. Her concern for the poor was well displayed when she, as Minister of Education, stopped school milk for British school children and the performance of the poorest children plummeted. If you are hungry or undernourished, you are not a good scholar. Then, as PM, she most certainly "rationalised" the economy except her version of "rationalisation" meant taking from the poor and giving to the rich. I am not speaking from opinion, but pointing out provable fact, if one cares to look. Then again, during the Second World War, this Queen volunteered and worked fro the war effort, as a mechanic. Margaret Thatcher, of an age with the queen saw fit to stay in school, but of course she claimed to be an icon of British duty, just not the duty she ever chose for herself. She claimed to be in favour of democracy but only so long as it served her purposes. When Jacques Delors came out with his policy to democratise the European Union, it was Margaret Thatcher that vetoed it. Thatcher never wrote her own speeches, and we now know she did not understand a lot of what they said. She was an economic nightmare for Britain (if you take away North Sea Oil revenue, she could have destroyed the economy) she never missed a chance to turn anything good from others into a disaster or to put the blame on others if she were even close to caught out. last of all, she was ousted because she suggested a poll tax. That would be a democracy tax. If you could not afford to pay, you could not vote. Yes, she is compelling, but for all of the wrong reasons. I must add that I am in no way a monarchist. I am entirely disinterested in the British or any other royal family. But when you compare this queen to a rank opportunist, no matter how successful, I have to fall on the side of the bland old queen every time.
Elizabeth II strikes me as someone who seems to be out of touch with her own people and not particularly like them. Any video of an instance where a commoner gets to tour the palace/interact with her really reflects that. Compare that to say, the King of Bhutan who bikes around his country looking for people with problems that need solving, or the prince of Liechtenstein who can be found out in public cafes interacting with his citizens, and it's hard to see Elizabeth as a particularly inspiring, compassionate, or impressive monarch.
@@jacobnewcomb7438 as a monarchist myself Queen Elizabeth II is really fucking boring, can’t wait till Charles becomes king, that’ll be interesting, maybe not good, but interesting.
That’s the point. It’s a strange scene for Thatcher who doesn’t see the point of these silly games and is put on the spot to participate in a game she doesn’t understand. It’s meant to be awkward because it’s an awkward situation for a middle class person in an upper class home.
I haven't seen it either, just some quick clips on youtube. I can't help but notice the similarities between this and some teenaged girls' slumber party.
I personally have a lot of respect for Queen Elizabeth. Though maybe less beneficial to the world than a good prime minister would be, I still think of Queen Elizabeth as a woman of great strength. To be born into such a position, the way you will live your life already decided for you, with all the restrictions on freedom, yet with the means to abandon it all, the temptation to do so hanging over you at all times, she has resisted it all and always conducted herself with proper decorum. I don't think that's an easy task, I don't think I'd be able to do that. Hell, look at the rest of the royal family and you see how easy it is to act a fool from that position. I guess it's a different kind of admiration for both. You can admire a hero, who achieves a lot of good for the world. You can also admire a hermit, who does nothing for the world, yet shows a great character able to properly fulfill their role as a hermit.
Normally, I would have to disagree with you but the last G7 summit put things in perspective. That old woman looked like the toughest among that bunch of losers. Never before in history the great nations of the world had such weak leaders.
Reel story Jacque Chirac (président of France) and the Queen are in a coach One of the horse fart The queen say: Oh i am realy sorry chirac replies: don't bother you I thought it was the horse
@@archdukefranzferdinand567 Quite a handful of historical inaccuracies and fictionalized situations to serve the story. Other than that, it's pretty good and interesting.
@@ahnafazim6541 yeah, but the general vibe of the royal family in person is pretty spot on apparently. Perhaps not specific things like what certain people said and things but it’s PRETtYyy clear that the royal family is WHACK
In recent decades, being middle class has been redefined as people's relationship to consumption rather than by their relationship to the means of production.
Yes. I go with the older class theory. The frilly and vague british theory that takes into account endless variables seems to work better than the american theory. It seems disingenuous to have class based on concrete income bracket. It seems obscene. In the north/midwest they tend to be quite private and don't like to think of class outside of money. But in the american south class isn't based on income bracket it's based on all kinds of superficial nonsense. ... literally cowboy hats and country clubs and fraternities and if the sherif frequents your restaurant weird theatrical fluff.
That redefinition seems to be in line with the upper class desire to belittle the middle class, and indicates that they've become aware that in contrast to past ages, in modern times your value to society is judged on the basis of what you produce rather than what you consume.
@@jesseleeward2359 "The frilly and vague British theory that takes into account endless variables seems to work better than the American theory" If that was the truth then Britain would still be the world superpower. You can fantasize about a royalist world all you want, but the truth is that meritocratic capitalism has proven itself to be superior to hereditary aristocratism.
Especially true when I talk to my American peers^. One part is many take class discussion to be an insult on their ego and their families, and therefore everyone claims to be middle class and never “working class.” I would even take a step further to say even in this video there are definitions that seem to describe working class better than middle class and vice versa following some more traditional definition of class, but not in a strictly consumerist point of view, Eg having cars and big houses. Basically, there is a view that if you have to work for a living and do not own the means of production, you are working class, and the middle class people typically own a business but not land and are not “royal” or posh, and that the posh upper class have land and hereditary tittles and their family history is important to them, but they might not necessarily have money, but have some sort of trust funds and money that was generated through passive investment and interest. I can see how this definition is not immediately attractive to the Americans since Americans do not like to think they were still under the grip of the old world and or have a “royalty” and many take offense to the concept itself even though they absolutely laud the Elon Musks type as American heroes and the extreme capitalist that does many evils just a way America is somehow better and more “free”. Anyhow, the terms we use to describe class around the world are overloaded and hard to compare. So basically that’s the problem. If your average people do not tend to like to think about their hugely successful capitalist overlords as the “upper class/monarchy,” like I said: since they’ve been brought up to believe the capitalist way of life is what grants them a unique, America- exceptionalism style of freedom and individual choices when that is largely a delusion and falsely comforting thought……you can see how the “older” class theory as someone else refers to in this thread, won’t catch on. I can empathize with the British society’s problems. For convenience and educational purposes, I think the way to define middle class ought to make some sense internationally, instead of region by region, but realistically, the people who wreck their brains thinking about these stuff, scholars, interested persons, are minorities in number, and our perception of success is defined more and more by our consumerism of goods rather than quality of our leisure and time- since few have them to begin with. Or, to some, this whole theory doesn’t make sense at all and they go about their day just trying to work and have money to buy houses and more goods until they are satisfied, and that’s enough to worry about. Example: There was an interesting twitter thread where people show what their houses look like in different parts of the country and what their perceived class is. It attracted people from around the country but the ones from a middle American state where you can buy a large albeit old looking house surrounded by land followed by captions calling themselves middle class receiver most debate and people groaning over it. Mostly, people were upset “if this is just the middle class, am I at a even lower class then? This MUST be high class!” That thread did not factor into leisure times, holidays, and where they live so many did not include this info in their captions, but nonetheless, the Americans on the thread seem to have already made a decision and largely neglected that into consideration, because they were brought up with even less privilege to think of time as an equally if not more valuable marker of someone’s class than mere physical goods. In addition, you can see how many clearly would not want to associate themselves with a lower class than middle class even if, they would be and it might be more beneficial to have more perspective and therefore solidarity with your working,
@@DrDoom-yf2qj the upper and upper upper class of British society is an anachronism dating back to before capitalism when there were aristocratic landowners with vast estates and the serfs who worked them. There wasn't much in between. The last vestiges of that era can be found in the Royal Family and others in that circle who hold inherited titles.
Look I’d say that the queen is a pretty good queen, like she isn’t great in this episode sure but in the crown they do show that she is trying the hardest, and cares a lot more about British than other royals
Yeah, but I sorta think once she dies they should get rid of it, the monarchy. As a Brit I’d suggest we then elect a head of state, who could still be called king or queen or whatever but just be voted in so there’s some sense of fairness. They wouldn’t even need to be voted in by the public, I’d say MPs could vote for it- as long as some representative group chooses.
@@patrickchoque7720 well coming from country that legit uses that system, I'm completely against it. It's just a way for politicians to put the people they think will benefit the party in the top job and act all noble.. in india, the 600 or so traditional rulers and heirs of princely titles get more respect than the President mainly cause even though some are part of a political party, they're still rooted to their people
@@03.achyuthans39 I'm from India too and I disagree. Having heriditary positions of power is a dangerous game. You might occasionally have royals you admire, but more often than not someone will come along who will create a shitshow and are in power just because they were born into it. Best to elect such people so that we and they are at least accountable for any good or bad they do.
@@patrickchoque7720 well I see no point in a monarchy if they are voted in. There would be no legitimacy to the crown or seat because they would be elected. I definitely agree that the person elected or chosen by the government would be put there to benefit the party in rule. That is what happens in Canada for the Governour General.
I definitely agree that HM The Queen has been doing her best and a great job. This show is dramaticized to make for good TV so they are gonna make her mean or rude or what ever personality they want to benefit them. And so they will do this to rumors and other members of the family.
JJ, you should absolutely watch the Episode “Fagan” from this season as a companion to the “Balmoral Test” it’s a fantastic episode which I think compliments it well
I agree. When the royals have their little meet and greet, that Nazi Phillip Mountbatten reminds everyone to put their gloves on. When the police come to take Fagan out, the Queen shakes his hand with no gloves. I don't think we'll ever know what they really talked about.
@@nathanhirst97 I too remember thatcher being popular in working class strongholds like... Yorkshire. What policies did appeal to the "aspirational working class" like right to buy were short-termist, people still suffer from a lack of social housing. Some made it into the new middle class, many were left behind. And by slashing taxes and regulations, she facilitated the rise of the new upper class of billionaire bankers etc. Not exactly a working class hero then.
Being thoroughly stuck in the middle class, I have to say that the only reason I work as hard as I do is because I aspire to a life of comfortable idleness. As Ogden Nash once observed, "If you don’t want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won’t have to work."
Same, I want to get to a point where I have escaped the need to work. My dream would be to have enough profitable investments that I can retire to running a cigar shop and just enjoy the hobby, and not necessarily need it to turn a profit lol.
Eh, you do you but alas if society was full of unambitious people like this, we wouldn't have made it as far as we have. We stand on the shoulders of giants, as they say.
@@LiveFreeOrDieDH I really do believe it's a mindset issue. The kind of people that becomes a billionaire, keyword becomes not inherits, are never content to "retire". You'd know it if you spent a day with them yourself.
If I were comfortable enough to work less (I do not need a mansion or even a big suburban house for that though) I would find more fullfilment in creative pursuits, traveling, or helping, starting or funding initiatives that would have a positive impact on the community or global issues. Living a life of only leisurely pleasure seems pointless to me.
I love the Crown. I've watched every episode so far. Season 4 is the BEST!!! Allegorical value aside, my favorite episode where the Queen chews Charles out by calling him a spoiled child.
@@rexglucksburg There’s actually a good case to be made for that historically, as Charles is divorced and has married a divorcee. The same thing cost Edward VIII the throne.
@@MUSCLEPUP44 Except that Edward wanted to marry a divorcee while he was King. And given that Charles remarried and there's no indication of a bypass, I don't think that's a rule anymore
LOL have to agree. She knew how to play the Royal or Upper Class game, but cared more about helping those on the outside. Like a bridge between worlds almost. Also, her and Charles' relationship is kinda sad. Even Anne (if the show is to be believed) pressured him into marrying her, but then less than a year later, Anne despises her. I don't think it's anyone's fault, Diana and Anne are just ridiculously different women. The trouble is, both Diana and Charles are trying to find ways to ask - is the constant stiff upper lip really the best way to resolve issues? But Diana is more outspoken (where it's possible for her to be) while Charles is unable to express his question. The whole situation's just a depressing mess that was set up elegantly in Seasons 1 and 2.
@@Redrally Yeah in that way she's much more sympathetic than Thatcher who thought everyone should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, without considering that that might not be enough for everyone to succeed.
@@Redrally she knows royal crap and ettiqute because she grew up in royal households she was born in Sandringham Castle the queen's private residence and a daughter of 8th Earl Spencer of the Spencer Family at Althorp Norfolk
It's very interesting to me as a Brit to see your love for the middle-class way of life. In the UK it's almost exclusively used an insult, to indicate privilege, lack of worries and entitlement. As Upper Class only refers to the tiny percentage of people in the aristocracy, people really only use middle class to refer upper middle class - richest 15% or so - even though the majority of people are. As a member of the middle-class myself (it's feels like I'm insulting myself lol), it's refreshing to here such a positive outlook
I think this has to do with the semantics of middle class between the Americas (referring to the portion of the working class which doesn't struggle on a day-to-day basis) versus the UK (referring more to the bourgeoise / upper middle class not tied to nobility and instead to owning the means of production).
This biggest metaphor about class in this episode is the total non-existence of working class folk (and most of the series). Much like how both the upper and middle classes don't care a jot working class issues and people.
I question those who would award anything to these videos. As a Canadian, I expect a video about Canada to include factual information about the country. I expect any purportedly informational video to be reasonably objective. Most importantly, I like videos about Canada to be hosted by Canadians who have at least gone to Canadian schools and have a grasp on the history and civics of the country. That makes a fail on all counts here. Of course I question whether this chap is a Canadian at all.
@@fsirett holy shit , what the fuck do you want him to do , man ? Do you think JJ should ride on a moose while drinking maple syrup to prove he’s Canadian?Calm the fuck down .
Regarding the end, I believe the Queen has been a wonderful Sovereign. We need to take into consideration that the Queen pretty much watched the Crown forced on to her father and it killed him. Of course not directly but she saw that the overwhelming amount of stress during WWII drove her father to the habits that did kill him. She would be then conditioned to know that the Crown is a dangerous role to fill, how else to combat this than sticking to tradition and making sure you have time for leisure.
@@JJMcCullough That is true, it is only looking at their family rather than the whole of Britain. I think there are many arguments that can be made whether she helped the UK or didn't, and it is also all up to the person interpreting said arguments.
@@JJMcCullough The monarchy has been very good to the people of Britain. If you came from a republic like many of us, you would see that even when you have a figurehead head of state elected, he will still resort to political games and scandal-digging. Not to mention presidential republics. When you have a head of state, it should be someone exactly like the queen. Apolitical, representative and uniting the nation as she does. Her life was devoted to public service and she served Britain very well.
@@JJMcCullough as a citizen, and a young citizen of the U.K. my family is split between my mother, a Labour voter, and my dad, a Tory. My mum is much more anti-monarchy than my dad, who is someone that I wholly agree with on the monarchy issue, being, they are important to us. Culturally, the monarchy is basically just a tradition. Even with them being constitutional, that has been going on for almost 400 years now, the British Empire has had more constitutional monarchs than absolute. Economically, they pay taxes, and they bring in a lot of money from tourism. If we were to remove them, considering they still have millions of pounds in their pockets (most of it not coming from taxpayer money, and even then it's very small) and the castles and lands they have are privately owned, they could sell them off to some other person or just demolish them, so then we wouldn't even get any money off of those landmarks and tourism would drop. Drama. Ironically, us Brits love drama and the royal family gives us a ton, and it's often more interesting than that of Bojo and the Boys. Militarily. The military is, first and foremost, he majesties, and many are going to be loyal to the monarchy, I'd say at least a good 10-15%. Considering also that the Royal Guards are some of the highest trained military professionals on the planet, if someone were to say, try and overthrow her... they'd have a hard time, especially with the uproar from the common people such as myself. Internationally. As the head of state she represents the country in many foreign affairs and by the country, I mean, the country. She and the Royal Family are a-politcal politicians, simply doing what George V did, working for the betterment of the British people. As a common British citizen, as well as someone who can't even vote yet 😢 I have to say that even though most of my friends disagree with me, I still love them and will gladly fight for Queen and country. Not for Andrew though.
The episode was painful to watch as it laid bare how I feel in social situations as a socially awkward person. @.@ I related so much to Thatcher in this scene, a fish out of water, who suffers from the environment she is placed in despite the Queen's gracious hospitality.
JJ, always excited to see your videos every week, keeps me sane during quarantine. It would be great to see a video on a framework on how we could answer the question “is Elizabeth II a good queen” I always thought your best videos don’t necessarily answer a question but give a perspective on how to think about it
I love this channel because it’s the only one which content keeps getting better and better. Extremely interesting work, J.J.! -Your long-time loyal fan from Syria!
As a person from Hong Kong, this whole middle class thing ia never something really existed to me. You are either rich, crazy rich or poor. Legit, all of my friends are multi millionaires and my apartment cost the same as a mansion in Toronto.
I would propose that the upper-middle class divide in PRC is between Communist Party Insiders and those outside the political system trying to earn money.
It's not because you don't experience it that it doesn't exist. "Rich" and "middle class", in this video, can be better translated to "aristocratic" and "bourgeois", a distinction that is probably faint in HK (as in most of the world outside of Europe). Rich people in Hong Kong probably have a mix of bourgeois and aristocratic values, depending on how old their money is. What makes the middle class distinguished from being simply "poor" ("working class", not mentioned in the video), is the insufferable attitude of trying to impress all the time, because they can become poor if they don't work hard.
I really felt for Thatcher in that episode. Really frustrating when you have to attend to trivial stuff (convention, pointless meetings, conference, cocktails, etc...) when you know you got a pile of important work to do.
A great analysis of the episode and class. Thatchers problem (someone else made this observation but I can't remember who) seemed to be that she thought everyone would be like her. A hard worker who rose from being the daughter of a shopkeeper to a barrister (she was studying chemistry as well but switched) who became a head of the country. All that in a country that had never seen a female head of state ( she herself doubted it would happen). Head of the conservative party despite not being a conservative in many respects. She idolized friedrich Hayek who himself denounced conservatism as an impediment to progress due to wanting to preserve the status quo. It's a nice tough her quoting a chartist. The champion of the free market quoting a proto Marxist
I find it really interesting that JJ came to such a different conclusion from me on what The Crown's message about the monarchy was. Perhaps the show mirrors reality so well that there is no single message, just like real life it's what you make of it.
May not agree with Thatchers policies or the way things went when she was in charge but as JJ says you got to respect how she climbed her way up to PM from her beginnings
Whats sad is her later years in office you can see that the Royals were displeased for the amount or people in her cabinet she changes and her party as well for being for them too extreme as she attacks the looming EU and other problems within the party. But here in the US we respect Thatcher for what she did to her country but sad that her country's upper class it's elite and those folks in universities who claim to be big shit but in the end are embarrassed of their upbringing and live in squander, all these folks trash her for who she is and what she did.
@@bearworldwide101 She literally brought a large percentage of poverty in the UK. And no one, literally no one, admires her work in the US. That is probably just you and a bunch of conservatives that do not at all represent the whole country.
@@bearworldwide101 Mighty rich coming from someone who knows nothing about british politics. Its not the rich and powerful who hate Thatcher its the working class. If you don't even know who hates her the most then you don't know shit. Shes literally the most hated PM among the working class ever. The upper class don't give a shit about her
I think that as far as the Queen living by leisure upper class standards, that’s kind of the point. Those rules, procedures, and protocols are there because the Monarch, whoever that may be at any given time, must adhere to a strict behavior and lifestyle. Elizabeth spends much of the earlier seasons discovering this and at times, disagreeing with it. I’d say the more accurate way to look at it would be, she did her job flawlessly but unfortunately her job was flawed from its very nature.
The interesting part about season 4 is that they really make everyone seem so much worse as people than they did in previous seasons. Not only was the family bad for forcing Charles to marry Diana but Charles is also portrayed as pretty sinister, manipulative, and abusive. Not only was the Queen criticized for being out of touch, Thatcher is pretty much portrayed as racist when they have to deal with South African sanctions, and additionally Thatcher is shown to be a fierce sexist even to her own daughter. Thatcher even has some weird so called "upper class"/entitled tendencies, for example when her son got lost in Algeria leg of the Paris-Dakar Rally, she was strongly against thanking the search parties who found him because "it was their job to do so" and honestly her son Mark is characterized quite similarly to the Queen's second son Prince Andrew in the show, they are both arrogant and entitled, but also very loving to their mothers.
I think thatcher as born in the 20s either racist or live in culture with no political correctness political correctness is modern from 60s her generation was different!
@@rudradixit460 I think we were correct not to radar tecnolgy from south africa had resorces was used to fight the soviet union the issue was national secruity and economcis many times sanctions don,t work !I also think ridicouls most people don,t care buying products from china people only pretned they care about human rights they torture muslims and ban democracy the whole world is hyprocrtical!
I really love these types of videos of like analyzing an episode or cartoon! I think you do it well without a lot of fru-fru purple language conclusions
Considering Thatcher's reputation in the UK is already pretty terrible amongst many Brits today, I don't think her image will improve in the years to come
Her reputation in the UK is not terrible and she’s generally regarded as one of our best Prime Ministers. Just because left-wing activists hate her doesn’t mean that’s representative of the British public in the slightest.
@@epicfailtom you think she won the largest majorities in British Parliamentary history without the support of the working class..? she had wide-ranging support, and the only reason Labour activists still bang on about how much the working class hated her is because the truth is that she managed to engage them far better than socialists or trade unionists ever could. and that’s something they can’t allow to be true- so even 35 years after her premiership they still have to bang on about her all the time.
@@epicfailtom my entire family is from the Labour heartlands in the North, most of them still vote Labour to this day, but they’re all willing to accept that Thatcher could attract the working class better than Labour. sound familiar to anything that happened recently?
I don't think Elizabeth II has necessarily been a "bad" queen. The Crown seasons 1-2 explore her early reign and give much-needed background to how the Queen is expected to be based on past traditions (however outdated) and protocol. In British custom, they split the government into the "dignified" and the "functional," and it is pretty obvious which one the Queen is fulfilling. I don't think it means that she is a bad queen, just that the role of royalty is, in itself, an outdated and pointless construct.
The question of Elizabeth being a good monarch is quite difficult, linked to the greater issue with our monarchy in general, they can't really do much/exercise political power against any elected government without a massive backlash. Given we're unlikely to see the kind of national struggle (such as the world wars) where a figurehead to rally around would be useful, a good monarch ideally keeps quiet, does certain ceremonies and at their most useful acts as a tool for diplomacy (allowing international tours/receiving of foreign dignitaries without taking up the elected governments time).
I think it’s a bit silly to argue that Britain over the last 60-whatever years has never faced a moment in which a principled monarch could’ve exercised some leadership to the British public. The queen almost never speaks to the British public unless it’s about herself.
I would love to see some kind of discussion like this but with working vs middle class. As someone who's moved between these two classes in my lifetime I would find it fascinating. I'm sure it would be relatable to a lot of other viewers as well, as I imagine many more of us have migrated between poverty middle class than have gone between middle wealthy.
Margaret Thatcher wasn’t middle-class. She grew up without an indoor toilet, and went to a grammar school on a scholarship and then got a scholarship for Oxford. The reason the left-wing hate her is not because she embodied middle-class ideals, it’s because she was an embodiment of working-class ideals which attracted the working-class better than socialists or the Labour movement ever could. That’s why, to this day, they have to tell you how much the working-class hate her. Because the reality is that she managed to get overwhelming Parliamentary majorities- which would be completely impossible without the support of the working-class.
Your attention to details (or let's maybe call them easter eggs?) is so inspiring! Even for images that are on screen for less than a second, you really pour your heart into making them! I appreciate that a lot and I hope you know, that we stop the video and admire them every once in a while! I really hope to do this as well with my videos.
You're too kind. I feel like even small moment add up, and contribute to the "feel" of the channel, so it's always worth putting effort into everything.
Having watched the whole series as a non-Anglophilic American, I think the conclusion the series comes to is a bit different than the one you have here. The general gist of it seems to be that Liz *could* have been great if she'd had any power, but she didn't, and she was born into a world where the UK was just bleeding to death as well. So, in the face of all that, she simply does the best she can with what little wiggle room she has available to her. Yeah, she's upper class and out of touch, but she's continually portrayed as being extremely principled, and she takes her few roles very seriously. Also, she has far more gumption than most royals in the modern era. They also point out that she's emotionally distant and a very bad mother. In the end, I see it as a series in which a head of state is powerless to do much but watch over the decline and fall of the largest empire in history, and turn into an also-ran nation that can't deny its dependence on the US.
@@lukewilliams1666 Oh, absolutely. Giving 43 billion to rebuild the UK after WW2 was *totally* an example of us screwing them over. How dare we try to make sure they can feed their own people! ;)
I give her the benefit of the doubt, back then the outcome of those policies wasn't known, so maybe she genuinely though that she was doing good? I don't know, maybe, she still supported a bunch of Neoliberal dictatorships abroad so maybe she was more aware, at the end she ended up hurting the middle and lower classes a lot, in the UK and abroad, and trying to put it otherwise as J.J. does here is disingenuous.
@@JJMcCullough. As a Tory politican, her supported was heavily dependent on the middle classes. That being said signature achievement was to win over larger sections of the skilled or "respectable" working classes (the C2s in the social grading system), than previous Conservative leaders (at least since the 1930s).The prospect of being propelled into the middle class via buying their council house, shares in privitised utilities and greater ease of becoming self-employed, was very appealing.
@@Hyperventilacion. How did Thatcher hurt the middle classes during her priemership? No Tory government would have survived doing so, and the various tax cuts, house price booms and privisations were popular among the middle classes. They heavily benefitted from them. Even the anti-trade Union legislation, even was popular among them. You have to remember trade unionism was culturally anathema to the British middle classes outside of the public sector, and white collar workers, managers and private sector professionals have never been prominent trade unionists outside of Nordics (due to the Ghent system of social insurance).
@@williamfrancis5367 I feel as though the comment section is failing to address how British Vs Canadians and Americans use the term “Middle Class” to describe what brits call working class. I think a lot of this comes down to Britain having a much more rigid hereditary class system. Most people in the uk who earn a working class salary under 30k pre tax can afford a decent standard of living on a global scale but not an amount of money to provide security ie investments or property
This commentary provides a great context for everything in the show. As a viewer from the middle class, part of what captures my attention is trying to figure out and understand the values behind the decisions/actions of the characters (most of which are very alien to me). You should also watch the episode where Thatcher asked The Queen who her favorite child was and how The Queen went to great lengths to know her children.
Britain was in a spiral of inflation and economic mismanagement by the end of the 70s. Thatcher's treatment could have been less harsh and more compromised but something had to be done.
We can't rewind the tape and play it back but I am pretty sure the UK would be in a worse position than what Greece is now, had she not done what was required. Pretending things are viable when they're not, ultimately only makes the looming crisis worse when it hits.
I enjoyed watching your video. It’s well structured and your narration (and writing) were easy to understand. I’ve not watched The Crown series but I have viewed scenes on UA-cam including the “enemies” poem. My sense is that the show attempts to be balanced in that it depicts both classes as having the pros & cons. There were opportunities to sympathise with Queen Elizabeth and/or Margaret Thatcher; both being mothers for example. Class can definitely serve to segregate peoples but it’s the decisions and subsequent actions we all make in everyday life that serve to reinforce that idea or defy it. Thanks again. See you “Out There!”.
I have been watching his videos lately and I have to say...It's slightly distracting but also really entertaining watching him bob up and down while giving great political, societal, and historical information about the countries out there.
The only time I experienced something "similar" (in my context) was when I went to classmate's appartment to finish a french language group work in Peru. While my family was in the lower middle class, and our income was mostly invested in education, my classmate was, not rich (I think), but upper class: they had a very big appartment in one of the most exclusive areas of Lima; on the other hand my family had just made it to middle class (back when my father was young sometimes they had nothing to eat, and lived in a dangerous neighborhood, but escaped that thanks to education) and we lived in a 3 floor house located in a main street in a low/middle class district of Lima, 2 and a half of which were used for our family business (which we now rent since we have moved to Canada... yeah, that was fast). Tbh, they were good, but the only thing that I didn't like was their speaking german in dinner time (which gave that feeling that they were hiding something), and ignoring us from time to time (I wasn't the only one). For that reason, here in Canada, I try to avoid using spanish if non-spanish speakers are around: I don't want others to experience the same thing I felt back then.
@@jk3jk35 We moved to Canada last year, so, yes... but sometimes I forget a few words, since I work in french, browse the internet in english, and some of my hobbies are in japanese.
You should watch season 4 Episode 5. It's about an unemployed painter , it shows another form of clash of class values. It also puts thatcher's politics into question
Hey, I was wondering where did you get the Liberal Democrat and Conservative party badges from? I'm a member of the UK Conservative party and was wondering if you could do a video on the centre-right parties of Europe, but also the West as a whole.
Such a fun video! I'd to see JJ do a future video where he gets to take the Balmoral test himself in another fictionalized setting of his choice, maybe with guest actors or video editing tricks.
My main gripe with this episode is that like 95% of the situations that Thatcher finds herself in couldve been avoided by her just like, you know... Calling the previous prime minister to inform herself a priori.
You have a poor understanding of English class. Not British class. There’s a difference. But the upper class and working class are united on one issue. Their loathing of the middle classes. The upper class see them as ridiculous parodies of the ruling class. And they have a condescension of not being truly poor which also makes the working class loathe them too. In season 5 of the crown the queen even says to Margaret “that was so middle class don’t say it again”. Rightly so. And also for the record Margaret Thatcher wasn’t middle class. In fact she was derided by her own party by being a “grocers daughter”. One of the grandees she fired said “it was like being dismissed by one’s parlour maid”. She was working class, she went to Oxford and married Dennis who also would be defined as working class. He just happened to have worked up with his business. But thatcher was in fact working class who took some elocution lessons and learned good manners from winning a place at Oxford.
I think the series is worth a full watch. Its first seasons lean more pro-monarchy, but as time goes on the tone becomes gloomier and gloomier, presenting the royals not only as disconnected from the British society, but also as self-destructive.
I wasn't really thinking too much about classes when I was watching it. I felt this more like a secondary element to add a twist of irony to the whole situation. For me, the thing that called the most my attention, is how this episode portraits a contrast between the countryside and the urban life. At the end, the Royal Family is not an urban, but a country one. They are born, educated and grow on the big castles and palaces of the family across the fields and forests of the UK, in a very...old fashion, almost medieval way (The kind of royals that enjoyed hunting, riding horses, fishing, some British or Scottish folkloric sports and that kind of activities). The things they enjoy doing, how they act, spend their free time and play, are basically the same as farmers and other rural people...just, in a very fancy way. In contrast, Tatcher comes directly from the Urban life, and after so many years living as an upper middle class, she is used to wealthy people in the city, and is horrified to find the horrible fashion, bad manners, weird games, mud, dirt and lack of touch and class in such a wealthy and upper family. In a previous episode, the queen's husband says "What people don't know about us, is that we are not refined. We are savages. We know how to behave in front of non savages. But we are nothing more than country people that can barely know where to point the UK in the map." Something that Tatcher confirms during the episode, realizing they are snob, basic and not refined people. The irony that the supper upper class is the unrefined, irrational and vulgar, and the middle is the classy, rational, and refined is the final twist in everything.
as someone who absolutely hates margaret thatchet and her politics, this episode made me quite sympathetic to her. anyone in the position of having to deal with the unbearable people at the upper classes of society gets a bit of respect, even if in reality her policies really only wore down and made things harder for the working class.
This season of the crown, and this video, effectively illustrates why people who see themselves as conservative have a great distain for monarchy as a form of government, even a constitutional monarchy. The primary principle is, you get what you *earn*. Tradition is no excuse for entitlement.
Conservatives are not the only ones with disdain for the monarchy, indeed I expect their obsession with tradition and resistance to change makes them more likely to support a monarchy. As for "you get what you earn", then why are so many self-described conservatives obsessed with eliminating the estate tax?
@@belg4mit apples and oranges. A monarch’s interested wrath is not earned through grit and hard work. It’s done through taxes and wrath that’s been past down through loot. Compare it to a middle class father who wants to pass his holdings to his children. 1. That wealth might be divided amongst the kids if there’s more than one. 2. The lions share of capital may go to the more responsible one of the children. 3. That wealth might be donated to an institution or anyone else that person trusts. Trying to compare monarchy to middle class wealth transfer is farcical
Thanks for this video. This was one of my favorite episodes. Gillian Anderson did such an amazing job portraying Thatcher. You were able to put into words many of the thoughts I had during this episode. My take on Queen Elizabeth is different than many. After seeing “The Queen “ (Helen Mirren), then The Crown and doing a lot of my own research, I actually feel sorry for her in many ways. She wanted to spend her life breeding horses. But instead she was obligated to live a different life. She never got to make any choices about the direction of her own life. Her duty to “The Crown” consumed her personality, individuality and her soul. Sure, she was rich and powerful. But there were so many limitations on her power and her actions. Much of life was spend going through the silly motions of royalty and doing what other people told her she must or mustn’t do!
Elizabeth has been a good Queen, when considering the position the Queen holds in Britain. The monarch today is little more than a figurehead for the people to rally around, as Parliament and the PM hold the most actual power. If the people love her, then she has succeeded in all she truly needs to do.
Then you have no understanding of her influence, in the world, or her strength of character. She has dedicated her life, starting at 16, to serving the commonwealth. While you may not appreciate what she has done or it's impact on the world she is not some lazy debutant worried about her manicure. Yes, she's gone fox hunting and her life may be unrealatable to most people that does not mean she doesn't get up every morning and serve until she goes to bed. Her role may be outdated but she is no less important, to her time, than any politiian wanting the best for the people that she has serves.
Her life is well documented. Netflix may not be the most reliable source. I under stand that seasons 1 and 2 of the The Crown are supposed to be better than the 3 and 4 though I haven't watched them. To scratch the surface she starts her day with 3 plus hours reiviewing goverment documents and meets with the Prime Minister once a week. She cut back the number of events she does every year to 200 after turning 90. She does a tremdous amount of charity and diplomatic work. She works most days. She does a Christmas address don't remember if it's Christmas day or christmas eve. @@JJMcCullough
@J.J. McCullough The Queen receives a “Red Box” filled with important government documents from the Cabinet and the foreign office that she reads, reviews and signs every day, except for Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. She weekly meets and discussed with the Prime Minister, and conducts about 300 engagements every year. If you think she just sits at Buckingham Palace or is out hunting 24/7 you’re woefully uninformed
I remember this episode. The thing that stuck out to me was how disconnected with nature Thatcher was. Not sure if that was related to class but I thought it was interesting how foreign the outdoors was to her. Like the forest and hills were an alien planet.
What I remember from that episode is that the royals seemed more down to earth than previous presented. That Tatcher was hard driven and unbending, she did not ask the staff to guide her when she was clearly lost and she followed her own ideas of what upper class people should behave like. In the end we saw how she acted similar in politics, going hard in her own way without input from others. If I think Elizabeth has been a good queen? She seems to have succeeded with the duties presented in the series, so somewhere she has kept her goal
I really think you’re “thesis” is inherently flawed, and you dance around the more accurate conclusion throughout the video. Neither Thatcher or the Royals are particularly good or bad in this episode, just incredibly different and refusing to bend to one another. In fact the only one who tried to reach out to the other at any point was QE2, though we already know that the two women don’t particularly like each other so it’s half-assed Ag best, but still more than thatcher or the rest of the royals do. It’s not like the royals hobbies are guarded secrets. If Thatcher just asked around/studied on the royals she would’ve known they’re outdoorsmen. It’s honestly a pretty logical conclusion to prepare for the outdoors when going to a place in the middle of nowhere. I think it shows the more historic cultural divides that started to emerge in the UK and US around that time between rural and urban, as well as Thatcher’s own personal failings. The rest of the series explores how she refuses to examine even the slightest criticism from anyone, and in fact fires those who do. Thatcher’s belief in her own infallibility is really shown in the episode 48:1
After the first season, which deals with WWII and her father's ascension, every "conflict" has been made up rich people problems, the husband is bored, the sister is bored, the done likes one amazing private school better than another... Yet it focuses very little on any positive impact they may actually have on the country
Like hell Thatcher represents anything about working class culture. She completely gutted the middle classes way of life economically. I think the episode serves more of a purpose in showing a new course in what the upper class is turning into.
The deer stalking comes up in other media about the royal family. I think it was the movie "the Queen" which is a dramatization of the aftermath of Diana's death from the Queen's perspective.Prince Phillip is seen talking about it and planning on taking harry and Will. At a later point someone else kills the stag and Elizabeth goes to see the body hung up.
Downton Abbey is an interesting take on the end of the old world landed aristocracy and the beginning of what it means to be middle class in the context of capitalism.
Brilliant analysis. As regards to the series itself. I personally feel the series shines a light on this notion of “The Crown” as an entity with a symbiotic relationship which can be beneficial if not oftentimes parasitic to the Windsor family. At least that’s my personal opinion
"Has she been a good Queen?"
Well I don't think we can really judge that based on just the first 100 years of her reign when she still has until the heat death of the sun to go. She's done an alright job so far I'd say.
oh if only
@@HamishDuh2ndUhm what? There‘s no reason NOT to throw her out? Y‘know, its always easiest to keep the status quo. In order for people to actually do something, there has to be a reason. And as long as the queen doesn‘t create problems or prove herself to be an annoyance, theres not really any reason to remove her
She was pretty good except for those murders.
Takes me back to the episode where Queen Elizabeth tells the Prime Minister that after 3 Prime Ministers nothing has really change only a " confederacy of elected quitters"
100 years?
Definitely check out the rest of the series. I would say The Crown is pro-“Elizabeth”, but not really pro-“the family”
@DwRockett I agree. In the Crown the collective family, its traditions and the institution of the Crown are sort of the main villain that seem to torture and/or challenge pretty much every character in the show.
@@paddystrongjaw9995 Yes that is what I'm saying to the communist having a go at our monarchy
The best episodes are the moronic Royal media idiots making comments on dailymail about how this show is fictional. Just like Trump they try to rewrite history for the Royal loyalty losers. Putting a crown on the noggin seems to make the mind dumb as a stump.
@@tropicthndr While it's based on the fact a lot of it is fiction. They just think that the crown should put more effort into making that clear. To someone who doesn't pay much attention, and just casually watching it, they could easily assume that it's all true, and that a lot of stuff happened at the same time.
The season literally ends with her calling Charles an entitled brat
“You have no enemies, you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor. He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure, must have made foes. If you have none, small is the work that you have done. You’ve hit no traitor on the hip. You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip. You’ve never turned the wrong to right. You’ve been a coward in the fight.”
― Charles Mackay
This was a man who had cheated on his wife with his (likely underaged) live-in servant so I'm not surprised he felt that way.
Sometimes you make enemies if you do the WRONG thing.
@@icemachine79 Underaged? Is that a bad thing? Do you not understand anything?
@@jadapinkett1656 Yes, it is a bad thing to take advantage of an inexperienced child who works for you.
Amazing
I think you've missed half of the point because you're a bit removed from British political discourse and culture. You're right to point out that the show has critiques of the stuffy traditions and overly hierarchical nature of the royals, but you missed one of the really critical and commonly discussed ideological divides from the thatcher era.
They are constantly nodding and winking at the divide between the city oriented capital class conservatives and the country side based traditions/family values village conservatives . This is emphasised heavily when they are going for a hike/playing family parlour games.
I know it sounds ridiculous but the chosen activities through out and attire of the royals (at points) are a really really crude suggestion that the royals live as a sort of small village farmer family (just with a really big gold house...) - The images of thatcher uncomfortable in the mud and outdoors are a depiction of her divide from the provinces. Thatchers biggest (social and cultural) conservative critics say her economic policies put money before everything, even allowing market forces to destroy the family institution, church and the traditional British way of life (Peter Hitchens et al) and the royals are used to depict this in the show. Which is why it's been extremely controversial in the UK because it draws to attention a massive divide in the conservative voter coalition and is embodied by the two biggest sacred cows for British conservatives (Thatcherism and royalists).
That’s very interesting! Thanks for sharing these important insights.
I had not realized that when watching the show. That's very enlightening. Thank you! :)
Wow I did not know about that, that’s really interesting
@@HamishDuh2nd same with Republicans. In fact, it would be interesting to imagine an episode of some show where some very right wing urban character from New York or something - a Ben Shapiro type - was forced to spend a weekend with some conservative farm family in Kansas or something.
This comment make me want to watch the show now
The queen has absolutely been successful on her own terms, maintaining the existence of the monarchy while upholding its prestige. But I think that's in part what makes her fail somewhat. She's continued the monarchies march towards irrelevance, by not truly being a leader, just a face. I'm sure she's done her part to help British causes but ultimately she hasn't led them. That really makes me wonder what her purpose is beyond the tradition that she upholds. What really is a point of a Queen who doesn't rule and doesn't lead? Consequently she cant rule or lead, because if she did she'd be undermining the monarchies long term success, as nobody wants her to rule them anymore. She's really doing all she can do in the modern democratic era
I think your analysis is pretty spot on, but at the same time she could have chosen to exert a bit more leadership on some issues. Diana is a good example of someone who was never "political," but she did still exert herself on some issues, like AIDS and landmines, and I think will have a much better legacy in the long term.
@@JJMcCullough Prince Charles has shown string leadership on the issue of climate change and conservation. Perhaps as this comes to the forefront of political priorities, or perceived priorities, of the public, then he will fit more into the role of "leader" as King.
@@JJMcCullough I also think part of that is the way she was raised and the way she was taught to interact with the public. Diana's death is perfect example, of this as the Queen reacted the same way her father or a British royal from the 30s would've reacted. It's the biggest conservative conundrum, conservatives want things to change slowly and want to prevent mob rule and anarchy, thus aristocracy arises to defend against the constant changes, however when the unchanged is irrelevant, how do you change the unchanged.
I think the main goal of the monarchy now is to give British people a sense of patriotism maybe. I mean right now the queen and the whole royal family is very popular right now in the U.K. so that must mean they have some importance to the people? I think a big part of what the crown tries to portray is that the royal family is like a stabilizing force. The monarch will always be there while political leaders are constantly changing. As long as the monarch is calm and stable and collected, the state of the county won’t look ALL that bad. At least that’s what The Crown tries to say. Also she does have 60+ years of political experience and consulting with her 12 prime ministers so she probably has some sort of wisdom to give to the current prime minister during their weekly audience.
I legitimately wonder how the British monarchy will survive in a post-Elizabethian Britian... will King Charles continue to inspire its continued existence, or will it begin to unravel to where a King William doesnt happen? And what circumstances would happen to allow for either? I'm very curious...
I dated a girl who's family was super wealthy once, I come from a middle class background. I went to one of their family Christmas and it was surreal. They all payed lip service to their host, their grandmother/mother, and in private talked openly about how they all hate the Christmas party. Talking about how they only cared about the money given out each year at the actual gift opening. They all were extremely unhappy, with constant tension between the family members. It's so odd to me, that you could take your grand wealth for granted and still want more money, enough that your able to openly talk about how you hate being around the rest of your family. At a Christmas party, which for me and my family growing up was a time to celebrate the hard work you had done. With getting to see people happy for what you had given them, and being able to have the time from work to enjoy one another.
Honestly, glad to be in the solid middle class, I have some work experience and didn't get spoiled too much, but still got to enjoy some nice things in life (I'mma be honest, games) that would be harder for those from a lower class background to have as much of as I have had, thus I think us middle class people are those who are truly privileged, as we get the best of both worlds.
@@xander1052 same
I'm a middle lower class individual, meaning I'm in the lower class category, but in the middle of it, my family couldn't miss a week of work, we'd need to scramble to make ends meet. We have a few nice things, like I got a xbox one two or three years ago using some money I was given. We have mid sized flat screen tvs all which were won or given. Its always so odd when people talk about how they have money to just do things....
@@dr.jackbright963 Right? Like, I medically died and got recussitated on Halloween and that Friday was the only day of work I missed, I was right back to work on Monday morning because I couldn't even afford the one day off, even before the medical bills.
@@Julianna.Domina Im mentally basically a flan in a cupboard, but at some points I've had 3 jobs just to afford things I wanted, I was able to get ssi, that only pays my share of bills which is fustrating. I fear going to the dr even if I have medical insurance, it's like will this make me miss work? Will this have a high copay? Will they just tell me I'm fat again?
The series massively overdoes Thatcher being “anti-upper class” and dismissive of the monarchy. In real life Thatcher was firmly pro-monarchy and had almost too much respect for the Queen, to the point where she was unable to relax around her and become somewhat of her friend, unlike all the queen’s other PMs. Also, Thatcher literally accepted to be made a noble by the queen after she resigned as PM. She became the Baroness Thatcher, and entered the House of Lords. She also requested that the Queen make her husband a hereditary Baronet (the lowest ranked noble title in Britain), so that her son Mark would inherit the title.
@@jimmytwo-times4394 Not really. Thatcher was a giant hypocrite so I'm not surprised she coveted the same nobility she shunned in others. This was the same woman who cut defense spending in the South Atlantic practically inviting the Argentinians to invade the Falklands and then used the subsequent war (which cost FAR more than her previous cuts) to bolster her failing government which was deeply unpopular due to Thatcher's massive domestic spending cuts and her fire sales of state assets.
@@jimmytwo-times4394 But other episodes show the Queen and Thatcher to be very close (albeit with major disagreements on government policy both foreign and domestic) so I think she's more anti-upper class recreational activities than anything else. Before Thatcher requested the barony, the Queen chose to award her the Order of Merit which is done at the pleasure of the monarch so they obviously respected each other to some extent. I think the comment she made to Denis in the episode was supposed to be more out of spite than anything else after a day of constant embarrassments.
icemachine79 I think it portrays Thatcher as anti aristocrat - other than the monarchy as she saw the monarchy as the figurehead of Britain and British culture, but saw the rest of the family as rather undeserving snobs who won the birth lottery. Key to remember Thatcher was religiously meritocratic, believing that you get what you work for and that your status shouldn’t be determined by who your parents are - whether that was/is possible in the UK or success is more up to pot luck due to the current system is up for debate, but that’s at least what I interpreted it as.
I think the series gets both Thatcher and the Queen wrong. Queen Elizabeth is actually a very down to earth woman, she served in the war and is a certified diesel mechanic. Certainly no stranger to work.
@@SacredCowStockyards
She doesn't have to work. That's the whole point.
If the middle class likes working so much, why am I still laying around in bed? :(
Hey buddy, you do you 👉👁️👁️👉
The lockdown blues
because everyone needs to rest and its the weekend. Royals literally never have to work a day in their lives. They play at working, and spend most of their time finding ways to amuse themselves and be less bored
haha
Moderation is key. Work hard, play hard. But you should fight for your rights too. 9-3³⁰ workday (mirroring an Aussie school day) should be the norm, with universal healthcare and housing for all.
J.J.: “I’m not a person who watches too many TV shows ...”
The Simpsons: “... uuuuuhhhh?”
I meant more shows than just the same one over and over for 30 years
I don’t watch many either, the crown was also an exception for me..
"That still only counts as one" - Gimli
This is definitely a different take from what I took from the series. I thought the episode was actually about a conflict between the two types of wealthy people, the inheritance "old money" wealthy, and the "self made" "new money" wealthy.
I imagine that theme will be explored more when they get to the Blair years and the rise of a new, post-thatcher class of wealthy Brits.
@@JJMcCullough thatcher was the reason that wealthy class rose up, her ideology of deregulation made it possible for capital to ramp up their exploitation of the real working class, because thatcher was not working class, her father was a business owner, he didnt work, he owned for a living.
@@alicestaley2285 But she lived above the store.
As an Korean-American, I'm not at all cognizant of how the British class system works. Like, my perspective of the American class system is simply one of how rich someone is, and maybe what kind of work they do... because basically there is an understanding that EVERYONE works here, even rich people like Bill Gates, at least until they retire. Furthermore, the whole hunting thing I saw as being more LOW class, because "only" low class American "hillbillies" would want or need to hunt anything (I mean, not really only them, but that is the general idea being promoted here)... so for the Royals to hunt, as well as wear the "normal" clothes they had on when the Thatchers were overdressed... I saw that as maybe their way to remain _grounded_ and not let their upperclassness overtake them too much.
So ultimately I interpreted the episode as the Thatchers being _unwilling_ to fit in, as well as the Royals trying their best (though still failing in the end) to try to accommodate the Thatchers... afterall, they're going to be working with each other for a while.
I'm certainly not claiming that I'm at all right in my interpretation, just that this was how my American (and Korean) experience peppered my own experiences and therefore what I saw play out in front of my eyes. If anything it clearly shows how different Americans and the British (or at least the English) are... and I guess then I wonder how Canada balances the two.
@@alicestaley2285 I don't know how Thatcher's father worked, but for sure being a business owner is a lot of work. "to own rather than to work" is a privilege very few people have. These people are mostly from the nobility or from dynasties of cronies in corrupted countries, like in Russia or in South America. These are the disgustingly rich people that are (or feel like they are) literally "too big to fail".
Hey J. J. I think a good idea for a video would
be analysing governments-in-exiles. Like the Royal Lao Government-in-Exile, the Central Tibetan Administration and the most recent Belarus Coordination Council for The Transfer of Power.
I agree
It's a very good idea, although he has stated recently that he's tired of always analyzing politics on this channel.
Hmm. Or the self and american proclaimed Venezuelan president Guaido. Imagine if China or Russia said trump wasn't the legitimate president and named Nancy Pelosi as president, and replaced trumps ambassador and staff in russia/china with Pelosi staff (Guaido was the equivalent house speaker in Venezuela).
That should be amazing
I belive that the Rada BNR of Belarus is the oldest government in exile out there since 1919.
That bit about middle class folks' "anxiety" of getting knocked down is spot on, at least in my family. My father is a mid-level state public servant, and his position is a political appointment so our family was biting our nails over the outcomes of the last election.
Were your parents obsessed with your manners and stuff when you were growing up?
@@JJMcCullough Not nearly as much as some of my friend's parents, but they were probably more manners-oriented than most I would say.
Same for my closest friend, her father is a public servant at the city hall of Istanbul. Last year, the government's candidate lost at the municipal election and they were so anxious on that process because many officers were fired by the new administration.
@@JJMcCullough also JJ, I'm super surprised you haven't made a video about The Christmas Story. The movie BLEEDS American middle class.
@@jedidiahslaboda5620 listen here tabernac
I'm working class from a former industrial town in the north west of England and I have to say that Thatcher is despised in my town and due to raising a brood of self entitled children as well as taking a noble title people from Grantham don't exactly line up to defend her middle class status. She didn't triumph over the upper class she joined them having destroyed the working class communities below her.
Best observation in these comments.
From Grantham myself; I never met anyone who liked her. It’s a Conservative area on paper but the locals you’ll find in the street tend much more often to be working-class Labour-voters.
I agree with you on the sentiment that Margaret Thatcher is a more compelling character with a better story who'll certainly be more fiercely debated than the Queen (even though I think Elizabeth II will end up being remembered longer just for the trivia of her long reign) but I wonder whether a life of idleness is necessarily one that's been corrupted or made pointless. I'm sure there are a lot of pointless upper class traditions and I share that feeling of wanting to have direction in my life, but I feel like it's gotta be freeing if you're able to actually find happiness in some sort of a routine without constantly struggling to hold onto it, so it feels weird to say someone's corrupted for doing that.
Not to simp for the poor pitiful upper class or anything 😆
The upper class are emotional less bastards most of them.
One problem with upper class life is just that the stakes seem quite low. Middle class anxiety is a source of a lot of negative stress obviously, but I do think there’s a sort of corruption of the spirit that happens when you can take everything for granted. I think it makes you less ambitious, less creative, less curious, less bold, and so on. I think a lot of happiness in life comes from being able to achieve things and triumph over challenges and adversity, and it just doesn’t seem like the upper class face much of that. Except maybe within their personal lives, which is certainly where it seems most of the drama in the royals’ lives come from.
Margaret Thatcher might be a compelling story, but more for the damage she did when in politics than for anything she ever really formulated herself. She was an ideologue who was not really conversant with the ideology she was pushing.
Her concern for the poor was well displayed when she, as Minister of Education, stopped school milk for British school children and the performance of the poorest children plummeted. If you are hungry or undernourished, you are not a good scholar.
Then, as PM, she most certainly "rationalised" the economy except her version of "rationalisation" meant taking from the poor and giving to the rich.
I am not speaking from opinion, but pointing out provable fact, if one cares to look.
Then again, during the Second World War, this Queen volunteered and worked fro the war effort, as a mechanic. Margaret Thatcher, of an age with the queen saw fit to stay in school, but of course she claimed to be an icon of British duty, just not the duty she ever chose for herself.
She claimed to be in favour of democracy but only so long as it served her purposes. When Jacques Delors came out with his policy to democratise the European Union, it was Margaret Thatcher that vetoed it.
Thatcher never wrote her own speeches, and we now know she did not understand a lot of what they said. She was an economic nightmare for Britain (if you take away North Sea Oil revenue, she could have destroyed the economy) she never missed a chance to turn anything good from others into a disaster or to put the blame on others if she were even close to caught out.
last of all, she was ousted because she suggested a poll tax. That would be a democracy tax. If you could not afford to pay, you could not vote.
Yes, she is compelling, but for all of the wrong reasons.
I must add that I am in no way a monarchist. I am entirely disinterested in the British or any other royal family. But when you compare this queen to a rank opportunist, no matter how successful, I have to fall on the side of the bland old queen every time.
Elizabeth II strikes me as someone who seems to be out of touch with her own people and not particularly like them. Any video of an instance where a commoner gets to tour the palace/interact with her really reflects that. Compare that to say, the King of Bhutan who bikes around his country looking for people with problems that need solving, or the prince of Liechtenstein who can be found out in public cafes interacting with his citizens, and it's hard to see Elizabeth as a particularly inspiring, compassionate, or impressive monarch.
@@jacobnewcomb7438 as a monarchist myself Queen Elizabeth II is really fucking boring, can’t wait till Charles becomes king, that’ll be interesting, maybe not good, but interesting.
I have yet to build up the courage to watch the parlor games scene of this episode it just seems so awkward.
it is - it's terrible - you must see it.
That’s the point. It’s a strange scene for Thatcher who doesn’t see the point of these silly games and is put on the spot to participate in a game she doesn’t understand. It’s meant to be awkward because it’s an awkward situation for a middle class person in an upper class home.
I haven't seen it either, just some quick clips on youtube. I can't help but notice the similarities between this and some teenaged girls' slumber party.
It's the kind of scenes you can only watch once - the cringe (in a non-derogatory way) will forever haunt you
I personally have a lot of respect for Queen Elizabeth. Though maybe less beneficial to the world than a good prime minister would be, I still think of Queen Elizabeth as a woman of great strength. To be born into such a position, the way you will live your life already decided for you, with all the restrictions on freedom, yet with the means to abandon it all, the temptation to do so hanging over you at all times, she has resisted it all and always conducted herself with proper decorum. I don't think that's an easy task, I don't think I'd be able to do that. Hell, look at the rest of the royal family and you see how easy it is to act a fool from that position.
I guess it's a different kind of admiration for both. You can admire a hero, who achieves a lot of good for the world. You can also admire a hermit, who does nothing for the world, yet shows a great character able to properly fulfill their role as a hermit.
Normally, I would have to disagree with you but the last G7 summit put things in perspective. That old woman looked like the toughest among that bunch of losers. Never before in history the great nations of the world had such weak leaders.
"To be born into such a position" -- she wasn't born into the position she finds herself in. That came after Edward VIII's abdication.
Reel story
Jacque Chirac (président of France) and the Queen are in a coach
One of the horse fart
The queen say: Oh i am realy sorry
chirac replies: don't bother you I thought it was the horse
😂
😂😂
😂😂😂
😂😂😂😂
🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣
ngl never seen the crown, but if JJ is talking about something it must be interesting.
It was already my favourite episode of the season, but seeing JJ talk about it makes me feel affirmed somehow.
Its prety great
@I love coconuts Frustrating in a good way or in a bad way?
@@archdukefranzferdinand567 Quite a handful of historical inaccuracies and fictionalized situations to serve the story. Other than that, it's pretty good and interesting.
@@ahnafazim6541 yeah, but the general vibe of the royal family in person is pretty spot on apparently. Perhaps not specific things like what certain people said and things but it’s PRETtYyy clear that the royal family is WHACK
Jeez that poem at the end is savage
Winston Churchill had a better version. "You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."
In recent decades, being middle class has been redefined as people's relationship to consumption rather than by their relationship to the means of production.
Yes. I go with the older class theory. The frilly and vague british theory that takes into account endless variables seems to work better than the american theory.
It seems disingenuous to have class based on concrete income bracket. It seems obscene.
In the north/midwest they tend to be quite private and don't like to think of class outside of money.
But in the american south class isn't based on income bracket it's based on all kinds of superficial nonsense. ... literally cowboy hats and country clubs and fraternities and if the sherif frequents your restaurant weird theatrical fluff.
That redefinition seems to be in line with the upper class desire to belittle the middle class, and indicates that they've become aware that in contrast to past ages, in modern times your value to society is judged on the basis of what you produce rather than what you consume.
@@jesseleeward2359 "The frilly and vague British theory that takes into account endless variables seems to work better than the American theory"
If that was the truth then Britain would still be the world superpower. You can fantasize about a royalist world all you want, but the truth is that meritocratic capitalism has proven itself to be superior to hereditary aristocratism.
Especially true when I talk to my American peers^. One part is many take class discussion to be an insult on their ego and their families, and therefore everyone claims to be middle class and never “working class.” I would even take a step further to say even in this video there are definitions that seem to describe working class better than middle class and vice versa following some more traditional definition of class, but not in a strictly consumerist point of view, Eg having cars and big houses. Basically, there is a view that if you have to work for a living and do not own the means of production, you are working class, and the middle class people typically own a business but not land and are not “royal” or posh, and that the posh upper class have land and hereditary tittles and their family history is important to them, but they might not necessarily have money, but have some sort of trust funds and money that was generated through passive investment and interest. I can see how this definition is not immediately attractive to the Americans since Americans do not like to think they were still under the grip of the old world and or have a “royalty” and many take offense to the concept itself even though they absolutely laud the Elon Musks type as American heroes and the extreme capitalist that does many evils just a way America is somehow better and more “free”. Anyhow, the terms we use to describe class around the world are overloaded and hard to compare.
So basically that’s the problem. If your average people do not tend to like to think about their hugely successful capitalist overlords as the “upper class/monarchy,” like I said: since they’ve been brought up to believe the capitalist way of life is what grants them a unique, America- exceptionalism style of freedom and individual choices when that is largely a delusion and falsely comforting thought……you can see how the “older” class theory as someone else refers to in this thread, won’t catch on. I can empathize with the British society’s problems. For convenience and educational purposes, I think the way to define middle class ought to make some sense internationally, instead of region by region, but realistically, the people who wreck their brains thinking about these stuff, scholars, interested persons, are minorities in number, and our perception of success is defined more and more by our consumerism of goods rather than quality of our leisure and time- since few have them to begin with.
Or, to some, this whole theory doesn’t make sense at all and they go about their day just trying to work and have money to buy houses and more goods until they are satisfied, and that’s enough to worry about.
Example: There was an interesting twitter thread where people show what their houses look like in different parts of the country and what their perceived class is. It attracted people from around the country but the ones from a middle American state where you can buy a large albeit old looking house surrounded by land followed by captions calling themselves middle class receiver most debate and people groaning over it. Mostly, people were upset “if this is just the middle class, am I at a even lower class then? This MUST be high class!”
That thread did not factor into leisure times, holidays, and where they live so many did not include this info in their captions, but nonetheless, the Americans on the thread seem to have already made a decision and largely neglected that into consideration, because they were brought up with even less privilege to think of time as an equally if not more valuable marker of someone’s class than mere physical goods.
In addition, you can see how many clearly would not want to associate themselves with a lower class than middle class even if, they would be and it might be more beneficial to have more perspective and therefore solidarity with your working,
@@DrDoom-yf2qj the upper and upper upper class of British society is an anachronism dating back to before capitalism when there were aristocratic landowners with vast estates and the serfs who worked them. There wasn't much in between. The last vestiges of that era can be found in the Royal Family and others in that circle who hold inherited titles.
Look I’d say that the queen is a pretty good queen, like she isn’t great in this episode sure but in the crown they do show that she is trying the hardest, and cares a lot more about British than other royals
Yeah, but I sorta think once she dies they should get rid of it, the monarchy. As a Brit I’d suggest we then elect a head of state, who could still be called king or queen or whatever but just be voted in so there’s some sense of fairness. They wouldn’t even need to be voted in by the public, I’d say MPs could vote for it- as long as some representative group chooses.
@@patrickchoque7720 well coming from country that legit uses that system, I'm completely against it. It's just a way for politicians to put the people they think will benefit the party in the top job and act all noble.. in india, the 600 or so traditional rulers and heirs of princely titles get more respect than the President mainly cause even though some are part of a political party, they're still rooted to their people
@@03.achyuthans39 I'm from India too and I disagree. Having heriditary positions of power is a dangerous game. You might occasionally have royals you admire, but more often than not someone will come along who will create a shitshow and are in power just because they were born into it. Best to elect such people so that we and they are at least accountable for any good or bad they do.
@@patrickchoque7720 well I see no point in a monarchy if they are voted in. There would be no legitimacy to the crown or seat because they would be elected. I definitely agree that the person elected or chosen by the government would be put there to benefit the party in rule. That is what happens in Canada for the Governour General.
I definitely agree that HM The Queen has been doing her best and a great job. This show is dramaticized to make for good TV so they are gonna make her mean or rude or what ever personality they want to benefit them. And so they will do this to rumors and other members of the family.
JJ, you should absolutely watch the Episode “Fagan” from this season as a companion to the “Balmoral Test” it’s a fantastic episode which I think compliments it well
Fagan is probably my favourite one
I agree. When the royals have their little meet and greet, that Nazi Phillip Mountbatten reminds everyone to put their gloves on. When the police come to take Fagan out, the Queen shakes his hand with no gloves. I don't think we'll ever know what they really talked about.
"I'm not mentally I'll I'm just poor" is a fantastic quote from that episode
@@JMcLeodKC711 Nazi?
@@JMcLeodKC711 Um, Philip hated the Nazi
If you think Thatcher triumphed over the upper class, wait till you see what she did to the working class
Managed to get them to vote for her in droves and win the largest parliamentary majorities in history?
@@nathanhirst97 but wrecking the economy and lots of lower class way of life in the process
She saved them making many of there jobs productive and stopping subventions to those who could not be
@@nathanhirst97 I too remember thatcher being popular in working class strongholds like... Yorkshire. What policies did appeal to the "aspirational working class" like right to buy were short-termist, people still suffer from a lack of social housing. Some made it into the new middle class, many were left behind. And by slashing taxes and regulations, she facilitated the rise of the new upper class of billionaire bankers etc. Not exactly a working class hero then.
@@nathanhirst97
I didn't know the British people were so in favor of foreign paramilitary death squads
Being thoroughly stuck in the middle class, I have to say that the only reason I work as hard as I do is because I aspire to a life of comfortable idleness.
As Ogden Nash once observed, "If you don’t want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won’t have to work."
Same, I want to get to a point where I have escaped the need to work. My dream would be to have enough profitable investments that I can retire to running a cigar shop and just enjoy the hobby, and not necessarily need it to turn a profit lol.
Eh, you do you but alas if society was full of unambitious people like this, we wouldn't have made it as far as we have. We stand on the shoulders of giants, as they say.
@@MinecraftMasterNo1 The earlier the retirement, the more ambition it requires!
@@LiveFreeOrDieDH I really do believe it's a mindset issue. The kind of people that becomes a billionaire, keyword becomes not inherits, are never content to "retire". You'd know it if you spent a day with them yourself.
If I were comfortable enough to work less (I do not need a mansion or even a big suburban house for that though) I would find more fullfilment in creative pursuits, traveling, or helping, starting or funding initiatives that would have a positive impact on the community or global issues. Living a life of only leisurely pleasure seems pointless to me.
I love the Crown. I've watched every episode so far. Season 4 is the BEST!!! Allegorical value aside, my favorite episode where the Queen chews Charles out by calling him a spoiled child.
Can we skip the boys and give it to will instead, or put anne as a queen. I would love to see Queen Anne II
And what about that lunch with Andrew?
@@rexglucksburg There’s actually a good case to be made for that historically, as Charles is divorced and has married a divorcee. The same thing cost Edward VIII the throne.
@@MUSCLEPUP44 Except that Edward wanted to marry a divorcee while he was King. And given that Charles remarried and there's no indication of a bypass, I don't think that's a rule anymore
I have to commend the fact you seem to have "de-aged", you look younger than when you started UA-cam
It’s the lack of mustache. And the fact you can’t see all the gray hair I have.
Huey long dong
watching this moments after hearing the news that she passed away in balmoral castle is truly something else
same
"Who comes off as looking better?"
Honestly, based on the episode itself, Diana Spencer.
LOL have to agree. She knew how to play the Royal or Upper Class game, but cared more about helping those on the outside. Like a bridge between worlds almost.
Also, her and Charles' relationship is kinda sad. Even Anne (if the show is to be believed) pressured him into marrying her, but then less than a year later, Anne despises her. I don't think it's anyone's fault, Diana and Anne are just ridiculously different women. The trouble is, both Diana and Charles are trying to find ways to ask - is the constant stiff upper lip really the best way to resolve issues? But Diana is more outspoken (where it's possible for her to be) while Charles is unable to express his question.
The whole situation's just a depressing mess that was set up elegantly in Seasons 1 and 2.
@@Redrally Yeah in that way she's much more sympathetic than Thatcher who thought everyone should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, without considering that that might not be enough for everyone to succeed.
@@Redrally she knows royal crap and ettiqute because she grew up in royal households she was born in Sandringham Castle the queen's private residence and a daughter of 8th Earl Spencer of the Spencer Family at Althorp Norfolk
@@KarlSnarks if you don't do it yourself is it really success? Success at what?
That was obviously done on purpose. They wanted Diana to come off better.
It's very interesting to me as a Brit to see your love for the middle-class way of life. In the UK it's almost exclusively used an insult, to indicate privilege, lack of worries and entitlement. As Upper Class only refers to the tiny percentage of people in the aristocracy, people really only use middle class to refer upper middle class - richest 15% or so - even though the majority of people are. As a member of the middle-class myself (it's feels like I'm insulting myself lol), it's refreshing to here such a positive outlook
I think this has to do with the semantics of middle class between the Americas (referring to the portion of the working class which doesn't struggle on a day-to-day basis) versus the UK (referring more to the bourgeoise / upper middle class not tied to nobility and instead to owning the means of production).
This biggest metaphor about class in this episode is the total non-existence of working class folk (and most of the series). Much like how both the upper and middle classes don't care a jot working class issues and people.
How much do working class folk care about upper and middle class issues and people, then?
@@mysigt_ For one - when you're talking about executive bonuses, considerably!
@@mysigt_ We have to care about them because they control the country.
@@LauraM-kr9wv I see what you mean, and you’re not incorrect, but that’s a different kind of caring, no?
I can definitely see why every one of your videos are award winning
I question those who would award anything to these videos. As a Canadian, I expect a video about Canada to include factual information about the country. I expect any purportedly informational video to be reasonably objective. Most importantly, I like videos about Canada to be hosted by Canadians who have at least gone to Canadian schools and have a grasp on the history and civics of the country. That makes a fail on all counts here.
Of course I question whether this chap is a Canadian at all.
@@fsirett holy shit , what the fuck do you want him to do , man ? Do you think JJ should ride on a moose while drinking maple syrup to prove he’s Canadian?Calm the fuck down .
Regarding the end, I believe the Queen has been a wonderful Sovereign. We need to take into consideration that the Queen pretty much watched the Crown forced on to her father and it killed him. Of course not directly but she saw that the overwhelming amount of stress during WWII drove her father to the habits that did kill him. She would be then conditioned to know that the Crown is a dangerous role to fill, how else to combat this than sticking to tradition and making sure you have time for leisure.
Once again, this is a definition of "good" that is very queen-centric, as opposed to concerned with other people.
@@JJMcCullough That is true, it is only looking at their family rather than the whole of Britain. I think there are many arguments that can be made whether she helped the UK or didn't, and it is also all up to the person interpreting said arguments.
@@JJMcCullough The monarchy has been very good to the people of Britain. If you came from a republic like many of us, you would see that even when you have a figurehead head of state elected, he will still resort to political games and scandal-digging. Not to mention presidential republics. When you have a head of state, it should be someone exactly like the queen. Apolitical, representative and uniting the nation as she does. Her life was devoted to public service and she served Britain very well.
@@JJMcCullough as a citizen, and a young citizen of the U.K. my family is split between my mother, a Labour voter, and my dad, a Tory. My mum is much more anti-monarchy than my dad, who is someone that I wholly agree with on the monarchy issue, being, they are important to us.
Culturally, the monarchy is basically just a tradition. Even with them being constitutional, that has been going on for almost 400 years now, the British Empire has had more constitutional monarchs than absolute.
Economically, they pay taxes, and they bring in a lot of money from tourism. If we were to remove them, considering they still have millions of pounds in their pockets (most of it not coming from taxpayer money, and even then it's very small) and the castles and lands they have are privately owned, they could sell them off to some other person or just demolish them, so then we wouldn't even get any money off of those landmarks and tourism would drop.
Drama. Ironically, us Brits love drama and the royal family gives us a ton, and it's often more interesting than that of Bojo and the Boys.
Militarily. The military is, first and foremost, he majesties, and many are going to be loyal to the monarchy, I'd say at least a good 10-15%. Considering also that the Royal Guards are some of the highest trained military professionals on the planet, if someone were to say, try and overthrow her... they'd have a hard time, especially with the uproar from the common people such as myself.
Internationally. As the head of state she represents the country in many foreign affairs and by the country, I mean, the country. She and the Royal Family are a-politcal politicians, simply doing what George V did, working for the betterment of the British people.
As a common British citizen, as well as someone who can't even vote yet 😢 I have to say that even though most of my friends disagree with me, I still love them and will gladly fight for Queen and country.
Not for Andrew though.
The episode was painful to watch as it laid bare how I feel in social situations as a socially awkward person. @.@ I related so much to Thatcher in this scene, a fish out of water, who suffers from the environment she is placed in despite the Queen's gracious hospitality.
Except Thatcher wasn't impressed with them at all and wasn't crushed.
JJ, always excited to see your videos every week, keeps me sane during quarantine.
It would be great to see a video on a framework on how we could answer the question “is Elizabeth II a good queen” I always thought your best videos don’t necessarily answer a question but give a perspective on how to think about it
I love this channel because it’s the only one which content keeps getting better and better. Extremely interesting work, J.J.!
-Your long-time loyal fan from Syria!
As a person from Hong Kong, this whole middle class thing ia never something really existed to me. You are either rich, crazy rich or poor. Legit, all of my friends are multi millionaires and my apartment cost the same as a mansion in Toronto.
What's the poverty situation like in Hong Kong anyway?
I would propose that the upper-middle class divide in PRC is between Communist Party Insiders and those outside the political system trying to earn money.
It's not because you don't experience it that it doesn't exist. "Rich" and "middle class", in this video, can be better translated to "aristocratic" and "bourgeois", a distinction that is probably faint in HK (as in most of the world outside of Europe). Rich people in Hong Kong probably have a mix of bourgeois and aristocratic values, depending on how old their money is. What makes the middle class distinguished from being simply "poor" ("working class", not mentioned in the video), is the insufferable attitude of trying to impress all the time, because they can become poor if they don't work hard.
I really felt for Thatcher in that episode. Really frustrating when you have to attend to trivial stuff (convention, pointless meetings, conference, cocktails, etc...) when you know you got a pile of important work to do.
A great analysis of the episode and class. Thatchers problem (someone else made this observation but I can't remember who) seemed to be that she thought everyone would be like her. A hard worker who rose from being the daughter of a shopkeeper to a barrister (she was studying chemistry as well but switched) who became a head of the country. All that in a country that had never seen a female head of state ( she herself doubted it would happen). Head of the conservative party despite not being a conservative in many respects. She idolized friedrich Hayek who himself denounced conservatism as an impediment to progress due to wanting to preserve the status quo. It's a nice tough her quoting a chartist. The champion of the free market quoting a proto Marxist
I find it really interesting that JJ came to such a different conclusion from me on what The Crown's message about the monarchy was.
Perhaps the show mirrors reality so well that there is no single message, just like real life it's what you make of it.
I mean, I've only watched one episode.
@@JJMcCullough lol!
May not agree with Thatchers policies or the way things went when she was in charge but as JJ says you got to respect how she climbed her way up to PM from her beginnings
Nah, you dont.
Whats sad is her later years in office you can see that the Royals were displeased for the amount or people in her cabinet she changes and her party as well for being for them too extreme as she attacks the looming EU and other problems within the party. But here in the US we respect Thatcher for what she did to her country but sad that her country's upper class it's elite and those folks in universities who claim to be big shit but in the end are embarrassed of their upbringing and live in squander, all these folks trash her for who she is and what she did.
@@bearworldwide101 She literally brought a large percentage of poverty in the UK. And no one, literally no one, admires her work in the US. That is probably just you and a bunch of conservatives that do not at all represent the whole country.
@@bearworldwide101 Mighty rich coming from someone who knows nothing about british politics. Its not the rich and powerful who hate Thatcher its the working class. If you don't even know who hates her the most then you don't know shit. Shes literally the most hated PM among the working class ever. The upper class don't give a shit about her
Gotta admire how someone climbed up from humble beginnings, to then totally trash the social safety net that helped her get there... fucking bellend
I think that as far as the Queen living by leisure upper class standards, that’s kind of the point. Those rules, procedures, and protocols are there because the Monarch, whoever that may be at any given time, must adhere to a strict behavior and lifestyle. Elizabeth spends much of the earlier seasons discovering this and at times, disagreeing with it. I’d say the more accurate way to look at it would be, she did her job flawlessly but unfortunately her job was flawed from its very nature.
Check out the rules and procedures for job interviews in japan.
The interesting part about season 4 is that they really make everyone seem so much worse as people than they did in previous seasons. Not only was the family bad for forcing Charles to marry Diana but Charles is also portrayed as pretty sinister, manipulative, and abusive. Not only was the Queen criticized for being out of touch, Thatcher is pretty much portrayed as racist when they have to deal with South African sanctions, and additionally Thatcher is shown to be a fierce sexist even to her own daughter. Thatcher even has some weird so called "upper class"/entitled tendencies, for example when her son got lost in Algeria leg of the Paris-Dakar Rally, she was strongly against thanking the search parties who found him because "it was their job to do so" and honestly her son Mark is characterized quite similarly to the Queen's second son Prince Andrew in the show, they are both arrogant and entitled, but also very loving to their mothers.
I think thatcher as born in the 20s either racist or live in culture with no political correctness political correctness is modern from 60s her generation was different!
@@charlesray4084 There's a huge difference between not being politically correct and literally supporting apartheid south africa.
@@rudradixit460 I think we were correct not to radar tecnolgy from south africa had resorces was used to fight the soviet union the issue was national secruity and economcis many times sanctions don,t work !I also think ridicouls most people don,t care buying products from china people only pretned they care about human rights they torture muslims and ban democracy the whole world is hyprocrtical!
@@rudradixit460 see my reply thank for the repply a friendly disagreement!
I really love these types of videos of like analyzing an episode or cartoon! I think you do it well without a lot of fru-fru purple language conclusions
This is really a gem of a channel I'm so glad I discovered it 3 days ago!
Considering Thatcher's reputation in the UK is already pretty terrible amongst many Brits today, I don't think her image will improve in the years to come
Her reputation in the UK is not terrible and she’s generally regarded as one of our best Prime Ministers. Just because left-wing activists hate her doesn’t mean that’s representative of the British public in the slightest.
@@nathanhirst97 no she has a terrible reputation among the working class - it's just the Tories who have a weird Oedipus hard on for her
@@epicfailtom you think she won the largest majorities in British Parliamentary history without the support of the working class..? she had wide-ranging support, and the only reason Labour activists still bang on about how much the working class hated her is because the truth is that she managed to engage them far better than socialists or trade unionists ever could. and that’s something they can’t allow to be true- so even 35 years after her premiership they still have to bang on about her all the time.
@@epicfailtom my entire family is from the Labour heartlands in the North, most of them still vote Labour to this day, but they’re all willing to accept that Thatcher could attract the working class better than Labour. sound familiar to anything that happened recently?
Tony Blair isn't the most popular guy in Britain either and I don't see Labour giving him pats on the back for his reign in power over on 10 Downing
I don't think Elizabeth II has necessarily been a "bad" queen. The Crown seasons 1-2 explore her early reign and give much-needed background to how the Queen is expected to be based on past traditions (however outdated) and protocol.
In British custom, they split the government into the "dignified" and the "functional," and it is pretty obvious which one the Queen is fulfilling. I don't think it means that she is a bad queen, just that the role of royalty is, in itself, an outdated and pointless construct.
The question of Elizabeth being a good monarch is quite difficult, linked to the greater issue with our monarchy in general, they can't really do much/exercise political power against any elected government without a massive backlash. Given we're unlikely to see the kind of national struggle (such as the world wars) where a figurehead to rally around would be useful, a good monarch ideally keeps quiet, does certain ceremonies and at their most useful acts as a tool for diplomacy (allowing international tours/receiving of foreign dignitaries without taking up the elected governments time).
I think it’s a bit silly to argue that Britain over the last 60-whatever years has never faced a moment in which a principled monarch could’ve exercised some leadership to the British public. The queen almost never speaks to the British public unless it’s about herself.
@@JJMcCullough the queen is supposed to be completely politically neural and the best way to do that is to not do anything
I love your videos, JJ, but this has to be one of my absolute favorites.
Thank you! Because you love the Crown?
Feel free to make more videos like this! Very different format, but I think it really suits you!
I would like to, but it's too much of a hassle with the copyright claims.
@@JJMcCullough understandable
I would love to see some kind of discussion like this but with working vs middle class. As someone who's moved between these two classes in my lifetime I would find it fascinating. I'm sure it would be relatable to a lot of other viewers as well, as I imagine many more of us have migrated between poverty middle class than have gone between middle wealthy.
I like that jj is experimenting with deeper, more thought provoking videos
I love that you love all of these things and share your insights. Thank you.
Margaret Thatcher wasn’t middle-class. She grew up without an indoor toilet, and went to a grammar school on a scholarship and then got a scholarship for Oxford. The reason the left-wing hate her is not because she embodied middle-class ideals, it’s because she was an embodiment of working-class ideals which attracted the working-class better than socialists or the Labour movement ever could. That’s why, to this day, they have to tell you how much the working-class hate her. Because the reality is that she managed to get overwhelming Parliamentary majorities- which would be completely impossible without the support of the working-class.
@HailToTheHorse coal miners ≠ the working class
Your attention to details (or let's maybe call them easter eggs?) is so inspiring! Even for images that are on screen for less than a second, you really pour your heart into making them! I appreciate that a lot and I hope you know, that we stop the video and admire them every once in a while! I really hope to do this as well with my videos.
You're too kind. I feel like even small moment add up, and contribute to the "feel" of the channel, so it's always worth putting effort into everything.
Margaret Thatcher representing the working class for the first time in her life
😏
Only time, most probably
Middle class.
@@JJMcCullough all the same to the upper class, I would argue
Huh?
Having watched the whole series as a non-Anglophilic American, I think the conclusion the series comes to is a bit different than the one you have here. The general gist of it seems to be that Liz *could* have been great if she'd had any power, but she didn't, and she was born into a world where the UK was just bleeding to death as well. So, in the face of all that, she simply does the best she can with what little wiggle room she has available to her.
Yeah, she's upper class and out of touch, but she's continually portrayed as being extremely principled, and she takes her few roles very seriously. Also, she has far more gumption than most royals in the modern era. They also point out that she's emotionally distant and a very bad mother.
In the end, I see it as a series in which a head of state is powerless to do much but watch over the decline and fall of the largest empire in history, and turn into an also-ran nation that can't deny its dependence on the US.
@@lukewilliams1666 Oh, absolutely. Giving 43 billion to rebuild the UK after WW2 was *totally* an example of us screwing them over. How dare we try to make sure they can feed their own people! ;)
@@mahatmarandy5977 Forcing us to give up our Empire.
@@mahatmarandy5977 Screwing us over Suez
@@mahatmarandy5977 Not entering WW2 at the start and forcing Britain and France to do the heavy lifting thus bankrupting the country.
Luke Williams you're taking this much more seriously than my hokey jokey comment was intended. But, I mean, if you wanna go there, have fun. I'm not.
That Thatcher came from a middle class i can't deny, but to say that it's agenda was aimed to middle-class is so debatable...
I give her the benefit of the doubt, back then the outcome of those policies wasn't known, so maybe she genuinely though that she was doing good? I don't know, maybe, she still supported a bunch of Neoliberal dictatorships abroad so maybe she was more aware, at the end she ended up hurting the middle and lower classes a lot, in the UK and abroad, and trying to put it otherwise as J.J. does here is disingenuous.
You don't have to like her politics, but it's very obvious her entire political rise and success was fueled by middle class support.
@@JJMcCullough. As a Tory politican, her supported was heavily dependent on the middle classes. That being said signature achievement was to win over larger sections of the skilled or "respectable" working classes (the C2s in the social grading system), than previous Conservative leaders (at least since the 1930s).The prospect of being propelled into the middle class via buying their council house, shares in privitised utilities and greater ease of becoming self-employed, was very appealing.
@@Hyperventilacion. How did Thatcher hurt the middle classes during her priemership? No Tory government would have survived doing so, and the various tax cuts, house price booms and privisations were popular among the middle classes. They heavily benefitted from them. Even the anti-trade Union legislation, even was popular among them. You have to remember trade unionism was culturally anathema to the British middle classes outside of the public sector, and white collar workers, managers and private sector professionals have never been prominent trade unionists outside of Nordics (due to the Ghent system of social insurance).
@@williamfrancis5367
I feel as though the comment section is failing to address how British Vs Canadians and Americans use the term “Middle Class” to describe what brits call working class. I think a lot of this comes down to Britain having a much more rigid hereditary class system.
Most people in the uk who earn a working class salary under 30k pre tax can afford a decent standard of living on a global scale but not an amount of money to provide security ie investments or property
This commentary provides a great context for everything in the show. As a viewer from the middle class, part of what captures my attention is trying to figure out and understand the values behind the decisions/actions of the characters (most of which are very alien to me). You should also watch the episode where Thatcher asked The Queen who her favorite child was and how The Queen went to great lengths to know her children.
Thatcher was the most middle-classy when it comes to background, but her politics was not.
@@philipnowell8489 Obviously not
Britain was in a spiral of inflation and economic mismanagement by the end of the 70s. Thatcher's treatment could have been less harsh and more compromised but something had to be done.
We can't rewind the tape and play it back but I am pretty sure the UK would be in a worse position than what Greece is now, had she not done what was required. Pretending things are viable when they're not, ultimately only makes the looming crisis worse when it hits.
I enjoyed watching your video. It’s well structured and your narration (and writing) were easy to understand.
I’ve not watched The Crown series but I have viewed scenes on UA-cam including the “enemies” poem.
My sense is that the show attempts to be balanced in that it depicts both classes as having the pros & cons. There were opportunities to sympathise with Queen Elizabeth and/or Margaret Thatcher; both being mothers for example.
Class can definitely serve to segregate peoples but it’s the decisions and subsequent actions we all make in everyday life that serve to reinforce that idea or defy it.
Thanks again.
See you “Out There!”.
If you needed any proof that JJ is a gay conservative, here's a review of an episode of The Crown where he preaches traditional middle class values
It is perfectly possible to be gay and conservative.
that’s literally what he just said
How do u know if j j is gay
@@maddieudontneedtoknowmylas809 Because he has said so in multiple videos. He even co-hosted a channel called "Gay By Gay"
@@benyseus6325 Yes, I'm gay and liberal "free markets, free economy"
I have been watching his videos lately and I have to say...It's slightly distracting but also really entertaining watching him bob up and down while giving great political, societal, and historical information about the countries out there.
The only time I experienced something "similar" (in my context) was when I went to classmate's appartment to finish a french language group work in Peru. While my family was in the lower middle class, and our income was mostly invested in education, my classmate was, not rich (I think), but upper class: they had a very big appartment in one of the most exclusive areas of Lima; on the other hand my family had just made it to middle class (back when my father was young sometimes they had nothing to eat, and lived in a dangerous neighborhood, but escaped that thanks to education) and we lived in a 3 floor house located in a main street in a low/middle class district of Lima, 2 and a half of which were used for our family business (which we now rent since we have moved to Canada... yeah, that was fast). Tbh, they were good, but the only thing that I didn't like was their speaking german in dinner time (which gave that feeling that they were hiding something), and ignoring us from time to time (I wasn't the only one).
For that reason, here in Canada, I try to avoid using spanish if non-spanish speakers are around: I don't want others to experience the same thing I felt back then.
I hope you've had a chance to keep up your Spanish skills, my fellow Canuck.
@@jk3jk35 We moved to Canada last year, so, yes... but sometimes I forget a few words, since I work in french, browse the internet in english, and some of my hobbies are in japanese.
Wow! Another hit out of the park! Really enjoyed this video. I'll have to check out The Crown.
You should watch season 4 Episode 5. It's about an unemployed painter , it shows another form of clash of class values. It also puts thatcher's politics into question
Please do more analysis like this. You make such interesting points. Great video.
Hey, I was wondering where did you get the Liberal Democrat and Conservative party badges from? I'm a member of the UK Conservative party and was wondering if you could do a video on the centre-right parties of Europe, but also the West as a whole.
Such a fun video! I'd to see JJ do a future video where he gets to take the Balmoral test himself in another fictionalized setting of his choice, maybe with guest actors or video editing tricks.
My main gripe with this episode is that like 95% of the situations that Thatcher finds herself in couldve been avoided by her just like, you know... Calling the previous prime minister to inform herself a priori.
You have a poor understanding of English class. Not British class. There’s a difference. But the upper class and working class are united on one issue. Their loathing of the middle classes. The upper class see them as ridiculous parodies of the ruling class. And they have a condescension of not being truly poor which also makes the working class loathe them too. In season 5 of the crown the queen even says to Margaret “that was so middle class don’t say it again”. Rightly so. And also for the record Margaret Thatcher wasn’t middle class. In fact she was derided by her own party by being a “grocers daughter”. One of the grandees she fired said “it was like being dismissed by one’s parlour maid”. She was working class, she went to Oxford and married Dennis who also would be defined as working class. He just happened to have worked up with his business. But thatcher was in fact working class who took some elocution lessons and learned good manners from winning a place at Oxford.
I think the series is worth a full watch. Its first seasons lean more pro-monarchy, but as time goes on the tone becomes gloomier and gloomier, presenting the royals not only as disconnected from the British society, but also as self-destructive.
I wasn't really thinking too much about classes when I was watching it. I felt this more like a secondary element to add a twist of irony to the whole situation. For me, the thing that called the most my attention, is how this episode portraits a contrast between the countryside and the urban life. At the end, the Royal Family is not an urban, but a country one. They are born, educated and grow on the big castles and palaces of the family across the fields and forests of the UK, in a very...old fashion, almost medieval way (The kind of royals that enjoyed hunting, riding horses, fishing, some British or Scottish folkloric sports and that kind of activities). The things they enjoy doing, how they act, spend their free time and play, are basically the same as farmers and other rural people...just, in a very fancy way. In contrast, Tatcher comes directly from the Urban life, and after so many years living as an upper middle class, she is used to wealthy people in the city, and is horrified to find the horrible fashion, bad manners, weird games, mud, dirt and lack of touch and class in such a wealthy and upper family. In a previous episode, the queen's husband says "What people don't know about us, is that we are not refined. We are savages. We know how to behave in front of non savages. But we are nothing more than country people that can barely know where to point the UK in the map." Something that Tatcher confirms during the episode, realizing they are snob, basic and not refined people. The irony that the supper upper class is the unrefined, irrational and vulgar, and the middle is the classy, rational, and refined is the final twist in everything.
as someone who absolutely hates margaret thatchet and her politics, this episode made me quite sympathetic to her. anyone in the position of having to deal with the unbearable people at the upper classes of society gets a bit of respect, even if in reality her policies really only wore down and made things harder for the working class.
really enjoyed this type of content from your channel
This season of the crown, and this video, effectively illustrates why people who see themselves as conservative have a great distain for monarchy as a form of government, even a constitutional monarchy.
The primary principle is, you get what you *earn*.
Tradition is no excuse for entitlement.
Well i agree but if you make this a principal you must abolish inhartance bec the person who will inherit didn't earn it
Conservatives are not the only ones with disdain for the monarchy, indeed I expect their obsession with tradition and resistance to change makes them more likely to support a monarchy. As for "you get what you earn", then why are so many self-described conservatives obsessed with eliminating the estate tax?
I'm conservative and I support monarchy
@@belg4mit apples and oranges. A monarch’s interested wrath is not earned through grit and hard work. It’s done through taxes and wrath that’s been past down through loot.
Compare it to a middle class father who wants to pass his holdings to his children.
1. That wealth might be divided amongst the kids if there’s more than one.
2. The lions share of capital may go to the more responsible one of the children.
3. That wealth might be donated to an institution or anyone else that person trusts.
Trying to compare monarchy to middle class wealth transfer is farcical
I think typically conservatives will be more likely to support the monarchy in Britain at least
Thanks for this video. This was one of my favorite episodes. Gillian Anderson did such an amazing job portraying Thatcher. You were able to put into words many of the thoughts I had during this episode.
My take on Queen Elizabeth is different than many. After seeing “The Queen “ (Helen Mirren), then The Crown and doing a lot of my own research, I actually feel sorry for her in many ways. She wanted to spend her life breeding horses. But instead she was obligated to live a different life.
She never got to make any choices about the direction of her own life. Her duty to “The Crown” consumed her personality, individuality and her soul. Sure, she was rich and powerful. But there were so many limitations on her power and her actions. Much of life was spend going through the silly motions of royalty and doing what other people told her she must or mustn’t do!
Elizabeth has been a good Queen, when considering the position the Queen holds in Britain. The monarch today is little more than a figurehead for the people to rally around, as Parliament and the PM hold the most actual power. If the people love her, then she has succeeded in all she truly needs to do.
A really great analysis!
Another award winning ode to middle class culture. Love it!
Would love to see more stuff like this!
Most people don't have the Queen's work ethic and I hope history doesn't judge her through the lense of middle class snobbery.
Work ethic? I don’t think there’s any evidence at all that she works particularly hard at anything.
Then you have no understanding of her influence, in the world, or her strength of character. She has dedicated her life, starting at 16, to serving the commonwealth. While you may not appreciate what she has done or it's impact on the world she is not some lazy debutant worried about her manicure. Yes, she's gone fox hunting and her life may be unrealatable to most people that does not mean she doesn't get up every morning and serve until she goes to bed. Her role may be outdated but she is no less important, to her time, than any politiian wanting the best for the people that she has serves.
@@shilow7586 where’s the evidence that she works hard?
Her life is well documented. Netflix may not be the most reliable source. I under stand that seasons 1 and 2 of the The Crown are supposed to be better than the 3 and 4 though I haven't watched them. To scratch the surface she starts her day with 3 plus hours reiviewing goverment documents and meets with the Prime Minister once a week. She cut back the number of events she does every year to 200 after turning 90. She does a tremdous amount of charity and diplomatic work. She works most days. She does a Christmas address don't remember if it's Christmas day or christmas eve. @@JJMcCullough
@J.J. McCullough The Queen receives a “Red Box” filled with important government documents from the Cabinet and the foreign office that she reads, reviews and signs every day, except for Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. She weekly meets and discussed with the Prime Minister, and conducts about 300 engagements every year. If you think she just sits at Buckingham Palace or is out hunting 24/7 you’re woefully uninformed
I remember this episode. The thing that stuck out to me was how disconnected with nature Thatcher was. Not sure if that was related to class but I thought it was interesting how foreign the outdoors was to her. Like the forest and hills were an alien planet.
Such a harsh but factually accurate explanation of queen Elizabeth value (or lack, thereof) in this world. :)
OK.
Where are you from Thabang? What model for a head of state does your nation use?
What do you mean lack of value? Both at home and internationally, she has more value than most politicians.
What I remember from that episode is that the royals seemed more down to earth than previous presented. That Tatcher was hard driven and unbending, she did not ask the staff to guide her when she was clearly lost and she followed her own ideas of what upper class people should behave like. In the end we saw how she acted similar in politics, going hard in her own way without input from others.
If I think Elizabeth has been a good queen? She seems to have succeeded with the duties presented in the series, so somewhere she has kept her goal
I really think you’re “thesis” is inherently flawed, and you dance around the more accurate conclusion throughout the video.
Neither Thatcher or the Royals are particularly good or bad in this episode, just incredibly different and refusing to bend to one another. In fact the only one who tried to reach out to the other at any point was QE2, though we already know that the two women don’t particularly like each other so it’s half-assed Ag best, but still more than thatcher or the rest of the royals do.
It’s not like the royals hobbies are guarded secrets. If Thatcher just asked around/studied on the royals she would’ve known they’re outdoorsmen. It’s honestly a pretty logical conclusion to prepare for the outdoors when going to a place in the middle of nowhere. I think it shows the more historic cultural divides that started to emerge in the UK and US around that time between rural and urban, as well as Thatcher’s own personal failings. The rest of the series explores how she refuses to examine even the slightest criticism from anyone, and in fact fires those who do. Thatcher’s belief in her own infallibility is really shown in the episode 48:1
After the first season, which deals with WWII and her father's ascension, every "conflict" has been made up rich people problems, the husband is bored, the sister is bored, the done likes one amazing private school better than another... Yet it focuses very little on any positive impact they may actually have on the country
*My body is physically shaking trying to sympathize with Thatcher-*
fr
Dead for nearly a decade, but she still triggers left-wingers from beyond the grave. lul
@@TheAmericanPrometheus cus she was terrible lmao, her own party chucked her at the end
@@mohammedsarker5756 She got a big boost from the Falklands, but ultimately her domestic policies were too unpopular for her to remain.
@@TheAmericanPrometheus well actually im a Republican.
*an Irish Republican-*
Like hell Thatcher represents anything about working class culture. She completely gutted the middle classes way of life economically. I think the episode serves more of a purpose in showing a new course in what the upper class is turning into.
ua-cam.com/video/ZJh0m0E7Ozg/v-deo.html
-Margaret Thatcher
-Ridiculed by the royals
-Diana
-Praised by the royals
Hmm, something's not right.
The deer stalking comes up in other media about the royal family. I think it was the movie "the Queen" which is a dramatization of the aftermath of Diana's death from the Queen's perspective.Prince Phillip is seen talking about it and planning on taking harry and Will. At a later point someone else kills the stag and Elizabeth goes to see the body hung up.
I didn't think ide like the crown it not usually my type of program I like but it's good, Gillian Anderson playing M.Thatcher was brilliant at it. 😊
I'm like you, I can't get sucked in to TV shows and movies very easily; it runs in my family. I loved seeing the Maryland flag in the background!
funny how a person from the middle class did so much for the upper class
Trickle down theory
Wonderful - the depth of your analysis is top-notch!
I would love to see you analyze an episode of *Downton Abbey*
Downton Abbey is an interesting take on the end of the old world landed aristocracy and the beginning of what it means to be middle class in the context of capitalism.
Great video JJ! Always thought provoking and intelligent.
I think you could say the same about season 4 episode 5 “Fagen” but instead regarding upper class and lower class.
Thank you, Your Holiness, very cool
Good analysis!
I am shouting ibble dibble in the back of my mind why watching this
Is this a mainstream British game?
@@JJMcCullough I don't know. I am from India. It's catchy though😂
@@JJMcCullough absolutely not, the royals are well know for their bizarre rituals and games. Apparently monopoly is banned at Christmas by the queen
Brilliant analysis. As regards to the series itself. I personally feel the series shines a light on this notion of “The Crown” as an entity with a symbiotic relationship which can be beneficial if not oftentimes parasitic to the Windsor family. At least that’s my personal opinion