North and South: Pride and Prejudice and Unions

Oooh, North and South.  I forget how I found you, but I've watched you probably 4 times in the past two years.  It has everything a girl (or guy) could want: a brooding hero, a plucky heroine, misunderstandings, tension, and STRIKES.  It's like Newsies, only set 50 years earlier in a different country without singing and without Christian Bale dancing his feelings.

Okay, so it's nothing like Newsies.  But it's still AWESOME.



As you probably guessed from the title, North and South is a lot like Pride and Prejudice, if Darcy owned a mill and Lizzy was friends with a union leader.  Margaret Hale, this version's Lizzy, is a smart, independent woman who grew up in the south of England, only to move to "Millton" (a thinly disguised Manchester) with her former clergyman father and sickly mother.  Mr. Darcy is actually Mr. Thornton, a hilariously broody man with HIDDEN DEPTHS.  Mr. Thornton falls in love with Margaret, she thinks he's horrible, he proposes and she refuses, and then she realizes she was wrong and he's actually a really good guy.  If the book this is based on hadn't been written over a century ago, I'd swear this was P&P fanfic.


Margaret Hale, our resident Lizzy Bennet:

No, for real.  She's Lizzy, almost exactly.

Margaret is pretty great, actually.  She takes shit from no one, and calls Mr. Thornton out on his awfulness towards his workers pretty frequently.  I'm a union supporter hardcore, so at times this miniseries was a little tough to watch-- the union members are portrayed as good-intentioned but misguided, and Mr. Thornton's "no morals but capitalism" shtick  *really* rubbed me the wrong way.  Still, Margaret definitely walks the walk, helping out poor families during a strike and befriending a girl far below her social class (which in 1850s England was sort of a big deal).  Plus, her parents are absolutely worthless, so it's sort of impressive that she's a functional adult.  Margaret, I like you.


This is Mr. Broody himself, John Thornton:

He has a rather villainous face, to be honest.

Mr. Thornton has a serious case of the broods, glares, and window stares.  He spends approximately 60% of the four hour miniseries staring out windows, as this is BBC shorthand for "reticent 19th century romantic hero."  You first see him beating the living daylights out of one of his workers, and the first time I saw this, I thought, "Goddammit.  I'm going to be in love with him in under two hours, and I really don't want to be."  (I was right, at least as much as I can love a character with NO SENSE OF HUMOR WHATSOEVER). He's a total mamma's boy, which for some reason cracked me up.  Also, he smiles like, twice in four hours, so don't get your hopes up.  And yes, you will reluctantly come to love him, and then you'll hate yourself for it, just like me.


Mrs. Thornton, the battle axe:

She's a remarkably pretty lady.

As I said before, Mr. Thornton is a total mamma's boy, and  Mrs. Thornton completely owns it.  She's a BAMF, quite frankly, and so hilariously protective of her GROWN ASS SON that you can't help but respect her a little.  You know in 30 Rock when Avery thinks she's going to have a baby boy, and she's all "Every woman he ever dates will be held up to me, AND SHE WILL BE FOUND WANTING"?  Well, Mrs. Thornton is the 19th century version of that.


Fanny Thornton:

Never change, Fanny.  Never change.

Fanny is a little ray of sunshine in the gloomy Thornton household.  She's an idiot, and sort of the only comic relief in the whole miniseries.  I love her *and* I want to smack her.  She's also the only Thornton who doesn't spend most of her time glaring at Margaret through the window, so good for her.


Bessie:

The problem with watching a BBC miniseries is that nearly
every actor or actress in them has been in a bunch of them,
so I spend the first ten minutes trying to figure out
where I've seen them before.  This lady was in Bleak House and
some boring shit about Yorkshire.

Bessie is a lower-class worker that Margaret befriends, pretty much so Margaret can learn what it's like to be a mill worker and that Mr. Thornton is a really nice boss, comparatively.  Bessie also teases Margaret about how good-looking Mr. Thornton is, so points to Bessie for saying what everyone is thinking.



Nicholas Higgins:

MISTAH BAAAATES!

Higgins is Bessie's dad and the union leader.  Even though the overall arc of the union story is "unions are okay, but working with your well meaning boss will get you much farther and don't rock the boat and also capitalism unites us all," (which: NO) I like Higgins.  He's a bit rough around the edges, but much like Mr. Bates, he's a good man.



This historian in me needs to add that this is actually a very good dissection of class anxiety in the mid-19th century.  The tension between what it means to be a "gentleman" is really well done, along with the various types of snobbery-- those in the north look down on the "lazy" southerners, and those from the south find the northerners to be uncouth and vulgar in their pursuit of money.  It's really an excellent snapshot of a changing culture, and I love that.


Verdict: Perfectly Awesome.