MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Contrary to the nostalgia that many Britons have for the post-World War II era, Chris Waters has argued that attempts to secure the imagined community of nation amidst a time of rapid change and uncertainty in 1950s Britain depended on reworking established tropes of little-Englandism against the migrant other. This paper examines recent British television productions - including The Bletchley Circle (ITV, 2012-), Call the Midwife (BBC, 2012-), and The Hour (BBC, 2011-13) - that are set during the 1950s and purport to present a corrective to established notions of the nation at that time. Although ostensibly concerned with asserting corrective gender politics, these shows speak volumes about race and immigration, both explicitly and implicitly. Where discussions of “heritage” programming often descend into reductive categorization and knee-jerk mockery, this paper critically interrogates the anti-nostalgic impulses of this programming, as well as the heroically rose-tinted version of the past that they often represent. The paper further analyzes the promotional discourses that surround, and subsequently shape, the reception of their narratives. Additionally, of central concern are the politics of representation and the dynamics of race that are present in, as well as absent from, the narratives and how such dynamics speak to present day racism, xenophobia, and immigration debates.