Historical Acts in Fiction

After waking up an an awful time for no good reason, I decided to catch up on TV. I started with Downton Abbey, which remains my favorite show on television and which I can watch on pbs.com since I don't have a television. If you're not watching it, you should be. First season is available on Netflix and the second on PBS.

Then I watched my second favorite show on television, Pan Am. I love that era and the jet age, so no surprise there. Sunday's episode ended with Kennedy being shot, but it only showed the initial reports, which all said the President had been shot but was alive. It closed with Maggie (Christian Ricci) stating that he would be alright, he had to be. Of course, the viewer knows its not. The viewer knows that Kennedy is dead and that Maggie, an ardent supporter of the President, is going to be crushed. The viewer knows that all those shocked faces are going to to mourn the loss of the President who was a symbol of youth and change in culture.

It got me thinking about how the viewer having knowledge that the characters don't in historical fictions gives the show a chance to make a point without having to explain it. In the first season of Downton Abbey, the very first thing that happens in that the Titanic sinks. They don't have to talk about the how and the why and they can avoid discussing the larger effects of the event because there is an assumed knowledge. I suspect something similar is going to occur in Pan Am (and has, actually, in the revolution in Cuba). They won't show us Kennedy dying - it will simply be the case because they don't need to tell the viewer that Kennedy dies. It frees them up to focus on the effects that the viewer doesn't already know about - the personal stories that were changed because of things we learn in history. It gives the viewer, most of whom aren't of an age to remember these events, a chance to feel what people were feeling through the characters. If they've done their job, the viewer is attached to the characters and cares about them, so their heartbreaks are ours. We may not, as modern viewers, understand what it means to lose an heir (explaining that is what the first season of Downton Abbey is about) but we get an idea of the suddenness of the Titanic sinking through their dilemma and response. I am not old enough to remember Kennedy being shot (in fact my parents were quite young) but I already anticipate what it will do to Maggie as a character I care about and thus can feel it on her behalf.

It's an interesting device that I hadn't really thought much about until today, but one that I apparently like since I am so fond of historical fiction (Downton, Pan Am, Mad Men, etc). The escapism to a world gone by is one part, certainly, but I think being able to relate, even artificially, with the joys and losses of the characters allows us to experience history in a way that we wouldn't otherwise be able to. It brings history off the books, as it were, and makes it something personal. And isn't that the point of fiction, in addition to entertainment, also to capture the reader or viewer and transport them elsewhere?