Downton Abbey: Englishness as a Commercialized Ideology

As Fredrick Jameson relies on ideology to dismantle postmodernism, this paper aims to challenge the prevailing understanding of the 21st-century interpretation of ideology. It explores how Downton Abbey (2010) expands our understanding of Englishness in the 21st century, how Marx’s commodity fetishism aids in interpreting the English identity, and how Englishness differs from nationalism. The significance of the study lies in its potential to broaden our understanding of Englishness in the 21st century, to examine the differences between Englishness and nationalism within a Marxist framework, and to challenge the familiar perspective of ideology as a commodity fetishism. It employs a Marxist theoretical framework, focusing on three main concepts: commodity fetishism, simulacrum, and imagined community, concluding that the portrayal of Englishness is understood as a commercially driven and ideologically influenced phenomenon. The paper recommends investigating the commodification of nationalism in political products, owing to the conflicts among community members vulnerable to the identity crisis dilemma