Kingdom

 

Digital media has its disadvantages. One of them for me is a British sitcom, Kingdom. The greatest disappointment of this show is its title-role star, Stephen Fry, the closest thing to a living secular saint in the minds of many nonbelievers. If you are curious about this, you can find Kingdom on Netflix. That is not a recommendation, just information. 

The only upside of watching Mr. Fry play a saintly lawyer, an oxymoron which should have warned me off immediately, is being afforded a concrete example of contemporary political-correctness based in stupidity. I have encountered this brand of political-correctness in various upper middle class circles for some time. I now have a glaring example of it to refer to, when greeted with incredulous stares as I rant against it.

In this farce-without-irony, Mr. Fry, who has admitted to suffering with bipolar illness, is the benign brother to an aggressively manic sister, who has escaped from a mental institution. Mind you, this family is not poor. Her institution was most likely rather posh. She also confesses to having sexually seduced her psychiatrist there. Fry's character looks at her wistfully as she destroys his house, destroys legal files and seduces multiple workmen whom she hires at Fry's expense without his permission. 

When Kingdom, Fry's character, isn't being masochistic and enabling at home, he is being amiably manipulative in his small community while trying to avoid actually practicing law. He befriends an illegal immigrant who is an unpleasant young woman with an illegitimate child by her exploitative employer. Kingdom smiles condescendingly at her, as though dealing with a child. Then he subverts immigration law with all the various loopholes to keep this woman in England in the name of motherhood. This is all done with misty-eyed cuteness. 

Kingdom's sexuality is masked, though we know Fry to be openly homosexual. He flirts gently with his costar/friend, Celia Imrie. Her character is one of the saner members of the cast. However, she is made to look fussy and stupid. She plays the submissive female to Fry's daddy-knows-best pontifications. Kingdom has managed to hire a muscular twink as a legal intern. The intern plays straight, but there is a queasy ambivalence in the relationship between boss and intern. This is consistent with the back-to-the-1950s tone of the show. 

The most consistent hallmark of the show is a tolerance composed of one part stupidity, one part indifference and one part conformity. I found it annoying. The lack of skeptical, scientific or educational bias was blatant. "Let's just be nice and everything will work out," is the message, despite ample evidence in every scene that this philosophy is itself dysfunctional in the situation. 

I do not doubt that Mr. Fry may be cynical enough as an actor and entrepreneur of his own brand to have participated in this for the money. Yet I find this possibility, the kindest I can imagine, to be very disappointing as a secular humanist. Fry has promoted himself as an icon of secular humanism. If this show represents his view of what that means to him, I think the humanist movement is in serious trouble.