(Post)colonial friendships and Empire 2.0: A Brexit reading of Victoria & Abdul

Abstract

ABSTRACT A 2018 report published by the British think tank Demos claims that, in Britain, “nostalgic rhetoric clearly played a significant role in the Referendum campaign, in particular, emphasising particular tropes around the Second World War, empire and the ‘re-instation’ of British sovereignty”. Indeed, these tropes feature heavily in popular culture, with several films and TV series centred on Britain’s imperial past. Taking on board Nadine El-Enany’s suggestion that “Brexit is not only an expression of nostalgia for empire, but it is also the fruit of empire”, this article discusses the role of imperial fantasies in the debate over Britain’s membership of the European Union and draws a connection between these fantasies and recent re-presentations of Britain’s imperial past on screen. Focusing in particular on Stephen Frears’s Victoria & Abdul (2017), it argues that the film offers a sanitized version of the empire, which contributes to the reproduction of nostalgic imperial fantasies in post-European Britain.