Aj Langer Countess, When I was about 15 years old I had a smart-aleck thing I liked to say whenever anyone brought up the subject of marriage: When and if I ever get married, there are only two circumstances in which I would consider changing my name—if my husband-to-be’s last name gave me a nice drag queen-esque pun to go by (Rachel Riots, for example, or Rachel Tension), or if I was going to get a title, like I’d become one of the Countess of Grantham or Dutchess of Devonshire, or something like that. Then, of course, I’d laugh because obviously neither of those things was going to happen. I had never even heard of a man with a last name of, say, “Inequality.” And as for the title, yeah right. How the hell was some weird little Jewish girl going to break into the English nobility? (It’s telling perhaps, that the idea of continental aristocracy never occurred to me; even as a sophomore in high school I had standards.)
Well, now I know that it’s not impossible! A.J. Langer, better known as Rayanne Graff, the wild-child punk rock friend of Claire Danes on the seminal 90’s drama My So-Called Life—and if you think I’m using the word “seminal” lightly here, just say the words “Jordan Catalano” to any woman of your acquaintance in her early to mid 30’s and see what happens—has just become the Countess of Devon. Since 2005, Langer has been married to Charles Courtenay, an Old Etonian and lawyer who is the scion of one of the U.K.’s oldest aristocratic families. She has just assumed the title of “countess” upon the death of her father-in-law, the Earl of Devon.
An earldom, just like the Earldom of Grantham. That’s what we’re talking about here. The former queen of the alt kids of the fictional Liberty High School is now, in the quaint terms of the British press, the chatelaine of Powderham Castle, parts of which have been standing since the 14th century, and whose former occupant, the 18th Earl of Devon, was so starchily conservative he made headlines in 2008 for refusing to allow a gay couple to rent the palace for their wedding. Ricky Vasquez would have been very moodily wounded about that.
But honestly, I couldn’t be more tickled about the prospect of Countess Rayanne, and not just because it seems to show that not every handsome British aristocrat wants to marry some boring pseudo-posh girl like Kate Middleton, who will spend the rest of her life redecorating the country house in tasteful neutrals while meticulously ironing out the prickly eccentricities of the family as though the British upper classes were a glossy sheet of her own impeccably tended hair. It also means that Langer, a woman I once saw on the cover of Shofar magazine in 1995, is now living a life like something out of Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers. (I still wonder why my mother never stopped renewing my subscription? Or did it just come, unbidden, like a synagogue news bulletin or an invitation to apply for yet another credit card?)
The reason My So-Called Life has had such a lasting appeal isn’t because its viewer’s identified with any single character; it’s because we identified with all of them. We understood Angela’s sense of being caught between two worlds; Rayanne’s studied fearlessness; Brian Krakow’s stunted romantic yearnings; Ricky’s feelings of isolation. Langer’s ascension to the upper ranks of the ultimate establishment brings with it a kind of nostalgia: the weird kids of the 90’s are all grown up. We became the adults who didn’t seem to understand us. And for a bunch of people who were told they’d never fit in, including myself, there are vanishingly few clubs that will no longer have us as a member. It’s a bittersweet feeling indeed.
Well, now I know that it’s not impossible! A.J. Langer, better known as Rayanne Graff, the wild-child punk rock friend of Claire Danes on the seminal 90’s drama My So-Called Life—and if you think I’m using the word “seminal” lightly here, just say the words “Jordan Catalano” to any woman of your acquaintance in her early to mid 30’s and see what happens—has just become the Countess of Devon. Since 2005, Langer has been married to Charles Courtenay, an Old Etonian and lawyer who is the scion of one of the U.K.’s oldest aristocratic families. She has just assumed the title of “countess” upon the death of her father-in-law, the Earl of Devon.
An earldom, just like the Earldom of Grantham. That’s what we’re talking about here. The former queen of the alt kids of the fictional Liberty High School is now, in the quaint terms of the British press, the chatelaine of Powderham Castle, parts of which have been standing since the 14th century, and whose former occupant, the 18th Earl of Devon, was so starchily conservative he made headlines in 2008 for refusing to allow a gay couple to rent the palace for their wedding. Ricky Vasquez would have been very moodily wounded about that.
But honestly, I couldn’t be more tickled about the prospect of Countess Rayanne, and not just because it seems to show that not every handsome British aristocrat wants to marry some boring pseudo-posh girl like Kate Middleton, who will spend the rest of her life redecorating the country house in tasteful neutrals while meticulously ironing out the prickly eccentricities of the family as though the British upper classes were a glossy sheet of her own impeccably tended hair. It also means that Langer, a woman I once saw on the cover of Shofar magazine in 1995, is now living a life like something out of Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers. (I still wonder why my mother never stopped renewing my subscription? Or did it just come, unbidden, like a synagogue news bulletin or an invitation to apply for yet another credit card?)
The reason My So-Called Life has had such a lasting appeal isn’t because its viewer’s identified with any single character; it’s because we identified with all of them. We understood Angela’s sense of being caught between two worlds; Rayanne’s studied fearlessness; Brian Krakow’s stunted romantic yearnings; Ricky’s feelings of isolation. Langer’s ascension to the upper ranks of the ultimate establishment brings with it a kind of nostalgia: the weird kids of the 90’s are all grown up. We became the adults who didn’t seem to understand us. And for a bunch of people who were told they’d never fit in, including myself, there are vanishingly few clubs that will no longer have us as a member. It’s a bittersweet feeling indeed.
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