UK import Downton Abbey wrapped up its stint on PBS last weekend, complete with an appeasing note to viewers already howling about the ending (gosh, I hope the outbreak of the First World War wasn’t a spoiler for anyone), noting that another season is in production and will hopefully be making its way here soon. Helmed by Julian Fellowes of Gosford Park fame, the show has made a big splash on both sides of the pond, and no wonder; it represents British drama at its best, such a brilliant distillation of art and culture that producers in the US didn’t dare attempt to produce a hamfisted ‘adaptation’ to sully the airwaves, instead going straight to the source.
Set in the tense years before the outbreak of World War I, Downton Abbey could fall into the trap of glamorising the golden age. It’s certainly set up to do so, with the drama revolving around the lives of the Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) and his family living in a great manor house, the titular character. And make no mistake, Downtown Abbey is a character in the drama, just as the costuming and setting also play vital roles.
Yet, the series doesn’t make the mistake of idealising the era it depicts. Even as we watch our wealthy characters trapped in amber while the world starts to speed around them, the detailed, regimented nature of their lives is cracking at the seams. It’s not just the revolutionary chauffeur, the maid who wants to leave service and become a secretary, and the rumbling of guns in the distance. Within the household, men and women alike are challenging the norms of their era even as they cling to them; Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown-Findlay) is out canvassing for the vote, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) is embarking on extracurricular bedroom activities, and their mother, Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), is quietly egging them on with the quiet assistance of the Dowager Countess (brilliantly played by Maggie Smith).
The meticulous attention to detail and research shows in every scene of Downton Abbey, and it’s clear the producers drew heavily on the experiences of people who actually worked in service in houses like this to learn more about the myriad details of life in a great house and to tell the story from the point of view of people in service with honesty and integrity. While there are some anachronisms, it’s hard to tell if they’re really anachronisms or shifting norms—Lord Grantham seems unusually friendly and compassionate with the servants, but he’s also living in an era when class structures were starting to break down and boundaries were starting to blur. ‘Us’ and ‘them’ are increasingly fuzzy categories.
Downton Abbey contains complex and detailed meditations on class, and one of the most astounding things about the show’s success in the United States is the fact that viewers here seem to be grasping the importance of class on the show, as well as the fine and nuanced details. From accents to corsets, the show is filled with layers of class signaling as well as pushing at the boundaries of class and propriety, a common theme in this era.
Astute viewers may note parallels between the tarnish on the gilded age of Downton Abbey and our own class problems today. While the show often insulates viewers from social inequality, it becomes inescapable every time we slip down the servants’ stairs or step out into the surrounding community. Whether our characters are attending political rallies turned riot as a result of growing dissatisfaction with social inequality or questioning the very tradition of service and its implications in the privacy of the servant’s hall, Downton Abbey holds a lens to viewers in the modern world and forces them to think about structural and hereditary inequalities.
It also contains a fascinating exploration of disability; numerous disability themes run throughout the first season, and I have high hopes that they will continue into the second. The First World War marked incredible advances in battlefield medicine and a corresponding dramatic increase in the numbers of injured veterans who went home. Rather than dying on the battlefield, they returned to their communities, confronting people with the reality of war even as they were forced to adjust to acquired disability in a world very much lacking in accommodations. We can assume that the next season will open during or after the war, and given the large numbers of young men playing key roles, I suspect we will be seeing a lot more disability (and perhaps a few white feathers).
John Bates (Brendan Coyle), a man with a limp from a war injury, serves as Lord Grantham’s valet. The two have a history together going back to time spent in military service, and the show dances around the theme of disability, from other servants questioning Bates’ ability to serve to Lord Grantham insisting on retaining him. While the show does play into noble cripple and pity stereotypes with its framing, it also challenges viewers to think about the role of disability, and discrimination, in their own lives. Another disability storyline centers around the cook, Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol), and her increasing vision problems.
Downton Abbey is not pitch perfect. The show features a regrettable and unnecessarily racist storyline drawing upon the worst of sheikh romance stereotypes; the impetuous Turk, the wilting English lily powerless in the face of his seduction. While it’s clear the producers wanted to explore sexuality and the heavy punishment for such among women of the upper classes (Lady Edith calls her sister Lady Mary a “slut” after her fall from grace), they would have done much better by using white characters and avoiding the obvious racial overtones. It seems unlikely, at this point, that the storyline was included as a form of commentary. Rather, it appears to be an entirely thoughtless repetition of very old and damaging mythology.
Stumbles and all, Downton Abbey is fabulous drama with a great deal to sink your teeth into; I’m looking forward to rewatching and teasing the layers apart all over again in the coming months while I wait for the second season.
Photo by Jonjames 1986 licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
Turks are Caucasians. If you wanted to complain about the identity of Lady Mary’s lover, you should have commented on his nationality, not his race.
This about says it all. This show really made you feel like “a fly on the wall” of that era in that manor. happily awaiting the second season.
Love Downtown Abbey and generally agree with your review. However, the comments on political correctness were absolute nonsense.
The handsome, passionate Turk was the perfect literary device to obliterate the cool and detached Mary’s defenses and make her actions all the more scandalous in the English high society. If she’d have given way to an ordinary Englishman, her behavior would have been less understandable to the audience. The Turkish character also allowed the author to throw in a historical context of “Turkey negotiating for the creation of a country called Albania”, which gave his presence roots and a context. There was nothing “racist” whatever about it. He was a gorgeous, testosterone-driven man that any woman might have fallen for.
Also where you saw, “pity for the cripple”, I saw a tremendously brave character who faced quite the opposite, a complete lack of compassion from those around him, and whose character continually unfolded to be that of a noble and honorable man –one to be emulated, not “pitied’.
Real characters in history — or in the present — are not always politically correct, and attempting to sanitize historical dramas would simply result in turning out saccharine, boring and less than believable characters and stories. Thankfully, Downton Abbey does NOT fall into that category!