I want to keep watching Downton Abbey. I really do.
It’s a show whose virtues are immediately apparent—tremendous acting from virtually the entire cast, striking cinematography, an interesting setting, and an almost obsessive eye for detail, extending to virtually all the production crafts behind the show—costuming, set dressing, even foley, every sound of the house seemingly captured a century ago and replayed now for the viewer’s pleasure.
But it is an empty pleasure indeed. Like the great house itself, which telegraphs wealth and power with every detail of its dressing and architecture but is carried on precarious financial ground, beneath all of the show’s external grace and opulence it is an emotionally bankrupt and poor thing.
I watched all three seasons of the show with two friends over a period of a few weeks, and it’s possible that this pace of viewing exacerbated the problems. To pick one particularly charged example– in the third episode of the first season, eldest daughter Mary is raped by a visitor to the house, Kemal Pamuk, who subsequently dies in her bed.
Now, you won’t see the word “rape” in the show, which is, painfully, appropriate for the time period. Mary has spent the day flirting with this handsome visitor, and when he unexpectedly shows up in her room at night, she insists he leave, rejects him, over and over again, tells him that she’ll scream, to which her rapist replies that no one will hear her. And so ends the scene, with Mary accepting the inevitable, the horrible choice that is not in fact her choice to make at all, that this man will take what he wants of her, because he wants it.
Now, this is not treated as an insignificant event. On the contrary, the events of that night drive the plot for much of the two seasons, as Pamuk’s death and the attendant coverup cause no end of scandal and labyrinthine plotting.
But what of the emotional consequences?
What is it like to have a flirtation turn to threats of violence and unwelcome sex? What if one’s rapist were to die, possibly even in the middle of the act? What kind of behaviors might we expect from someone who has experienced such traumata?
Living as we do in a society that has a much clearer picture of the horrible consequences of rape and sexual assault, not a lot of imagination is required to tease out the potential consequences of the scene. Mary might be leery of the attentions of other men. She might have difficulty with physical contact or emotional closeness from others.
And what emotional consequences do these events have for Mary in the show?
She’s sad that he died. She refers to him as her lover in conversation with her mother, and later discusses him with her husband-to-be with no sign of any distress. The first conversation is particularly painful– her mother asks point blank. Did he force himself on you? No, she says, defiantly.
Now, it is entirely plausible that Mary could retroactively deign her rape consensual, or simply choose to discuss the event in that light with her mother. But in good fiction one has some amount of access to the inner workings of a character, not just their actions and stated feelings. How different would these events read with some kind of emotional consequences? A flash of pain, a remote sadness, a squeamishness or reluctance to be touched?
But that would involve some kind of interpretation on the part of the audience, and more often than not, Downton Abbey doesn’t trust its audience to draw its own conclusions. Julian Fellowes is in many ways a very skilled writer, and in the show he applies much of this skill to the organization necessary to juggle his army of actors and assure fitting amounts of screen time. Fellowes is the literary equivalent of a virtuoso dinner host—he knows interesting people, knows when to invite them, and remembers all of their names.
(Although occasionally their occupations slip his mind, as in the scene where Edith informs Matthew that she’s the family’s first journalist. This must have come as a surprise to fellow dinner guest and family member Tom Branson, whose fledgling career as a journalist was scorned by the family several episodes prior.)
And what of the traumas of Matthew Crawley? He fights in the trenches, drags himself through the mud among the dead and dying, is nearly killed when a shell explodes directly on his position. (He also manages to telepathically communicate his distress to his paramour—but that’s a different matter). He’s paralyzed, impotent, and recovers (!) just in time for his (untelepathic) betrothed to perish of a sudden one-episode fever. Shortly thereafter he finds solace in the arms of his paramour after a previously unmentioned deathbed letter from his barely buried betrothed beseeches him to find his comfort where he can.
Are any of these events traumatic to Matthew? Does he have nightmares—do his hands ever shake? After his experiences in the war, does he have any second thoughts about hunting with the family, any difficulty hearing gunfire? Fear of confined spaces?
This insensitivity to the interior lives of the characters might be a function of the capsule-summary nature of the show—a problem arrives at the beginning of an episode, and it is dispatched in short, concentrated movements, while the other continuing plot points swirl around it. Or it might be due to the fact that the characters spend so much time talking so baldly about their own feelings. Even the most inward of characters—O’Brien comes to mind– have someone to talk to or scowl at at any given time. Just in case, you know, we’re ever unsure how they feel about having caused spontaneous abortion through deadly soap placement.
And there, finally is the word I’ve managed to avoid for almost a thousand words. Downton Abbey is a soap opera. A well-crafted soap opera, but soap opera nonetheless, with many of the characteristics that typically attend that genre. One—events are driven by a desire to create a maximum amount of dramatic effect. Two—the status quo must be maintained. Examples of the former are available in virtually every episode, but surely season two’s Canadian amnesiac burn victim is the most extreme example. As for the second, consider what happens when a character manages to escape the trajectory of the house—Thomas, for instance, or Mister Bates. No matter what Thomas’ ambitions or desires for himself, he’s forced to return to his servitude. And it’s not solely the class issues of the time that keep him in place—it’s the machinations of the plot, which require him to remain in his familiar position. Bates’ position is the reverse—he’s pulled away not by his own ambitions, but by the unfortunate consequences of the ever-escalating tension of the plots he finds himself mired in. And when he is finally freed, it’s once again off-screen providence that is his liberator, which sets him in motion to once again return to the position he had at the start of the show.
It’s instructive to compare Downton Abbey to its predecessor, the Fellowes-penned and Robert Altman-directed feature film Gosford Park. The direction of Altman and the cool cinematography of Andrew Dunn hold the content at a distance, a tack that transforms the potentially melodramatic material into an oblique commentary on the class issues present in the film. The direction and cinematography in Downton Abbey are a striking contrast to this restraint, continually (and probably unintentionally) reinforcing through sheer visual beauty the inherent right-ness of the class positions of the characters. Lord Grantham, after all, is rarely wrong, and even in the rare instances when he is, he manages to look so goddamned noble. (Stationary or smooth-moving tracking shots with low camera angles and sumptuous light in opulent environments does tend to create that effect). The lush score is one of the biggest villains in this regard. “Thiiiiis is impoooooorrrtant!” the strings say, swelling again. “Feeeeel the nobiiiiiiiiiiiiiility.” This insistence on the part of the cinematography and the underscoring can not only seem overwrought, it can even spoil the effect of certain scenes, by telegraphing the future events minutes before they happen. All three of us watching the last episode together were aware of the impending death of Matthew Crawley from the moment we saw his car, background speeding by, with portentous strings sawing away in the soundtrack. It’s hard not to feel that a character has been killed, murdered, really, by the show itself, when the dressings of the show seem to be so aware of every upcoming disaster.
When I informed my friend James as to the content of this article, he asked me, “So, you didn’t enjoy the show?” No, I’m afraid I did enjoy the show. I enjoyed it too much, and it was packaged so handsomely and tasted so good and went down so smoothly I could hardly believe it. And so I had some more. And then I had some more.
But there are a lot of things I enjoy that I shouldn’t have every day. And in Downton Abbey‘s case, three boxes in a month were clearly too much.
Watch TWO BROKE GIRLS instead, Sean!
Hey Darius,
Does it have anything to do with DAbbey other than the class differences? Based on the, er, buzz about it, racial stereotypes etc, I figured it might be too crass for me to really dig it…
I thought it was inspired by Saki shock-ending stories ca. 1900?
I only managed one episode before fleeing. I knew as soon as there were all these shots of newspapers and discussion of the Titanic that it would be La Drama without La Llama of Fun–or a soap opera that took itself Very Seriously Indeed. I went back to the cozy murder mysteries–they seem to do a better job of examining class issues and the small tragedies inside people’s hearts, while recognizing that they’ve got talking cats or are about basically nosey maiden aunts.
Downton Abbey tries to be Upstairs Downstairs, but it fails miserably. Maybe HBO could do it right?
Well put, couldn’t agree more. After binging on some far superior British period mini-series (Cranford, Wives and Daughters, both Forsyte Sagas, The Camomile Lawn) (all based on pre-existing literary properties, incidentally or maybe not), Downtown Abbey feels like ersatz fluff, indifferent to the emotional realities its plot machinations would reasonably be expected to result in (how quickly and completely the family warms to the working-class revolutionary Branson, and vice-versa, for instance). It’s junk food entertainment at it’s… not quite best. But I’m still watching.
I sometimes wonder if there’s something about the badness itself which is addictive? I haven’t seen Downton Abbey…but it seems like, for example, a more realistic engagement with the effects of rape or wartime trauma would be seriously depressing in a way that might make you not want to watch three episodes all at once. The glibness is part of why you can swallow them like candy….
This is speaking as someone who watched the entire run of Heroes in a couple of weeks. That show is utter and complete crap…but that was sort of the attraction, I think….
So many of our favorite programs have let us down over the years: TWIN PEAKS went horribly off-the-rails after the initial mystery was solved; BATTLESTAR GALACTICA turned out to be making it up as they went along–and not in an organic way; MY SO CALLED LIFE never gave Tino any screen time; STAR TREK stopped aiming its stories at adults and went straight for the kids. I would still rather watch these shows over and over again (along with DOWNTON ABBEY) as opposed to watching most of what’s on television. So what are some of the shows that managed to get it right from start to finish? I’d like to suggest THE WIRE, ROME, and THE KIDS IN THE HALL. Any others?
I’m following and liking Enlightened, but it’s still airing. Don’t forget what I said above. I’ll say it again: Upstairs Downstairs.
>>This is speaking as someone who watched the entire run of Heroes in a couple of weeks.>>
Mercy mercy mercy. I watched the first season of that, under duress, and that was, er, more than enough for me.
There’s definitely something to what you’re saying re: digestibility and addiction. But I’m not looking for an episode-length dissertation on Matthew C.’s war trauma–just some acknowledgment of the emotional consequences of the events.
James– I don’t want to make a top ten or anything, but I have a lot of affection for the shows on your list, as well as Deadwood, Mad Men (which I’ve only seen three seasons of, so I can’t speak to the rest), and (guilty pleasure) Veronica Mars. Several interesting anime television series as well, which by virtue of the long production schedule/lag are generally plotted and written in advance, which is a lot of the problem with most television.
Deadwood and The Prisoner: great til the end, but both were cancelled. Deep Space Nine actually got better as it went along. Same for Breaking Bad. My current favorite is Justified, which has the best dialog on TV.
I gave up on Downton Abbey, just couldn’t make it through season 3. “We’re going to lose Downton and have to live in a smaller estate.” “Oh, no, if only you’d use that cash the old man left you.” “I can’t … it wouldn’t be … proper.” “Wait, I happen to have found a paper that says the old man wouldn’t mind.”
The last season of Angel was pretty amazing. It just kept getting better and better. Then they cancelled it, of course.
I still love Monty Python. And the Batman TV show is great, damn it.
I’ll bite: what interested anime television?
Veronica Mars is great for sure, especially the first season.
The first season of Lost stacks up against anything…then it lost its way (ha ha) and found it again several times over the course of the series. Every time I completely gave up, it rallied for a while….but the last season is terrible…especially the last episode.
The Office is similar (U.S. version)…some great seasons and some weaker ones (last year’s was the worst)…but this year it seems to have rallied for the conclusion.
30 Rock is hilarious and occasionally actually insightful. The final episode was bad…but pretty much the entire run of that show was great.
I loved Hill Street Blues back in the day, but haven’t seen it in a long time.
Been watching some classic Star Trek with my daughter…and it’s definitely not as good as I remember it. The plots have some pretty big holes, oftentimes. Still enjoyable though, even (or especially) if the effects are laughable.
Umm… BUFFY!
John from Cincinnati. Everyone hates it, but I think it is brilliant. Not Deadwood brilliant, but still great, weird, hilarious.
“Lord Grantham, after all, is rarely wrong…”
I thought the whole last season was subtitled: “Lord Grantham is wrong about everything.”
i was an enthusiastic fan of downton though season 1. it does not fair well under repeat viewings. the comparison with Gosford Park, which is a triumph, and i would say Downton’s opposite.
North and South is a period drama that i’ve just started watching. the visuals are stunning (one shot of feathers billowing in a choking, horrible factory) that enhance the exploitation of monstrosity of capitalism, rather than reinforce the nobility of the Downton estate owners like Sean points out…
the comparison, i meant to say, is apt. they are night in day in tone.
pardon my stream-of-consciousness commenting… jeezis.
another show that sympathetically portrays the noble owners of some capitalist institution or other is the Grand, about a fancy hotel.
” So what are some of the shows that managed to get it right from start to finish? I’d like to suggest THE WIRE, ROME, and THE KIDS IN THE HALL. Any others?”
CHEERS. Amazingly consistent for over a decade. The final episode was as elegant an ending as one could hope for.
Derik–
>>I thought the whole last season was subtitled: “Lord Grantham is wrong about everything.”>>
Ah, but this is after the Magic Baton of Nobility has been passed to Matthew. Not sure who will be carrying it next season.
It’s rather depressing that all the good shows that people are listing have been off the air for years.
Are there any good shows that are current? I mean actually good, not “brain turned off, enjoy the soapy drama” good.
Richard–
I have heard that BREAKING BAD, GIRLS, and HOMELAND are all great. I haven’t watched any of them, however.
Richard,
I’ve been enjoying Vera (British, but available on Netflix & Amazon), The Mentalist, and Elementary.
Richard: Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Treme (Treme is way underrated, it is great, probably my favorite current show), Girls, Parks & Recreation…
I enjoy Homeland, but more on a soapy level like I do Downton. Not something I plan on ever rewatching (I just watched Homeland S2 thanks to my cable company giving me a free month or two of Showtime).
“Ah, but this is after the Magic Baton of Nobility has been passed to Matthew. Not sure who will be carrying it next season.”
Sean: Yeah, they could really blow it (Grantham takes over ago having now learned this very special lesson), or (or!) they could do something interesting with someone else taking over (Mary? ).
I think there’s something to “Girls,” or the first season anyway, but I’m still figuring out what that something is, and even how “good” the show is as a whole. It has held my interest, in any case. I also think that “Louie” is a pretty singular show. At its best, it really digs into some uncomfortable places.
Community. Critical and cult fave, clever, formally inventive and, most importantly, funny. Funniest thing I’ve ever seen on TV. Unfortunately, it’s marketed as the blandest, most generic sitcom possible, which is misleading enough to turn off people who would love the show.
(I’m talking about the first three seasons, after which they fired the creator/showrunner/chief writer. The fourth season, currently airing, is the Before Watchmen of TV, i.e. has zero interest for me)
Richard: I said that Enlightened is still airing, didn’t I?
Breaking Bad is decent as crime dramas go, but nothing brilliant. Mad Men is better, though it has it’s faults. Haven’t seen Treme or Enlightened, but I don’t have HBO.
I’ll have to check out Vera and Community. Jones, you’re right. The marketing really did turn me off to the show.
So the first episode of Community is no indication as to its actual quality? Because I found the pilot incredibly un-funny. I prefer certain episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
The first episode is oh-kay, but not a good guide really, no. It was the second episode that sold me on the show; it literally had me in tears during one particular montage, and gives a better indication of the show’s overall sensibility. The (ahem) golden age of The Simpsons is the closest comparison I can think of. So if you’re going to try it at all, you do need to watch to the end of episode two, and if you don’t like it by then, well, de gustibus and all that. The show also gets a lot weirder and even less superficially conventional later on.
Community got a 22-minute long riff of My Dinner With Andre on to primetime American television and I don’t foresee a feat like that being equalled anytime soon.
Once Upon A Time is a less ambitious but more endearing (and less confused) version of Lost. Lots of interesting gender reversals and family dynamics.
Bunheads is the wittiest show currently going.
Sherlock is fantastic.
Tangled Up in Blew
*Sigh*; I am reminded of the situation some years back of a mother who took some photos of her baby, bare-butted on a bearskin rug, and was reported to the police by a morally zealous photo-lab worker, for making…kiddie porn!
Yes, this once-standard tradition of child photography, when viewed through the warped lens of the final redoubt in which American Puritanism has retreated, is now seen as an indication of slavering, twisted male lust.
Pamuk was a sleaze, of that variety which will always be maddeningly popular with women. But, as one woman author noted in her volume on the female psyche, sometimes women do indeed — crimethink to feminists though it is to even admit the possibility — “say no when they really mean yes.” They may not want to be thought “easy,” they may want to appear hard-to-get. (However, needless to say, as I’ve earlier noted, it’s always legally and morally better to take a refusal at face value.)
Now if indeed, as luridly noted (Victorianism lives again in feminism!), the experience had been nightmarishly traumatic…
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Sean Michael Robinson says:
…And so ends the scene, with Mary accepting the inevitable, the horrible choice that is not in fact her choice to make at all, that this man will take what he wants of her, because he wants it….
…But what of the emotional consequences?
What is it like to have a flirtation turn to threats of violence and unwelcome sex? What if one’s rapist were to die, possibly even in the middle of the act? What kind of behaviors might we expect from someone who has experienced such traumata?
Living as we do in a society that has a much clearer picture of the horrible consequences of rape and sexual assault, not a lot of imagination is required to tease out the potential consequences of the scene. Mary might be leery of the attentions of other men. She might have difficulty with physical contact or emotional closeness from others…
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…why, then, did the writer feature her behaving as described in the following?
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And what emotional consequences do these events have for Mary in the show?
She’s sad that he died. She refers to him as her lover in conversation with her mother, and later discusses him with her husband-to-be with no sign of any distress. …her mother asks point blank. Did he force himself on you? No, she says, defiantly.
Now, it is entirely plausible that Mary Crawley could retroactively deign her rape consensual, or simply choose to discuss the event in that light with her mother. But in good fiction one has some amount of access to the inner workings of a character, not just their actions and stated feelings. How different would these events read with some kind of emotional consequences? A flash of pain, a remote sadness, a squeamishness or reluctance to be touched?
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Julian Fellowes (writer/creater of “Downton Abbey”) may not be a Shakespeare, but he’s no Neanderthal. If indeed Mary Crawley had said “no” and truly meant it, and then been forced truly against her will, rather than simply pretending to be properly outraged, befitting her position in society as a “Lady”…
…then he would’ve shown her as traumatized by the experience. (What we get instead is a light, semi-comedic “The Trouble with Harry”-type situation with attempts to covertly move the inconveniently-located corpse.)
Instead of accepting this ideologically-unacceptable — if utterly logical — reason for Mary Crawley’s sexual non-trauma, in effect we get hands thrown up in the air in bafflement; it all gets tied in with the (accurately-noted) “insensitivity to the interior lives of the characters” writerly failing.
Moreover, as with the hysterical denunciation by that photo-lab worker of that bare-butted baby on a bearskin rug as kiddy porn, this shrieking “rape” serves to — as I regularly gripe — “devalue the currency” of actual horrors.
We’ve earlier had this scene in “Goldfinger” repeatedly described in an HU thread as James Bond raping Pussy galore: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pUXH1Bye88 .
As I noted back then…
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What you actually see in the film is Bond forcing her to…kiss him. (The horror!) Whereupon she is won over by his sexual magnetism and freely fucks him. Absurd stuff, but hardly the same.
Note how, rather than continuing to struggle throughout, er, Ms. Galore, upon contact from those Bond lips, passionately clutches him to herself, kisses him back.
Clearly, the ensuing “rumpy-pumpy” will be consensual!
And the über-feminist judgment will be that if you don’t see that scene as obviously depicting a rape, then you’re another one of those misogynistic Neanderthals who thinks women are meant to be beaten, trampled on and subjugated by the Patriarchy…
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Moreover, this casual slinging-about of “rape” is an insult to actual rape victims; trivializes their experience.
Imagine an analogous situation: a teen-aged girl shyly says she had once been sexually abused, then hears in return: “What, did your mommy take a nude photo of you on a bearskin rug?”
To shift gears: I tip my proverbial hat in admiration to whoever painted that splendid box-of-chocolates illustration; the idea and realization are splendid! This is topnotch stuff…
>>I tip my proverbial hat in admiration to whoever painted that splendid box-of-chocolates illustration>>
That would be me. Thanks for the compliment, though I have to say, I do have difficulty sometimes painting through my hysteria.
>> it all gets tied in with the (accurately-noted) “insensitivity to the interior lives of the characters” writerly failing.>>
Well, that’s my argument, Mike. Thanks for restating it for me.
I saw the third episode, I saw the scene in question (a scene which was upsetting to multiple people in the room at the time), and I waited to see how the show would deal with the consequences of it. After several episodes it dawned on me that “the show” as entity didn’t perceive the events in the same way that I as viewer did. After several SEASONS, it seemed reasonable to see the more general failing at work, a general failing you seem to agree with, if your Woe Is Me Non-Rape Hobby Horse wasn’t so tantalizingly in sight.
>>>Moreover, this casual slinging-about of “rape” is an insult to actual rape victims; trivializes their experience.>>>
You know what’s trivializing? Telling someone that just because their rapist didn’t…what? Use a weapon? Threaten her with death? Then it wasn’t rape. This is not an academic argument for many people Mike.
What could Pamuk have done that would have made you read the scene differently? How far would he have to go? He’s told her that no one will hear her screaming. She’s told him no over and over again. He’s holding her down on her bed. He’s come into her bedroom while she’s sleeping, after having rejected him earlier in the night in no uncertain terms. Is all this moot because she flirted with him earlier?
“Julian Fellowes (writer/creater of “Downton Abbey”) may not be a Shakespeare, but he’s no Neanderthal.”
You don’t have to be a Neanderthal to rape someone, or to blame the victim for a rape, or (in this case) simply not to actually care about rape all that much and not be able to put yourself into the head of someone it’s happened to. The idea that only uncivilized or clearly evil people can do evil is perhaps one of the main ways we excuse and perpetuate evil.
And…this is I think a new low for you on this subject, Mike. I would urge you to read Sean’s response carefully, rethink what you’re saying carefully, and maybe possibly take a step back.
Mary was tied up into social restrictions regarding what a woman can do with her body, what she’s allowed to enjoy. It was this social conditioning that was resisting the free love Pamuk was offering. She was altered for the better after her experience. That’s why she spoke so fondly of him. And, furthermore, the show made it clear that she remained a virgin after the encounter. I figured he used his tongue, but I’ve heard other possibilities suggested …
So…flirtation means that you really want it, and any protest is just social conditioning? You’re making the series sound better and better….
I’m curious, Charles. Are there any instances of rape in film or media that you’d be willing to say are actually rape? And if there are, are any of them examples of acquaintance rape — that is, where the rapist and the victim knew each other previously, since those are the most common forms of rape statistically (rape by a stranger being quite rare)?
And here you were saying it mattered if the questionable act was from an acquaintance on the other thread …
The advantage of my suggested reading is that it happens to be the show’s. Really wanting sex is what makes it really wanting sex. Or you can say you know Mary’s real feelings and understanding of that situation better than she. That’s a real feminist take on it …
And, sure, see Irreversible, now compare that to this episode of Downton Abbey. See how it cheapens what’s depicted in the former to equate the acts?
>> It was this social conditioning that was resisting the free love Pamuk was offering.>>
Charles, I’d like to offer you the gift of my love. This is a free gift, that I will deliver to you sometime at night while you’re sleeping. If you tell me that you don’t want me to give you this gift, don’t worry–I’ll know the truth and give it to you anyway, no matter what you tell me with words, those meaningless symbols that are after all so confusing. Especially squishy words like “No” which seem to mean so many different things in so many different circumstances.
Have I mentioned that I’m double your physical strength and live in a society where I’m always right because of how I was born?
I can’t believe I’m talking about this with seemingly intelligent adults. And all of this is okay because…he’s pretty? Because they flirted before? Because she “really wants sex?” Just consider the words you’re typing for a second, huh?
I thought the show made it pretty clear that whatever happened (and they’re coy about the extent of it) was consensual. I took note of this in part because I found that interpretation of the event sort of surprising given the calculus leading up to the cut-away. The real problem with it, from my perspective, is that rather than dealing with the ugly power dynamics at work leading up to the event the show took the easy way out and resolved it without fuss. In fact, to my eye in doing so it contributes to the whole “no means yes” narrative that’s coming out here.
Sean, does she say she was raped? Does she seem unhappy afterwards? Why do you know better than she? Why don’t you believe her? How about you consider these questions.
“Does she seem unhappy afterwards? ”
You’re asking Sean not only to believe her, but to believe that the creators are incapable of screwing up. That seems like a pretty large leap when you’re talking about a television program.
If you don’t interpret the act the way Sean does, the reactions all fall into place. Is that the show’s fault? The show’s fucked up enough without forcing interpretations on it.
Charles: “The advantage of my suggested reading is that it happens to be the show’s.”
You know, I think Charles has a point here. Noah, I think you’re not getting that Downton Abbey is a massively stupid show (beloved by legions). So what would certainly be some form of sexual assault in the real world isn’t in the world of Downton Abbey. It’s like in yaoi comics where rape is love.
Charles, if Mary was a real person, you’re right, I wouldn’t interrogate her at all. I’d listen to whatever she wanted to say or not say. But she’s not a person. She’s a fictional construct and as such reflects the thoughts and intentions, interests and opinions of her authors, who include the writer of the show, the actress, the director, the cinematographers, the composer etc.
Is rape (or, Enforced Educational Demonstration and Receipt of Free Love, if you prefer)the only subject on which you completely believe in the verisimilitude of fictional characters?
As I said to Mike, for many, many people questions like this are not an academic discussion.
Make up your mind, does it matter if she’s fictional or not? If it does matter, then what are you criticizing? Clearly, no rape took place in reality. If it doesn’t matter, then one can argue as if she’s a real person, since her importance presumedly is as a representation of real life views/reactions/etc.. Since you had a problem with it, I’m going to guess you really don’t much care that she’s fictional, so we can dismiss your objection about her not being a real person. Thus, we’re back at square one: in this diegesis, she clearly wasn’t troubled after the fact about what occurred. She said what she said. It doesn’t agree with your interpretation. Why should anyone listen to you rather than her (yes, of course: “the writer of the show, the actress, the director, the cinematographers, the composer”) about what happened in this fictional setting? I watched the same show. I didn’t see a rape. The show agrees with me, so why should I believe you over what I saw and what was reinforced by the character’s reactions (including explicit statements)? You can read the show however you want, but to hold it responsible for not completing the narrative you have in your head is solipsistic. It’s a problem of correspondence, not verisimilitude.
“I think you’re not getting that Downton Abbey is a massively stupid show (beloved by legions).”
Yet it still doesn’t spell things out enough …
Charles. The point is that the fictional portrayal of her rape as desirable or exciting or fun is not equivalent to a woman telling you that she consented even though she said no. That is, asking us to treat her testimony as if she’s a real person is naive. The creators of the show set up a situation where she does not consent, but where we’re supposed to infer that she really wanted sex. That’s not a journalistic account of something that happened; it’s a story that somebody has decided to tell for particular reasons. Questioning those reasons is not the same as questioning the veracity or experiences of an actual woman.
You can care about fictional representations without deciding that those representations are real. How controversial is that?
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Charles Reece says:
Mary was tied up into social restrictions regarding what a woman can do with her body, what she’s allowed to enjoy. It was this social conditioning that was resisting the free love Pamuk was offering…
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Certainly Pamuk was offering Societally Forbidden Sexual Pleasure, from a wealthy, good-looking member (so to speak!) of the nobility. Her outward protestations in this particular case (no, I’m not arguing that all women who say “no” really mean “yes,” for Pete’s sake) simply a face-saving mechanism by which her self-image as virtuous may be maintained.
Consider the massive popularity of rape fantasy scenes in women’s “bodice-ripper” romances; the heroine remains virtuous afterward, her ego flattered that the good-looking, wealthy nobleman simply wasn’t able to resist her attractions. She gets the sexual satisfaction, but no moralistic guilt…
See:
http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/m/blog/talking_about_the_r_word
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/985515-romanticization-of-rape-in-romance
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Rape or near-rape fantasies are central to romance novels, one of the perennial best-selling categories in fiction. These books are often called “bodice-rippers” and have titles like Love’s Sweet Savage Fury, which imply at least some degree of force. In them, a handsome cad becomes so overwhelmed by his attraction to the heroine that he loses all control and must have her, even if she refuses–which she does initially, but then eventually melts into submission, desire, and ultimately fulfillment.
Romance novels are often called “porn for women.” Porn is all about sexual fantasies. In porn for men, the fantasy is sexual abundance–eager women who can’t get enough and have no interest in a relationship. In porn for women as depicted in romance novels, the fantasy is to be desired so much that the man loses all control, though he never actually hurts the woman, and in the end, marries her…
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http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201001/womens-rape-fantasies-how-common-what-do-they-mean
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I’ve wondered sometimes whether the fact that I’ve been raped was the impetus for my interest in rape fantasy fiction. It’s more of an academic question since it’s impossible to really know, seeing as I can’t go back and relive my life without being raped. Plus, the answer doesn’t matter. Even if I knew for sure that was the cause, I would still read and enjoy rape fantasies. This is who I am – the sum of all my experiences.
What I can tell you is that rape fantasy fiction is just that: fantasy and fiction. For me, rape fiction is nothing like rape and maybe that’s why it is acceptable to me. It’s, for lack of a better word, romanticized. Even when it’s explicit and forced and violent, it is still fundamentally different from the actual experience, at least to me. When I read rape fantasies, I get turned on, similar to reading a regular sex scene but more intense…
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http://dearauthor.com/features/letters-of-opinion/of-rape-and-rape-fantasies/
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Sean Michael Robinson says:
Charles, I’d like to offer you the gift of my love. This is a free gift, that I will deliver to you sometime at night while you’re sleeping. If you tell me that you don’t want me to give you this gift, don’t worry–I’ll know the truth and give it to you anyway, no matter what you tell me with words, those meaningless symbols that are after all so confusing…
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(In a huff) Fine! What does he have that I don’t? (Maybe if I lost some weight…)
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Nate says:
I thought the show made it pretty clear that whatever happened (and they’re coy about the extent of it) was consensual.
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Then…you’re damned! The über-feminist judgment is that if you don’t see that scene as obviously depicting a rape (as with James Bond and Pussy Galore’s romp in the hay), then you’re another one of those misogynistic Neanderthals who thinks women are meant to be beaten, trampled on and subjugated by the Patriarchy.
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I took note of this in part because I found that interpretation of the event sort of surprising given the calculus leading up to the cut-away. The real problem with it, from my perspective, is that rather than dealing with the ugly power dynamics at work leading up to the event the show took the easy way out and resolved it without fuss. In fact, to my eye in doing so it contributes to the whole “no means yes” narrative that’s coming out here.
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Indeed, dramatically, throughout the show “takes the easy way out.” “Ugly power dynamics”? Forget it! For instance, the unfortunately-named Crawleys are kindly, solicitous, never exploitative of their underlings. But that’s because it’s the kind of show it is. “Downton Abbey” is not the friggin’ “Bell Jar.” It’s a glossy soap opera, “drama-lite.” Which is why this complaint…
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Sean Michael Robinson says:
And what of the traumas of Matthew Crawley? He fights in the trenches, drags himself through the mud among the dead and dying, is nearly killed when a shell explodes directly on his position…
Are any of these events traumatic to Matthew? Does he have nightmares—do his hands ever shake? After his experiences in the war, does he have any second thoughts about hunting with the family, any difficulty hearing gunfire? Fear of confined spaces?
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…is as off-target as griping that James Bond doesn’t repeatedly show post-traumatic stress disorder after his various death-defying escapades. Like the chap who complained that “Macbeth” wasn’t bad, but it was not “Oklahoma!”
Different types of works need to be judged by different standards, according to their aims.
Shall we critically tear down carnival sideshow posters because they don’t emphasize the humanity of the Dog-Faced Girl and Alligator Boy, merely their freakishness? And ignore the fact that those posters are there to sell tickets to gawp at freakishness?
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Ng Suat Tong says:
Charles: “The advantage of my suggested reading is that it happens to be the show’s.”
You know, I think Charles has a point here. Noah, I think you’re not getting that Downton Abbey is a massively stupid show (beloved by legions). So what would certainly be some form of sexual assault in the real world isn’t in the world of Downton Abbey. It’s like in yaoi comics where rape is love.
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Indeed so!
Mike,
This is why chopping up quotes is stupid. Your jokey agreement with the first half of my post allows you to disagree with the second part. The point was that because it’s “drama-lite” it ends up perpetuating nasty discourses about women and sex and power that reach people in the millions. The Crawley’s treatment of their servants is utterly in keeping with this. That’s messed up. Waving the “it’s just a soap opera” card only works if you think these sorts of portrayals neither affect or reflect the power dynamics they portray.
I should apologize for writing that “chopping up quotes is stupid.” First, there are certainly times when it’s fine to chop a quote, and I have no problem with if done in a way that reserves the intent/argument or at least makes a good faith effort to do so. Second, I realize it could be taken to mean “chopping quotes is stupid, Mike Hunter chops quotes, therefore Mike Hunter is stupid.” I want to put it on the record that I do not think Mike Hunter is stupid and didn’t mean to suggest it here. I think Mike Hunter is wrong about this, and I also think he parsed information in a way that is more convenient than compelling, and this led him into an arguments that is less than coherent. Again, the point about the Crawley’s treatment of the servants could easily support an argument for Downton’s tendency to prop up hierarchies that exist today, but I suppose you’d have to believe there was such a thing as an ideology to go there.
Noah, that only makes sense if you start off with Sean’s assertion of rape as the truth. But that’s being disputed. I saw the show. He’s wrong, without a doubt (this isn’t a bodice ripper, she quite willingly gives herself to him). The rape is what’s fictional here. My supporting evidence is what she said at the beginning of the encounter, her loving embrace of Pamuk just before the cut and what she said afterwards, her visual reactions and the way the show treated the encounter. Or, you can go against all that and say that the rape really happened and the show wants you to think it’s okay by depicting this woman as being too stupid to understand what rape is.
Mike: “simply a face-saving mechanism by which her self-image as virtuous may be maintained.”
She even makes explicit statements about how she isn’t the rebel Pamuk and her mother take her for in the bedroom. The show really does make this as clear as possible. You have to willfully misread it.
It’s not a willful misreading on my part. It’s how I experienced the show. I re-watched the damn thing prior to writing this, and re-watched it again yesterday after reading your comments. All I can do is re-direct you towards what I’ve already said about it. I don’t want to forensically analyze the scene. It’s upsetting to me to just have this discussion in the first place, let alone watch over and over again in the hope of finding the secret Rape Clue that will make it clearer to you. (If the secret clue isn’t, you know, the word NO over and over, or his informing her that noone will hear her scream, or, you know, the terror on her face.)
The last thing I’ll say is that of the three of us watching the show, and two of us thought that, without question, it was rape, and both of us were confused in regards to the handling of the scene in the show.
I’m done with this.
Yeah, I watched it again, too. I haven’t done a survey, to be honest, but none of my friends who watch the show has ever brought that scene up and interpreted it the way you do. You’re aware that you have a minority view on this, right? Doesn’t make it wrong, but maybe you could be a little less indignant when others don’t acknowledge your view as the absolute truth. I just don’t even see much ambiguity in the show’s intention regarding this. Yeah, she says “no” (it’s amazing that thoughtful readers can choose not to read the subtext when it suits their purposes), but she also calmly asks him to reassure her about how her virginity will remain intact just as she lovingly embraces him … cut.
My read of the scene, first time through, last time through, is that she’s a woman who finds herself in an impossible situation, who finds that she’s flirted with someone and it’s turned into something that she couldn’t imagine. She’s being presented by a non-choice by Pamuk (who, by the way, more of a trope than virtually anyone else on the show–the unexpectedly handsome foreigner who turns out to be a snake in the end). She can’t cry out. She can’t say no. She can’t say anything without risking her reputation, her physical safety. And being a pragmatist, she eventually gives up her resistance.
This doesn’t have to mean she wasn’t physically attracted to him. It means that his presence, and his physical actions towards her, were against her will.
I read her conversation with her mother as much of the same kind of defiance she shows in other portions of the series.
If you accept (and I hope you do) that the show is not exactly, er, sensitive to the interior lives of its characters, and is more involved in the machinations of its own plot, than surely this reading isn’t contentious?
And no, I had no idea that this would be the contentious part of my article. I’m a virtual blank slate, having watched the show over just a few weeks and read nothing at all about it.
I’m sorry if I was assuming bad faith on your part. This is an emotional topic for me because of how closely that scene parallels the real experiences of people of my acquaintance. The emotional consequences being the notable exception.
I’ve been keeping out of this, as I can certainly see where hte “Mary was raped” perspective comes from, but, finally, I just asked my wife what she thought of the scene. She’s a fan of the series, has watched the whole thing. I said to her, vis a vis that scene, “Was Mary raped?” She looked at me with bafflement and said, “no.” I know that doesn’t invalidate a reading of the scene as a rape, but it does provide another data point on how audiences respond to the scene. (I didn’t read it as a rape either, though I certainly read Pamuk as a douche.)
Thanks for your thoughts Dominick.
I found a very thoughtful and thorough discussion of this here-
http://downtonabbey-revisited.net/topic/74-the-pamuk-affaire/
The poster does a much better job being persuasive than me as she has a better idea that her claims will be contentious.
Mary starts kissing him back on the bed. She puts her hands on the back of his neck and starts responding.
She told Matthew she got with Pamuk because of lust and or a need to rebel.
For a show that spoon feeds it, Downton missed the boat and should have shown her responding to him before he was on top of her on the bed. But she did respond to him.
Dolores (and others)–
Another, much more persuasive, analysis of the scene–
http://positively-smitten.com/2013/02/24/an-analysis-of-downton-abbey-the-rape-of-mary-crawley/
Well, look at some of the terms there, Sean. It’s a site committed to reading the show in such a way. I’d bet that if Noah ever watched the show, he would agree with you, too.
But I’ve said my piece and I thank you for your last response to me.
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Nate says:
Mike,
This is why chopping up quotes is stupid. Your jokey agreement with the first half of my post allows you to disagree with the second part.
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I was not even remotely offended by the first part of your remark, but your subsequent apology is a classy gesture.
Though I consider razzing someone’s belief, or rhetorical tactic, a significantly different thing from dismissing the totality of a person’s being (hopefully there’s far more to us than some current way of thinking…!), and thus will feel free to give the Bronx Cheer to dubious arguments…
And, I was supposed to be disagreeing with the second part of your statement? I’d say I agreed, then went on to comment on other areas. (Which then you disagreed with.)
Back in the current timeline:
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The point was that because it’s “drama-lite” it ends up perpetuating nasty discourses about women and sex and power that reach people in the millions.
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Of course it does! Said kind of fare routinely gives all matter of idiotic/harmful messages to anyone stupid enough to take it as serious advice on how to lead one’s life. Why, I bet after watching upteen saloon brawls in Westerns, some dumbasses think you can get chairs broken over your head with little injury.
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The Crawley’s treatment of their servants is utterly in keeping with this. That’s messed up.
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Certainly one could make a fuss about how “action movies” sell violence as an easy fix, how if you’re a good guy you can go through a hail of lead unfazed. Rom-coms make “opposites attract” (“She’s a hard-charging business executive! He’s a zany man-boy who loves fart jokes! Trapped together in an elevator…romance happens!”) look like a great recipe for a lasting relationship. For those idiots who accept them as the Gospel Truth about life.
And, one could also write a book about how violent comics make kids into juvenile delinquents…
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Waving the “it’s just a soap opera” card only works if you think these sorts of portrayals neither affect or reflect the power dynamics they portray.
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They certainly reflect — in a ludicrously distorted funhouse-mirror fashion — those power dynamics. As for affecting them, now we’re moving into fantasy territory.
Aside from a few bizarre exceptions (“The Birth of a Nation,” virulently racist, carefully wrought pro-South propaganda fueled by brilliant, ahead-of-its-time direction), those power dynamics are infinitely too well-entrenched and powerful to be shifted much.
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Charles Reece says:
…(this isn’t a bodice ripper, she quite willingly gives herself to him). The rape is what’s fictional here. My supporting evidence is what she said at the beginning of the encounter, her loving embrace of Pamuk just before the cut…
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dolores says:
Mary starts kissing him back on the bed. She puts her hands on the back of his neck and starts responding.
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As happened “just before the cut” in this scene in “Goldfinger”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pUXH1Bye88 .
Not that mere evidence kept the scene from being attacked here as a rape.
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Charles Reece says:
…and what she said afterwards, her visual reactions and the way the show treated the encounter….
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Sean Michael Robinson says:
It’s not a willful misreading on my part [that rape did occur], It’s how I experienced the show.
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So, your emotional reactions ARE reality. (“Dave Sim! Yoohoo! Women aren’t the only ones who think like you say they do!”)
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I don’t want to forensically analyze the scene.
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No, let’s just rely on our emotions instead. God help anyone on trial with you in the jury; you wouldn’t want to deal with any of that “forensic evidence” stuff…
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Dolores (and others)–
Another, much more persuasive, analysis of the scene–
http://positively-smitten.com/2013/02/24/an-analysis-of-downton-abbey-the-rape-of-mary-crawley/
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I see the site features a “Trigger warning: rape, sexual assault.”
(The August 13 and 14, 2012 entries in the blog — http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/ –of the great fantasy author Caitlín R. Kiernan are worth searching out, if you’d like to experience a devastating dismantling of the nonsense that is “trigger warnings.”
Come to think of it, even mentioning “rape, sexual assault” in the warning can supposedly trigger off some total psychic explosion! )
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Charles Reece says:
Well, look at some of the terms there, Sean. It’s a site committed to reading the show in such a way. I’d bet that if Noah ever watched the show, he would agree with you, too.
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But of course!
Alas, reading on, I don’t get the impression that analytic persuasiveness will ensue:
“I am obsessed with the show “Downton Abbey,” as everyone should be. ”
Double sheesh!
Coming to the description of the scene, guess what? The complicating “Mary starts kissing him back on the bed. She puts her hands on the back of his neck and starts responding” part isn’t even mentioned.
Thus, by nipping away details that would interfere with The Right Way to See Things, the proper attitude is maintained…
>>No, let’s just rely on our emotions instead. God help anyone on trial with you in the jury; you wouldn’t want to deal with any of that “forensic evidence” stuff…>>
Mike, I don’t want to dissect this forensically because-
A. it’s not an actual event in the real world, it’s a fictional construct, and as such represents the desires, opinions and interests of its authors as much as some fidelity to some “real” person or event. Saying “that’s how it is cause that’s what Mary did” or “that’s how it was cause that’s what Mary said about it later” doesn’t tell us the “truth” about anything other than the thoughts of the writer etc, which, as I stated in the article, tend to be fairly focused on the machinations of the plot and much less on the interior lives of the characters.
B. I find it ghoulish and more than a little upsetting to dissect something that to me seems like a non-consentual sexual act. The last post I linked to is pretty much point-for-point how I viewed the scene, so I’d refer you to that again if you’re curious for some reason to hear in detail whatever perceptual glitch is obviously occurring in my head. You see persuasion and seduction and consent. I see threat and menace and resignation.
C. Because I hate science and puppies and am a sophist of the highest order.
I don’t know how clear I was on A. above. What I mean is that, not being a real event, you can’t treat it like you might treat an event in the real world. Obviously you can appeal to the diagetic action, which both of us are doing, with various levels of effectiveness. But when there’s an impasse, as there is here, with two divergent but apparently good-faith readings of the same scene, I don’t know how much is added to the discussion to find all the nits left unpicked. I think at that point it becomes more useful to talk about how the show handles other scenes or situations that could be analogous to that one, and talk about the show’s engagement with the real world realities of its topics, both of which I’ve attempted to do here.
I’m not up for a Zapruder Film analysis of Pamuk’s “visit.”
Okay…and I think that’s maybe a good place to end this discussion as well. Again, thanks to Sean for posting and everyone for commenting.