I absolutely love Downton Abbey. I think it is beautifully written and the filming is gorgeous. The stories flow naturally and I cannot help being invested in the plight of the characters. It is a very female centered show and while there are men they seem to be secondary to the women. The show explores the issues of class and wealth since it covers both the aristocratic family and their servants. It also, explores this double standard women of the period face and even now still rears its head. It is able to show the injustice of it while allowing the story to develop naturally within the time period.
I think that even though it is a period piece many of these concepts are still closely related to the norms we hold today and are still prevalent in representation now. According to Judith Mayne "...representations both reflect the culture from which they emerge, and have the ability to shape that culture in turn" (Mayne 163) I believe Downton Abbey reflects both of these things. It reflects the culture of the early 1900's, but that culture is still one that influences our norms and beliefs today. These representations will in turn influence those same beliefs.
While the show itself shows the minoritizing discourses of the time. It explores this idea of hegemonic femininity and how it provides norms for woman to live by and also how it creates this double standard of how woman can either be the virgin or the whore. This is shown on many occasions throughout the show. One of which is seen through the treatment of the character Ethel, a servant who has a child out of wedlock. After being fired from her job as maid at Downton Abbey, she is sent to live in poverty and upon meeting the child's paternal grandparents (in this episode) is tossed aside as a mere whore. It was believed that she made up the story after hearing that the father was their only son and had died in the first World War and that she assumed they would be easy targets in their greif. Her actions were the ones called into question and not the fathers. She was the one who had to pay dearly for the indiscretion of the two. Meanwhile, Lavinia is on the other side of dichotomy. She is everything a woman should be. She is kind and gentle and caring. She refused to give up on Matthew even when he could not be everything a man needed to be. She is praised by everyone and will be a great wife for Matthew now that he is better, which is all a woman needed to be at the time and even now this idea has a hold in society.
This discourse is also shown through the character Lady Mary Crawley and her sexual escapades with the Turkish diplomat, Mr Pamuk. This storyline follows her throughout both the first season and the second. The possibility of this getting out threatens everything she loves. It would bring scandal to the Crawley family and potentially force her out of Downton Abbey and risk any chance she had at gaining a husband. This is seen in this episode through her soon-to-be husband, Sir Richard Carlisle, whom she is marrying simply because he has the power to keep her mistake a secret. He uses this information against her on many occasions. However, the sexual activities of the men are not questioned in the same way as the women. It does not threaten their very existence and it has little effect on the way people perceive them.
However, I believe the show can provide opportunities for universalizing discourses. It does not portray these situations in a positive light and allows us to see how these violate the rights of the women. It also allows us to see another side to these women and their circumstances. It lets us think that maybe this is wrong. Maybe men and women should be held to the same sexual standards. Maybe femininity is not so black and white and on the cusp of the women's suffrage movement it allows us to see the circumstances that made it necessary. I believe the show makes a good argument for feminism, why it existed then and why it is still needed now. Lets face it, these things still happen to women today whether through the stigma of single motherhood or the decision to step outside the social norms of femininity. The pressure to conform to the ideal womanhood is still felt and while the ideal has shifted some since the early 1900s, I do not believe it has changed as much as it should have in the past century.
Works Cited
Mayne, Judith. Women, Representation and Culture. pg. 161 - 165.
Transgeneration. Powerpoint. Race, Gender and Sexuality in Pop Culture.
I can see the connections with the standards of both women's and men's sexuality from the past, like in the show Downton Abbey, and with those of today. Like in the early 1900's, men now are given the freedom to be open with sex and are encouraged to do so. Men are often congratulated for it; I have heard guys around town and on campus do so. If girls went around openly discussing the number of guys she slept with, she would be considered untouchable. Women today are stuck between two ends of the spectrum, both being equally negative. One is either a whore or a prude, finding it almost impossible to fall somewhere within that middle ground. Today, having a sexually active daughter may not bring shame upon the entire family, leaving them shunned from society, but I agree that there still are some negative connotations to that. Women's sexuality remains to be an arena that feminism cannot completely break through because of these standards that have been so deeply rooted in our society from the beginning of this time period.
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