middlemarching reblogged your post: middlemarching: I disagree. A twenty-first…
A historical drama can’t also be a critique?It can be, but I think it’s safe to say that Downton isn’t out to critique Edwardian culture, just depict it for entertainment purposes. But since our respective interpretations of the scene in question and Mary’s agency therein are pretty much diametrically opposed, there’s no point in discussing it further.
I understand not wanting to drag it out if we’re not going to agree. I do want to say one more thing just because I think it’s important, but I’m not trying to invalidate your interpretation of the show.
I do feel that Downton Abbey is intended to be a critique—and a successful critique at that—of most other aspects of the society. Just a few examples: the rigid social structure associated with the ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ becomes visibly obsolete after the beginning of the First World War, and the theme of the second season seems to focus on the clash between the desires of those who to return to pre-war living in a world where those social moors just don’t have a place anymore, and the desires of those who want to move forward towards something new.
No, you’re right, and I think the nice thing about Downton is that it works both ways — it’s 100% entertaining as a frivolous costume drama, but there’s plenty of meat for the critique-of-an-era take on the show, if that’s what a viewer is bringing to it. But even then, I still don’t think it’s wrong of Julian Fellowes to realistically depict the seduction of an upperclass woman (or, depending on your interpretation, an Edwardian date rape) as it would have likely played out at the time, just as he realistically depicts everything else — even if that means portraying something that’s complex and ambiguous, to the viewers and even to the characters themselves. It would be odd and patronizing to treat the issues surrounding women’s sexual agency with kid gloves and gravitas when everything else is handled straight on.
Posted January 15, 2012 at 3:07pm in Downton Abbey
I disagree.
A twenty-first century critique of early twentieth-century society should definitely be sensitive to how behaviors that were considered acceptable a century ago are no longer acceptable now, particularly in a scene where a woman is put in a position where she is damned if she does, and damned if she does not. More generally, Mary and Pamuk may not consider his intrusion into her bedchambers and subsequent coercion into sex to be rape, but a modern audience will, and should, because victims already silence and erase themselves daily if they suspect that they, in any way, might be at fault. That attitude is historically accurate to the present day; we desperately need to move away from it, in our daily commentary and in how we represent sex, intimacy, and the manipulative twisting of it in film and fiction.
If Fellowes’ intention was, as I suspect, for us to view this encounter as an illicit romp in the hay, then he went about introducing Pamuk completely the wrong way. If that wasn’t his intention, if he genuinely intended for us to be as horrified as we are by what transpires in her bedroom, then he dropped the ball there, too, because the atmosphere of this scene does not reflect the severity of what is happening to Mary. Sensitivity is what could have made this scene both compelling and heartbreaking. Instead, it’s repulsive due to what has just happened, and how horribly it was managed from the director’s chair.
Okay, but this show isn’t a critique of early 20th-century society. It’s a historical drama, which means that it needs to accurately depict the era it takes place in, for better or for worse. Women weren’t on equal footing back then, sexually or otherwise — arguing that we need to move away from representing sex in this way is to argue against historical realism in film and fiction. Is that really what you’re suggesting? That we can’t depict historical relationships as they would have happened, just because contemporary culture has victim-blaming issues?
I’d be interested to hear how you think Pamuk should have been introduced so as to make the “illicit romp” idea palatable — which I agree is what we’re meant to take away from this scene. Mary isn’t a passive participant, here; the whole point is that this is her choice. She has every option to send him packing; she doesn’t. (Pamuk challenges her when she threatens to scream, but he and Mary both know it’s a bluff — it’s her house, her family, her country. If she raised the alarm, then he’d be in the deepest of deep Edwardian shit.) And afterward, even when it would be the easiest thing in the world to claim victimhood and escape judgment, she doesn’t. She owns her decision, even to the point of throwing it back in her mother’s face. Which is why, even as a modern viewer, I don’t take away “rape” from this scene.
(Source: ithinkyoufweaky)
snew:
Mary is always beautiful but this scene was monstrous and lacked the sensitivity it desperately needed. Pamuk comes across as a predator.
He WAS a predator :/ I mean he didn’t take no for an answer downstairs earlier in the night and didn’t take no for an answer when she said she would scream. Pamuk was a predator.
I agree, and that is what I’d originally typed, but after reflecting on it I’m not certain the writers intended for him to be the predator that I saw him as. Or rather, that I continue to see him as. Coercive sex is rape, period, and the atmosphere of the scene didn’t properly reflect the gravity of what was happening.
Agreed! Julian didn’t treat it like the rape that it was and it KILLS me that he didn’t.
Oh god…I COMPLETELY AGREE with both of you. This scene still breaks my heart.
^ all of this
With respect, I believe that you’re missing the point. And while yes, in this day and age, coercive sex is rapey, you can’t apply the contemporary arguments about the necessity of consent to a sex act that’s occurring in the Edwardian era. The historical context completely changes the terms on which Mary and Pamuk are meeting, and treating this scene with “sensitivity” would completely subvert its authenticity.
So for one, you’ve got to remember the When. But you’ve also got to remember who we’re talking about, here. Lady Mary Crawley is no shrinking violet; she’s a calculating, manipulative, self-interested bitch — and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s what makes her so interesting, and what makes her character’s evolution so powerful; in Season 1, all of her game-playing and calculating in order to get what she wants ends up blowing up her one chance to actually get what she wants, which is a marriage founded on love. She tried to eat her cake and have it, and lost everything instead. And in Season 2, for the first time, we see her vulnerable and awkward and (gasp!) even acting selflessly.
And given all that, if Lady Mary Crawley of Season 1 didn’t want Pamuk in her room, I’m pretty sure he’d be back out in that hallway quicker than you can say “O’Brien”. (Or if not, she would certainly have jumped on the easy out offered by her mother when she asked if he’d forced himself on her — knowing she’d be believed, knowing her family would cover for her, and not caring a lick about the reputation of the man who coerced her into sex.)
But instead, there’s a moment — and it’s a really great bit of acting on the part of Michelle Dockery — right after the two of them have discussed the impossibility of ever actually being together, and right before they start getting busy, where you can actually see her struggling between her own self-interest (maintaining her pristine, marriageable Edwardian morals) and what she longs for but can never have (the freedom to make decisions based solely on what she, personally, desires). And considering what he’s offering — which, in the context of the era, is nothing more or less than what may well be the only chance in her life to experience the physical act of love with someone she’s genuinely attracted to, as opposed to dutifully married to — I don’t think it’s at all surprising that she’d decide to take advantage.
(Source: ithinkyoufweaky)
