[ SECRET POST #3763 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3763 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 49 secrets from Secret Submission Post #538.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[arcadiaego]

A fantasy of the British upper classes where everyone knew their place, the servants were friendly with and grateful to their employers and there's one shady gay character who never has sex is always going to sell well, sadly. I wouldn't mind if there hadn't been so much hype about it and if it hadn't won so many awards over other more deserving candidates. There's just something grim about it having been so popular in Cameron's Britain. (Though the same argument has been made many times re. Brideshead Revisited and Thatcher and I love Brideshead Revisited, soooo).

There have been many much more interesting or diverse period dramas made lately (Ripper Street, Penny Dreadful, Black Sails, probably others I don't personally know of, even Taboo was an *attempt* at something better) which gives me hope that the bonnets and country houses monopoly is on the way out.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes! Thank you! This! All of this! This is why the show bothered me and I couldn't get past it in spite of the costume porn. The romanticized classism was nauseating and the gay guy didn't sit well with me at all. I wanted to watch for him because gay characters are so underrepresented, but I just couldn't stomach that.

[(Anonymous)]

He's a pretty interesting character though.

[(Anonymous)]

(Same person, log in is borked) That was the first thing that put me off really, I could see how it was going to pan out... I was interested in the show because the same writer won an Oscar for the Gosford Park screenplay, which is a much more nuanced country house story, but I guess he decided to go with a different angle this time.

[(Anonymous)]

and there's one shady gay character who never has sex

I feel like this argument would have weight in a show that has explicit sex scenes like Game of Thrones (which of course has a gazillion male gaze-y scenes, while Renly and Loras get one piddling little scene that only has implied sex), but everything in Downton is chaste to the point where even the straight characters barely have sex, or even make out.

Also, Penny Dreadful was awful and fell apart in season 2. lmao at someone implying that it's "diverse". Ethan and Dorian's moment getting cut off just as it's beginning amidst all the explicit heterosexual sex scenes sure is progressive and different, huh?

[(Anonymous)]

(Same person, log in is borked)

Thomas is clearly written as the Evil Gay at first and someone literally dies having sex in the first episode. Admittedly there's only so much interest I can have in a show about how the upper classes are absolutely fascinating so I didn't watch into the later series where perhaps things improve on the Thomas front. Given Julian Fellowes is proudly regressive it would be a bit odd though.

I wasn't referring only to male gay characters in my examples, but period dramas that aren't the sort traditionally produced by the UK for the last 20 years. The industry has a festish for upper class costume dramas because they sell, and many are great. But it's only over the last 5 years or so that I've seen more shows with a range of classes, races, sexualities, roles for women outside trying to find a husband etc etc. There's a much wider context in this country for period dramas than just how entertaining they are.

[(Anonymous)]

Also for the record I actually never watched the final episode of Penny Dreadful because I was so pissed off with what I heard happened, so I'm not saying it's a paragon of virtue. It's just not Jane Austen. (Who is well and good but a girl needs variety.)

[(Anonymous)]

Thomas does eventually improve and has pretty understandable reasons for why he does the things he does. A jerkass woobie, if I ever saw one, though the jerkass part fades around season 5.

The Turkish dude who dies was probably the only part of the show that involves heavy makeouts and overt sexuality, anything else on the show is just implications.

[(Anonymous)]

And honestly, Pamuk's visit to Mary's room bordered on rape. He shows up, dares her to resist, to scream, taunting her to say anything, knowing she doesn't want to risk her reputation......and she ends up throwing her arms around him. So rapey. I'm glad he died, except that it caused Mary, Anna and Cora no end of shit.

[tree_and_leaf]

Brideshead is obviously written from a conservative and somewhat snobbish perspective,* but it's also written by someone who was there (and who was painfully aware that he wasn't one of the aristocracy and that it made a difference), so it doesn't have the same element of - I dunno. Wish-fulfilment about the society (as opposed to wish-fulfilment about one's personal career?)

Also, whatever you think of Waugh's Catholicism, I think the fact that the story was about something other than 'wallowing in the life of a stately home and how mostly lovely it was' helped.

* And I love both the book and the Granada adaptation.

[(Anonymous)]

(Still same person, still broke my log in)

Yeah, people condemn Brideshead as being Thatcherite wish-fulfilment but as ever with Waugh everything goes rapidly downhill pretty damn fast. I mean there may have been people who dressed up with teddy bears at Oxford as a result but Sebastian (probably) still dies of alcoholism in a monastery. And Waugh was always very ambivalent as a whole about the upper classes - he wanted to be a part of them but was always watching from the sidelines at the same time.

To be fair I couldn't watch past the first series of Downton other than dipping in and out sometimes so maybe it does go on to address social issues of the time intelligently. I just resent how bloody omnipresent it has been over the last few years, especially at a time when the country has been descending into conservatism. There's nothing wrong with a fancy soap but the wider context drives me up the wall.

[tree_and_leaf]

Nah, it got worse. Baled out early on in S3, and only stayed as long as that because I enjoy Maggie Smith being bitchy.

[(Anonymous)]

"gay character who never has sex "

Hey, I'm gonna stop you there and remind you that the gay character fucked Daredevil in Season 1. Lucky fellow.