Apologies for the delay in my post of the latest Downton Abbey episode, but I was inundated with the beauty that was my fake TV wife, Michelle at the Golden Globes…if ya got a little extra, enjoy.**SPOILERS**
There were many small advances in most of the individual stories of the Crawley family and staff this evening, which for most served more as a bridge to each character’s destination rather than any notable climaxes or dramatic turns.
The night began with a glimmer of hope for grieving Lady Mary as a friend from the past graced the abbey during an extravagant gathering of random and mostly insignificant guests. Lord Gillingham, tall, dark, and handsome as he was, seemed to breathe a hint of life back into Mary, even drawing smiles and subtle laughter from the widow, though at times she still struggled with the everyday reminders of Matthew. Edith continued to edge Michael towards her resistant father, but the poor man earned brownie points when warding off the evils of a Vegas-bound card slinger and saving Lord Grantham a sound lashing from his level-headed wife. Molesley has changed sides with us since the previous post, going from the down-on-his luck street worker who made us pity his plight to a snobbish screw-this-peasant-work footman, finding the responsibilities beneath him after a stint as a delivery boy. Yeah, you were a valet, now you’re a footman; try having a college degree and realizing the pimple-faced teenage barista at Starbucks makes more money than you. Backhand. Branson is straddling the class lines and questioning his place in the family and Edna is still a pushy boundless tramp who can’t grasp her downstairs status to save her life; she seems hell-bent on shaming Branson in the process.
While we certainly don’t want to dismiss or glaze over the moments of the numerous characters that comprised the evening’s episode, it is hardly possible to ignore the crucial two minutes of the show that overshadowed every preceding moment of the hour. The story turned dark when dear Anna was brutally assaulted by a visiting valet. Mr. Green, belonging to none other than our golden boy Lord Gillingham, had been fawning over Anna the entire evening and could not take no for an answer. After his advances were turned down, he attacked the meek servant downstairs. Scenes shifted between smiling faces of ignorance while guests and staff enjoyed an operatic aria upstairs and the sound of beating fists and shrieks for help while Anna was raped down below. Mrs. Hughes later discovered Anna battered in her sitting room and, sworn to secrecy, assisted her with clothing and her wounds.
For obvious reasons, the episode shocked and stunned many viewers, but the response was not as vehement in America as it was in the UK. British viewers spewed venomous criticism at the show, the writer, and the actors for displaying such a crude act of violence against women. Some claimed the rape was a poor attempt to boost failing ratings; others complained the use of the topic was “morally reprehensible.” One viewer apparently noted that the series had been ruined for them and they could no longer watch. Viewers threatened to lodge formal complaints against ITV, the station airing the show, and Ofcom, the British version of the FCC.
I will be honest in saying that although I knew the rape was coming sometime in the season, I wasn’t quite sure when it would air and wasn’t fully prepared for the shock I was about to endure. After glancing down for a moment during the show, I was suddenly being jerked back to attention by the sound of clattering pots and pans and the sight of Anna being flung across the table. My breath caught in my throat. My heart nearly stopped. For a moment, I was transported back to the time of my own sexual assault, albeit I was much younger than Anna and the event played out much differently, but in the end, we had both been taken against our will. We had both lost a part of ourselves we will never regain. And we both felt the need to silence ourselves, push the moment away, and sweep it under the rug.
I suppose my confusion of the responses across the pond lies in questioning the motives behind them. Are these blue-stockinged suffragettes who fight against what they perceive is the glorification of violence against women? Are these feminists who feel they should possess the sole power in determining where and when rape can be depicted and discussed? Or are they passe Puritans who prefer to remain upstairs, engulfed in an aria of ignorance while such brutality continues on in the dark recesses of the world around them, even right under their noses? I will admit that I myself am ignorant of typical British broadcasting, but I know that Michelle also played a role on UK TV’s Waking the Dead which showed a much more brutal sexual assault and depicted every detail of the moment in full camera view; thus the UK must not be a stranger to violence on TV. And given that ratings appear to have been higher than ever, garnering a massive 10.2 million viewers in America prior to any “rating-seeking” rape scenes, I doubt the move was to attract more attention to the successful drama.
Downton Abbey has tackled many difficult topics and events in seasons past; untimely deaths in natural disasters (the Titanic in the pilot); premarital sex with a complete stranger (Pamuk); the murder of an unborn child (O’Brien’s soap); homosexuality; the trauma of trench warfare and the loss of thousands of innocent men in WW1; the suicide of a wounded and traumatized soldier; prostitution; the precursor of what would have undoubtedly been a domestically violent relationship with Sir Carlisle following physical aggression, threats, jealousy, and verbal abuse towards Lady Mary. Why launch a campaign now, this late in the game, over rape? I do not believe the rape scene was any more extensive than any of the other topics that have been explored: no one saw the pregnant Lady Grantham fall to a miscarriage, no one saw a soldier slash his wrists, no one saw poor Ethel spreading her legs on the streets to feed her baby. And no one saw Anna get raped.
It would appear that some of these British viewers would prefer to determine where and when certain topics can be discussed. Suicide and murder is fine on Downton Abbey, but not rape. Rape is okay on crime dramas, but not on period dramas, because clearly rape did not happen back in the 1920s and rape cannot happen in the happy little tea-swilling, tiara wearing high society world of our beloved abbey. Newsflash friends: shit happens. Shit happens everywhere, all the time, throughout time, to everyone. It happens to children, it happens to our favorite characters on our favorite shows, and it happens to people all over the world, every single day. To ask someone to glam up rape, to make it less shocking, less violent, or to obliterate it altogether, is to disrespect the reality of a very serious issue and the millions of individuals it has happened to. You can’t make rape pretty, you can’t make rape go away just because you don’t want to hear it or see it.
I applaud Downton Abbey for tackling such an issue and reigniting a conversation of the perils of sexual assault. I give all my kudos to Joanne Froggatt for having the courage to jump in headfirst and present such a storyline with the utmost deference for the presentation as well as true victims. And I send a figurative backhand to all the whiners and nay-sayers (or a real backhand if I can reach you). Anna may be just a character, but she is now another face to the nameless victims of rape all over the world. This conversation has only just begun.
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