'Downton Abbey' Actor Says Gay Role Hurt His Career — But Is He Right?

Contents:

• DOWNTON ABBEY'S THOMAS BARROW AND THE FUTURE OF THE GAY PAST
• DOWNTON ABBEY ACTOR SAYS GAY ROLE HURT HIS CAREER — BUT IS HE RIGHT?
• THE ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ MOVIE’S GAY STORYLE ALMOST HAD A DARKER ENDG
• ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ ACTOR SAYS PLAYG A GAY CHARACTER HAS LEFT HIM “TYPEST”

DOWNTON ABBEY'S THOMAS BARROW AND THE FUTURE OF THE GAY PAST

Thomas Barrow (Rob Jam-Collier)—former footman, would-be blackmailer, and early morn homosexual everyman—is now head butler on staff, givg him ample opportuny to teract wh the visg stars, and particular, wh the bonair Guy Dexter (Domic Wt).

Is Thomas an accurate unveilg of historil homosexualy, hidn but fully formed, jt wag for to notice his existence?

DOWNTON ABBEY ACTOR SAYS GAY ROLE HURT HIS CAREER — BUT IS HE RIGHT?

Hello to the future of the gay past. In the film, dienc will see Barrow the ntext of a wir gay world for the first time: visg a secret gay bar, dodgg police harassment, and possibly even fdg love.

THE ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ MOVIE’S GAY STORYLE ALMOST HAD A DARKER ENDG

"I thk one of the thgs that Downton Abbey don’t get right is that actually a great al more of those young men who were service were homosexual.

Barrow is stantly regnizable as a morn gay man, even if he never que those words. Gooch//Getty ImagOn the one hand, this feels like an elaboratn of that famo gay liberatn slogan “we are everywhere, ” expandg to be “we were everywhere” also.

On the other hand, seems to remove sexualy om the doma of history entirely, suggtg that the experience of beg gay has always been the same, no matter the place or perd. While everyone else the show be, Barrow already qutn for queer Downton Abbey fans, then, is this: Is Thomas an accurate unveilg of historil homosexualy, hidn but fully formed, jt wag for to notice his existence?

‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ ACTOR SAYS PLAYG A GAY CHARACTER HAS LEFT HIM “TYPEST”

Or is he a backward projectn of our current ia of what means to be gay, an anachronism disguised as a revelatn? Like Thomas Barrow, Alec Scudr seems preternaturally gay, fully aware of his sexual sir, that they are exclively for men, and that they mark him, irrevobly, as a different sort of person.

In the post-Edwardian perd, upper class men were more likely to already unrstand the world terms of heterosexuals and homosexuals, wh a bright and absolute le dividg the two. But whereas Scudr and Barrow seemed to thk of themselv as gay, el-Adl experienced his sire for men differently.

Increasgly, sexologists, policians, and wrers began to promulgate the ia that the behavrs were signifiers of homosexualy, to be surveilled and curtailed. Compton Mackenzie, pictured send om the left the ont row, wrote several works about gay men. BettmannA workg class man like Thomas Barrow, livg the untrysi, was unlikely to have accs to this kd of rmatn about gay inty.