Rob Jam-Collier, who plays the gay butler Thomas, chats wh The Advote about the Downton movie and jt which character he would take to a gay bar.
Contents:
- DOWNTON ABBEY'S THOMAS BARROW AND THE FUTURE OF THE GAY PAST
- DOWNTON ABBEY'STHOMAS AT A GAY BAR WH THE DOWAGER? IT COULD HAPPEN
- THE ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ MOVIE’S GAY STORYLE ALMOST HAD A DARKER ENDG
DOWNTON ABBEY'S THOMAS BARROW AND THE FUTURE OF THE GAY PAST
The new Downton Abbey movie explor Tom's sexualy, but what was life really like for gay men 1920s Bra? Here's whether or not the movie portrayed accurately. * gay butler downton abbey *
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?
Hello to the future of the gay past.
DOWNTON ABBEY'STHOMAS AT A GAY BAR WH THE DOWAGER? IT COULD HAPPEN
The gay butler fally fds a perd-appropriate arrangement the send film, rrectg a misstep om the first movie. * gay butler downton abbey *
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. "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? Or is he a backward projectn of our current ia of what means to be gay, an anachronism disguised as a revelatn?
THE ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ MOVIE’S GAY STORYLE ALMOST HAD A DARKER ENDG
* gay butler downton abbey *
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.
As s passed, the neat fictn of bary sexualy beme broadly acknowledged “tth, ” leavg ls and ls space for middle-dwellg, workg-class men like Buckgham and an earlier and earlier age, people would be tght— streets as much as schools—that homosexuals existed, that they were unlike other men, and that any apparent “middle ground” was actually a slippery slope head straight to hell. Barrow might have been an implsible outlier at the begng of the show 1912, but by the 1950s, workg class men who intified as homosexual were throngg the streets of London.