#LGBTQ: Downton Abbey’s “New Era” Inclus Gay Valet, Thomas’ Queer Close-Up. Watch - The WOW Report

Contents:

• 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 DIRECTOR OF “DOWNTON ABBEY” OPENED UP ABOUT THE MOVIE’S TOUCHG GAY STORYLE
• THE ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ MOVIE GAY BAR SCENE IS ACTUALLY PRETTY HISTORILLY ACCURATE
• ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ DIRECTOR DISCS THE REALI OF CRAFTG A 1920S CLOSETED GAY ROMANCE
• ROB JAM-COLLIER SAYS HIS CHARACTER’S GAY ROMANCE IN ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ MOVIE IS ‘LOVELY’
• 'DOWNTON ABBEY': A GAY OLD TIME
• ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ ACTOR SAYS PLAYG A GAY CHARACTER HAS LEFT HIM “TYPEST”
• DOWNTON ABBEY STAR MOVED BY GAY STORYLE NEW MOVIE
• DOWNTON ABBEY'S CREEPY GAY SECRET
• #LGBTQ: DOWNTON ABBEY’S “NEW ERA” INCLUS GAY VALET, THOMAS’ QUEER CLOSE-UP. WATCH

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

Thomas Barrow, Downton Abbey‘s valet-turned-butler, whose dark journey durg the seri saw him take some wrenchg steps to try and “cure” himself of homosexualy, received a much more hopeful treatment the new feature film of the same name. The film, which troduc Barrow to a world he has never seen before, a clanste unrground social scene where gay men n openly nnect, where he's led by Richard Ellis (Max Brown), part of the royal entourage that has e to vis Downton. Engler also spoke about the gay storyle wh Indiewire, about some of the choic that were ma when pictg the 1920s gay scene, particular the gay ‘speakeasy' that gets raid.

Said Engler: “In pictg that world, that gatherg that he go to, we had to fd a way to tell that didn't feel anachronistic even though there's almost no rearch that one uld actually do about a place like that bee there was no gay bars York 1927. There's people of lor gay bars, and there's guys who go to the gym and are mcle-y gay bars.

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'S THOMAS BARROW AND 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.

"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.

THE DIRECTOR OF “DOWNTON ABBEY” OPENED UP ABOUT THE MOVIE’S TOUCHG GAY STORYLE

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?

THE ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ MOVIE GAY BAR SCENE IS ACTUALLY PRETTY HISTORILLY ACCURATE

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.

‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ DIRECTOR DISCS THE REALI OF CRAFTG A 1920S CLOSETED GAY ROMANCE

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.

ROB JAM-COLLIER SAYS HIS CHARACTER’S GAY ROMANCE IN ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ MOVIE IS ‘LOVELY’

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. Michael Engler, the director of the newly released Downton Abbey film, weighed on the importance project’s touchg gay urse, there will be major spoilers om this pot on, so if you haven’t seen the film yet, you may want to steer you rell, at the end of the six-season n of the origal Downton Abbey seri, most characters were blsed enough to get a satisfactory endg.

Thomas had fleetg, clanste affairs wh other men, and at one pot the seri attempted to change his sexual clatns by unrgog gay nversn therapy.

'DOWNTON ABBEY': A GAY OLD TIME

The two spend the rt of the night together walkg around and nnectg about their liv as closeted gay men. How many homosexual scen are there downton abbey.

So we had one for homosexual scen too i named 2 S1 e1 and s3 e7 and he went on namg so many episos i thk he was lyg jt wonrg if anyone had a list. In the new film, Thomas Barrow (Robert Jam-Collier) gets to vis a gay bar lled Turton's.

But once they're si, Thomas se that 's a secret bar filled wh gay men drkg, dancg, and generally havg a good time.

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

A Vice article about the history of UK gay bars not that 18th century spac for gay men to meet that were known as "molly ho" are well-documented, but that siar meetg spac existed long before that. Historian Peter Ackroyd told the Guardian 2017, "As a percentage of the populatn, there were as many gay bars 18th-century London as there are today.

" In 1912, a bar lled The Cave of the Goln Calf, Bra's "first 'gay bar', as we know today", opened London, but was around for only two years.

It wasn't until the Sexual Offens Act of 1967 that homosexual relatnships were crimalized, but that did not mean that there was full equaly Bra.

DOWNTON ABBEY STAR MOVED BY GAY STORYLE NEW MOVIE

It seemed that was Thomas’ bt chance at happs as a closeted gay man 1920s England. After all, he hadn’t had much luck love the past, and homosexualy was emed a crime at the time. Left to his own vic, Thomas starts hangg out wh one of the royal servants and eventually stumbl upon an unrground gay nightclub full of men dancg, lghg, and drkg.

DOWNTON ABBEY'S CREEPY GAY SECRET

“In pictg that world, that gatherg that he go to, we had to fd a way to tell that didn’t feel anachronistic even though there’s almost no rearch that one uld actually do about a place like that bee there was no gay bars York 1927, ” said Engler. Although there were rerds of tablishments London where gay men uld gather, those were primarily for procurg sex partners.

There’s people of lor gay bars, and there’s guys who go to the gym and are mcle-y gay bars. Later, when the royal retue is about to take their leave of Downton, Richard reveals that he’s also gay and hop Thomas will stay touch.

#LGBTQ: DOWNTON ABBEY’S “NEW ERA” INCLUS GAY VALET, THOMAS’ QUEER CLOSE-UP. WATCH

Among those volved the productn is Guy Dexter, a closeted gay movie star played by Domic Guy drops hts about his sexual inty, mostly through exchang wh gay butler Thomas Barrow (Robert Jam-Collier, both pictured above), the portrayal ntu the tradn of queer cln projects om Downton creator and wrer Julian Fellow, wh exampl such as Barrow, The Gild Age's Osr van Rhijn, and several characters Gosford Park. "I got que terted, really, over the past years, the prediment of beg gay before the morn age, " says Fellow, a straight ally. Some viewers didn't believe such thgs really happened, and Fellow got letters to which he rpond that beg gay was not only illegal the 1920s, was illegal his own youth the 1960s.

In his own life, one of his brothers had a godfather who was a gay earl. Fellow's pictns of gay people aren't one-dimensnal, and the characters are hardly sats; some uld even be ced as exampl of the "schemg gay" trope, like Osr The Gild Age or Barrow the early seasons of Gild Age's Osr van Rhijn (Blake Rson); Photo Alison Cohen Rosa"What I that at the begng of Downton, [Barrow] would be seen as v and untstworthy and all of those kd of thgs, but as you got to know him and as you got to know the prediment he was , you started to unrstand that was very difficult for him to tst people and that was very difficult for him to relax and to bee open and iendly, " Fellow says. "You gradually unrstand that for most people, beg gay the 1920s, that ma you were always one step away om disaster.