Also, I get the impression that the Crawleys were way more familiar with the lives of their servants than most aristocrats were.
I’ve been watching too many other British shows and so I keep expecting it to be revealed that Molesley was a serial killer all along. He does a really good job at that.
Quite right, I don’t think the typical upper class were all giant assholish monsters, but I think the vast vast majority observed the expected and strict rules of the employer/servant relationship. The servants weren’t family and various violations of social norms of the day wouldn’t have been openly tolerated the way they were almost every week on Downton Abbey.
Is it possible some odd upper class Brits of the era were extremely warm/caring to the point they all but included their servants as part of their own family? I’m sure it probably happened, but I think it would have been very much the exception to the rule.
Julian Fellowes didn’t want the Crawleys to be the heels of the show so I think he took some artistic license there. The way he portrays many of the other noble families they interact with, and how those families interact with their staff–is almost certainly how you’d normally expect British nobility of the time to treat staff.
There’s another forum I post on where I was discussing Downton years ago and one of the posters there had a grandfather who had been a butler serving a wealthy British landowner, from the period of like 1920-mid 1950s. He actually brought up Carlson having palsy at the end of the series because his grandfather actually developed a somewhat similar medical and there was no gracious retirement. When he was unable to work the family that had employed him for decades sent him packing and that was that.
Well, yes. But that also means that the question of appropriate roles for servants goes out the window. If it were real life, Lord Grantham would have the reputation as a homosexual with Irish radical sympathies who employs murderers.
Here’s the house decorated for Christmas, and the teaser trailer for the movie:
You forgot “Withering looks and utterances of disdain by the Dowager Countess Violet” You can’t have Downton Abbey without that.
LOL, good point!
Just dotting the i here: of course I know you specifically meant female servants. A male chauffeur or gardener, say, who married one of the maids would routinely stay on. But the couple would live in one of the estate cottages or some other housing rather than in the dorm-like servants’ quarters under the employer’s roof. (A married butler-housekeeper couple might both remain in office, and this configuration evolved into the much more common butler-cook couple of the smaller post-Edwardian urban households.)
Also, even a married ex-maid might be re-hired as a non-resident servant on a temporary or part-time basis as the needs of the house required; e.g., for a particular ball or houseparty, or for periodic visits as a laundress or child’s nurse.
Meh, the British artistocracy had no issue with homosexuality, as long as it was discreet and not forcing themselves on others, younger people.
It was the middle classes who would have acted on that fashion.
Yay.
For homosexuality or Downton?
Or a Downton with homosexuality?
Both I suppose. I loved to hate Thomas. I hope he’s still at least a little bit of a jerk.
Bumped.
Here’s the new trailer, and the Wiki article on the movie:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downton_Abbey_(film)Well, if nothing else, it’s certainly going to look gorgeous. The trailer is going full-tilt on nostalgia and warm fuzzies; hopefully the film itself will have a little more grit and drama to it.
The US trailer is the one I was reacting to; it’s different to the Australian one in EH’s post. Definitely lighter on plot. Here it is: DOWNTON ABBEY | Official Trailer | In Theaters September 20 - YouTube
I’d like to see this, for closure and because I loyally watched throughout the series, even when it meandered a bit, but I’m not going into a cinema to do it. Bugger that for a game of soldiers. I honestly don’t understand the whole “big screen” thing so many clamour for. What an unnecessary kerfuffle for so little benefit.
Interesting factoid: Maggie Smith said* she’s never watched herself as the Dowager, and didn’t give the impression of rating the programme all that much.
*In the documentary
Nothing Like A Dame - fascinating (especially for Judi Dench describing her reaction to a particularly patronising nurse).
One minute, 43 seconds; Thomas is dancing with another man. 
By the way, as a follow-up to Downton Abbey, in 2015 Julian Fellowes announced plans to make a series for NBC about New York City in the 1880s to be called The Gilded Age. The show is still moving forward but earlier this month it moved to HBO.
Just noticed this got bumped and there was a reply.
Yay there is going to be more Downton. That is all.