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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/shortcuts/2013/may/01/downton-abbey-new-black-character
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| The trouble with Downton Abbey's new black character | The trouble with Downton Abbey's new black character |
| (5 months later) | |
| Among the more reliable signifiers of changing seasons, including rheumatic pain and ill-fitting woollens, Downton Abbey is set to return this autumn. Fans can again settle down to a nice bit of Sunday night escapism before having to face the grim 21st-century reality of standing-room-only commutes and prepacked sandwiches. It's hard not to picture a certain type of Downton fan spitting out their darjeeling at any disruption to this genteel routine. | Among the more reliable signifiers of changing seasons, including rheumatic pain and ill-fitting woollens, Downton Abbey is set to return this autumn. Fans can again settle down to a nice bit of Sunday night escapism before having to face the grim 21st-century reality of standing-room-only commutes and prepacked sandwiches. It's hard not to picture a certain type of Downton fan spitting out their darjeeling at any disruption to this genteel routine. |
| Get ready with the Kleenex, because following the announcement that Gary Carr would become the first black member of the cast, playing jazz singer Jack Ross, Downton Abbey fan sites make for uneasy reading. Opinions range from vows of boycott to excitement ("deliciously shocking") at this nugget of exoticism. And there's the problem. Downton Abbey haven't introduced a character who is black. They have introduced a Black Character, which apparently warrants a press release, replete with words like "vibrant" to describe this new addition. | Get ready with the Kleenex, because following the announcement that Gary Carr would become the first black member of the cast, playing jazz singer Jack Ross, Downton Abbey fan sites make for uneasy reading. Opinions range from vows of boycott to excitement ("deliciously shocking") at this nugget of exoticism. And there's the problem. Downton Abbey haven't introduced a character who is black. They have introduced a Black Character, which apparently warrants a press release, replete with words like "vibrant" to describe this new addition. |
| Downton Abbey's blithe attitude towards fact doesn't bother me. Rigid historicity would see the characters perched largely straight-backed and silent for an hour every week, the only light relief coming every second series when someone crumbles under the weight of emotional repression and is committed to a mental hospital for the rest of their lives. I can't help but feel that this is not good TV. | Downton Abbey's blithe attitude towards fact doesn't bother me. Rigid historicity would see the characters perched largely straight-backed and silent for an hour every week, the only light relief coming every second series when someone crumbles under the weight of emotional repression and is committed to a mental hospital for the rest of their lives. I can't help but feel that this is not good TV. |
| Downton Abbey's charm is in its stupidity. Its frivolous stupidity. The Granthams are the most progressive toffs ever imagined. Liberated daughters shagging the help, tolerant aunts employing prostitutes, countesses dragging dead bodies down oak-panelled halls, all met with not much more than pursed lips that soften to a kind of self-satisfied tolerance. This is not representative of the ugliness of Britain's history. Imperial oppression did not unravel with the loosening of a posh woman's stays. By making his inclusion a talking point, the makers of Downton Abbey have placed a hundredweight of pressure on Gary Carr's shoulders. I only hope they lighten the load a little and give him stories as stupid as all the others. | Downton Abbey's charm is in its stupidity. Its frivolous stupidity. The Granthams are the most progressive toffs ever imagined. Liberated daughters shagging the help, tolerant aunts employing prostitutes, countesses dragging dead bodies down oak-panelled halls, all met with not much more than pursed lips that soften to a kind of self-satisfied tolerance. This is not representative of the ugliness of Britain's history. Imperial oppression did not unravel with the loosening of a posh woman's stays. By making his inclusion a talking point, the makers of Downton Abbey have placed a hundredweight of pressure on Gary Carr's shoulders. I only hope they lighten the load a little and give him stories as stupid as all the others. |
| • This article was amended on 2 May 2013. The original referred incorrectly to "empirical oppression". | • This article was amended on 2 May 2013. The original referred incorrectly to "empirical oppression". |
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