Downton Abbey's Thomas Barrow and the Future of the Gay Past

I don't understand how Barrow said he never met anyone like him, ie gay. There have always been gay men on the dl. Oscar Wilde never had any trouble. All those aristo men who visited DA would have had plenty of m/m experience at British public schools.

[quote]I don't understand how Barrow said he never met anyone like him, ie gay.

Yeah, that line made me wince. Perhaps he meant someone who might not be out but is "comfortably gay", in that he doesn't mind talking about it with Thomas like it's not an affliction?

Particularly if the character had been in the First World War, a I believe Barrow was, surely somewhere along the way between Britain and the Western Front he would have encountered what were then called inverts. He might not have gotten to know them but certainly whatever passed for Gaydar in the early 20th century would have caught his attention.

The gay story thread in the DA movie did feel a bit like backward projection. I don't think in provincial York there would have been a clandestine gay bar as raucous and noisy as that one. Things would have been much more furtive. And I would have imagined the police being much more brutal in their crackdown when they raided the place.

And although it is not unlikely that somewhere in the Royal Household there were gay men working, it did seem strange to me that one would take such a shine to Barrow. As one of the movie's other characters commented, The Downton servants worked for a minor noble family in a second tier house far off in the provinces, so they would hardly be of great interest to Royal servants who could experience much more of the world in London and more sophisticated environs.

It's a tradeoff, I suppose. Yes, it's anachronistic, but it's a nice nod to the substantial gay DA following. It also sends a didactic message to the straight audiences that we've been around since before the sexual revolution, and that it was THEIR fault that we weren't able to be more open about it.

r4 I think that's what they were going for.

Did we see Thomas' John Thomas??

I don't think we even saw any guy shirtless. It's weirdly tame on that front, especially considering adults are the main (only?) audience for it.

Going back a long way, but wasn't the divine Pamuk shirtless for a few moments? And Thomas' sleazy aristo bf in the first episode?

Yes, I was talking about the movie...

Great article OP, thanks for that. I didnt have an issue with how he was played in DA. I always had a crush on him! Extremely cute actor that played him, and you cant help but feel sad for the character, being gay back then was shit

Didn't Robert make a comment once about all the homo sex in prep schools

Yes I guess it's the straight audiences' fault that gay people had to be in the closet in the pre sexual revolution.

This sounds like an incredibly annoying kind of film. Like making a movie with a female empowerment sub plot set during the revolutionary war.

R11, you're right, I remember that clearly, it was after Barrow got caught, he said something along the lines of "if all the boys I saw doing things like that at prep school were put away for good the Empire would have collapsed"

r12 You sound like a homophobe. And an angry incel as well, judging by your second paragraph. What are you even doing on DL? Get lost.

No you fuck off SJW fascist R14. Contemptable twisted dickhead who thinks the past must be enacted according to his/her narrow minded strait-jacketed view.

Did Barrow go to prep school? Did he work at one?

R15, you're the one with a narrow view of the past. You just have a narrow view, period.

Barrow was working-class and barely educated. He was a lifelong servant. I believe it was mentioned that his father was a clocksmith.

An orgy of Barrow, Branson, the hot king valet, Andy, Jimmy, new new footman and the plumber would be hot

R18 Whilst I know Barrow was from a poor family he certainly appeared to be rather well read and refined. After all he tried to teach Andy who to read and write without anything in return other than friendship. However, I put it down to despite being from a working class background Barrow was very intelligent and tried to better and educate himself. Like Tom in that respect, though Tom never actually desired to be part of the upper class Barrow would have jumped at it and done everything he could to be apart of it.

Sorry, it was Robert who made the comment, clearly.