A little while ago, I wrote that Glee was a fantastic series about secret agents and sex robots, based on the YouTube comments that I'd read. To be honest, I believe my assumptions were fairly accurate. Due to the spot-on nature of my perception, I decided to apply this same method to another show that I've never watched, Downton Abbey.
Now, from what I've heard, Downton Abbey consists mainly of British people being assholes to one another. I'll use this as the platform from which to start my research.
Alright, YouTube comments, you paradigm of telling me I'm dumb and then trying to fight me, it's time to go to work.
I gathered all of my ?materials? from various YouTube clips, found from the search: “downtown abbey.”
?“Why does every day involve a fight with an American?”?
I've seen movies, so the only way that this line can be delivered is full of scoff. Downton Abbey establishes itself pretty early as anti-American, and everything that comes with that. ?A spot of tea with the Queen? Delicious! Oh, yes. I hated Red Dawn.?
?What are we learning about ourselves as humans? Generally, has our treatment of each other improved in the last century? Has our self esteem improved? How do we as individuals treat each other in personal, family, community relationships………… Are we
growing…stagnant…declining?? Watching Downton Abbey has raised these questions.?
From this comment, I can determine that Downton Abbey is the most revealing British show about humanity since Planet Dinosaur. It's all very deep for a YouTube comment, but I can tell that Downton Abbey (or, as I like to call it, Planet Dinosaur with People), isn't afraid to tackle whatever the hell this commenter is talking about. Apparently, in Dinosaur Abbey times, people didn't treat each other very well. They all had low self esteem and hated each other?s families.
Considering all the questions it raises, I imagine Downton Abbey is kind of like Dinner For Five for unpleasant people. They sit around and ponder the questions of life, all the while hating cheeseburgers and bald eagles.
??I hope you are not reffering the series, if you so you have not taste at all?
Sometimes, you get so mad that you can't spell correctly or use words properly. That's why, when people on the internet get mad, they simply type ?jdoij;ads;weajd? rather than risk looking dumb and writing ?wlater white kill Mike like i cant belief.?
??I like thomas a lot, but i have a very difficult time to feel sorry for him…i almost did in this season tho.?
Who is this anti-hero Thomas? Or is this like when I feel bad for Magneto when he lost his parents and takes out his frustration by pointing people?s guns back at them? I think it's more of the second. Thomas seems like the kind of guy who would be a murderer but only does it because he's misunderstood. To almost feel sorry for him in this season means that he was probably insulted a lot. And considering that the whole show is based around sitting at a table and discussing the darkness that lurks in the hearts of man, it probably went something like:
Thomas: ?Oh, I think human nature is inherently swell!? (smiles)
Thomas? Mother: ?Thomas, if you were any dumber, you'd be?American.?
Somewhere, a tuba plays low notes
Thomas: (sobs)
?we Yanks are pushy lot…?
An American commenter attempts to infiltrate the upper class YouTube society. ?we Yanks are pushy lot? he says, and by treating grammar like Americans treat their health care system, he does exactly what Downton Abbey would expect Americans to do. He says ?Yanks? and ?lot?, which means that the closest thing he's come to a foreign culture is learning what a ?Hedwig? is.
?I think this is the most dramatic serie i’ve ever seen. I love it so very much. But there were a lot of moments that I thought: ‘O no..’
?O? no..? moments only exist in extremely dramatic situations and YouTube comments that ignore grammar entirely, but I'm guessing that the latest one happened when Thomas, enraged, pushed that oil lamp over, splashing the fire on the drapes.
Series 1 and 2 were already dramatic. But I never expected that Sybil and Matthew would die!?
I didn't expect Sybil and Matthew to die either. It is extremely tragic, and considering the context of the series, it probably happened during that devastating mansion fire that took out half the foyer. R.I.P. Sybil and Matthew. You were too busy discussing the fall of civilization to smell the smoke.
??i do think this season is better and i would watch it again but skip the sad bits! i don’t want to cry again :-(?
Can you actually do that with TV shows? That would be like skipping every scene of Breaking Bad to get to the parts where Jesse calls someone a ?Bitch.? Apparently you can in Downton Abbey. Fast forward through all the miscarriages and crying murderers and go back to people insulting one another.
?Branson bothered me in Season 2 because I thought that he was too big for his britches and just not good enough for Sybil (but let’s be honest, is ANYONE good enough for Sybil?) but I think that I may actually like them together in Season 3.?
Branson sounds like an entitled asshole, and is definitely not good enough for the recently deceased Sybil. They probably have a beautiful romance before Sybil gets fifth-degree burns over most of her body.
?Why sybil had to die!! She was the sweatest person there!?
Sybil had to die in order to provide the series with some momentum. You can only speak on philosophical things for so long before someone starts farting, and having a sudden death in the show gives you a topic of interest. Since the person who died is ?the sweetest person there,? you force the show to change. You force characters to get up and go to the bathroom, and maybe step outside for once. And since the death was caused by fire, you force the characters to wonder when the builders are going to get there, and later, when they?ll hurry up and finish painting.
??is it sad that im 13 and i am pumped for sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!?
I can't think of a lot of things that I would?ve been ?sad? for watching at thirteen, but, from the slight embarrassment that this young teen feels from saying that he is excited for Downton Abbey, I can only assume that it means that the show is extremely lame. When they're not discussing hatred and mysteries, and when they're not being burnt alive, they're writing love letters in frilly cursive to no one in particular.
?IF MATTHEW AND MARY BREAK UP ONE MORE TIME, I WILL WRITE A STRONGLY WORDED LETTER.?
I don't know if this is a joke or not, but the real joke is that Mary won't have time to break up with Matthew before he gets accidentally set on fire. Right now, the only other lead character is Thomas, leading me to believe that, by the law of elimination, Mary and Thomas are going to FINALLY become a couple. They are the last two people left on the entire show. Mary finds this out on the Season Finale of Dinosaur Abbey when she opens Thomas? love letter to her, scrawled in the blood of Mrs. leavens and sealed with ashes. She immediately runs to him and begins to ask him about the concept of souls. Little does she know that he set the fire, in order to kill Matthew and get to her.
?Stockard Channing would have been brilliant in the role of Mrs. leavens on…?
Mrs. leavens doesn't even get the honor of having her last name capitalized, so I can guess that her character is a minor one. She might be a maid or someone walking around town.
??Actually gay men don’t. Gay men’s “style” can be divided into two groups: either they festoon every inch of their home in art deco accented with silk and satin curtains or they go for the minimalist: one chrome chair in an empty apartment. Gay men have taste up their ass, which is appropriate, considering their sex life :)?
I don't know if I've ever heard a lazier gay joke than this. It's like seeing a rainbow and saying ?Gay God is bleeding!? From this comment, I can only assume that the examples of homosexual men shown on Downton Abbey are very black and white, and considering that there are only three male characters on the show, Matthew must be the one in the closet. His massive lisp and penchant for starting every conversation with ?Oooh, you know it, girl? gives it away.
? If Thomas gets fired in episode 8 i will stop watching.?
No, you won't.
??im in the us and i watch it online…?
You're in the pronoun and you're watching the show online, probably illegally? How very American of you! Downton Abbey, you win again.
Woland says
Victorian, Edwardian, and Georgian British toffs, were, historically speaking, by and large snobs with a sense of entitlement not unlike many of America’s contemporary economic and political elite who think they are the greatest thing in the world today I might add. And they, by and large, were snobbish about the US. The attempt by the show to portray their characters accurately, and don’t forget the Americans in the show give as good as they get, does not necessarily translate into that bizarre kitchen sink category that Americans like to throw around, anti-Americanism, however. To do show that DA is “anti-American” would have to do some research on Julian Fellowes, the creator and writer of the show, and post “anti-American” statements he has made over the years. Feel free to do so.
By the way, you fail to address rather obvious issues like whether “boring”, a term younger generations throw around as though it were akin to a term of critical analysis like genre, is in the eye of the beholder. You haven’t done that here and as a result you are open to the charge of consummate fetishiser.
James Whitney says
I really don’t think Julian “PigNose” Fellowes or, for that matter, any Brit can, with good conscience, justify anti-American feelings. Perhaps if would have been apropos to have Lord Crawley explain to his mother-in-law how Great Britain planned to repay the US government for the enormous war loans rather than beg for money to bail him out again. But then he is, after all, a man of no accomplishments, living in a high style off the largesse of others. American tycoons MADE their money. And now, for the show: the biggest disappointment of the current season to me was not that Lady Sybil died. It is that Lady Mary didn’t. I don’t know how such a one dimensional actress as Michelle Dockery can receive such acclaim. She has two expressions: indignation and an arrogant hauteur. Michelle, Julia Roberts and Charlize Theron have nothing to worry about as far as you’re concerned. When are the English going to produce some world-class actors? Well, there’s Anthony Hopkins (oops, he is from Wales). Well, what about Ewan McGregor (oops, he is from Scotland). I guess Michelle gets a lot of attention because she lives in a country where the word “fuck” is a part of every sentence and the public lives to read about the details of the “royal” family’s bowel habits.