Representation Essay

 Downton Abbey is a show that tackles the representation of women and hierarchy during the post-Edwardian era. One of the key representations in this film would be women of less social importance, and women overall. This show is portraying women in this era as powerless, and their only purpose is to satisfy the needs of the men in the house. We can see this through the way the first shots are solely based on tracking and showing the lifestyle of the girls that work as servants to the Crawley family. The diegetic sound of one of the servants saying “for once I’d like sleep till I woke up natural”, instantly tells the audience this way of living has been going on for their whole lives, this shows that the servants are indebted to the rich, connecting to the overall arching idea that the lower down the social hierarchy you are, the more indebted you are to those above you. That quote lets us also know that these women have not had a single day off in their lives, which connects to the representation of the lower working class. A series of mid shots are used to show the workers having their instructions shout out by the head of the group of servants, her apparent age and manner suggest that she may be someone who has been the most loyal to the Crawleys, always done her best to serve these people, showing that people of the lower hierarchy are only seen as valuable based on how well they serve the rest of the household, specifically the men, basically only seen as valuable based on how useful they are. The music is very classic to the era, mellow and not heavy, considering how this music is so calm, during all the time the servants are being shown, it tells us that this is normal, it is normal for them to be treated this way and to be seen as inanimate objects who just do everything regular people would have done themselves, but for a rich family. The editing helps the image of the lifestyle back in that era, to be seen as casual through the use of smooth cuts and transitions, this lets us know that this treatment is nothing out of the ordinary, it all works together to show that in the post-Edwardian era, women were seen as tools that would help elevate the men in society, suggesting that would be a woman's only purpose in life, also suggesting that they are the minority. This message that is being portrayed about women, and more specifically women of lower economic social status, is very conforming to what we know of this era. Women were only openly allowed to be part of a proper workforce outside of their masters' homes, during the ’60s and this show was based on the ’20s. This would lead us to assume before then, what is shown in the film and how women are represented is accurate to what we believe that time to be like. 

Men are represented as the only ones in the house who could be of authority, specifically rich men. We take this as obvious because there are simply no male servants in the household as they were stereotypically seen as more valuable than that of the woman. This makes the audience automatically assume after maybe re-evaluating their life, that everything has changed and because of time, now women and men are being treated exactly the same as if their gender does not affect their place on the hierarchy. However, upon closer investigation, people would come to realise we are not as far ahead as we think, as in many traditional homes a woman is still seen as only a housekeeper, and in many countries, men and women do in fact not get paid the same so it really challenges the audience's emotions and psyche. This challenges not what we know of the post-Edwardian era, but in fact the era we currently live in. Even now both societal groups are seen through the eyes of stereotypes, the only difference is that in the 1920s, it was more widely spread sexism and openly expressed too, whereas now it is more discrete and subtle, which cause many to believe it does not exist even though the effects are being held throughout all generations. Even in the minor aspects of life, sexism exists for example in everyday advertisements for items as simple as body wash, the women's ones are called “vanilla” “cherry blossom” whereas the male's body wash is bombarded with the feeding into of male stereotype propaganda with titles such as “Mountain birchwood” “Man Cave” and “Old Spice high endurance”. This shows that still the media even is portraying women to be subdued and men to be the outgoing, hard-working people of society, and this show helps the audience to realise these things and keep an open eye for them. Another way we are shown the representation of men is through the mise en scene of how in the house the women servants are treated in terms of living conditions and lifestyle in comparison to the rest of the house, the women are sleeping in a shared room that looks old and as if neglected for many years, whereas when the rest of the house is shown it seems to be remodelled into being more modern and well kept, so this would suggest the Crawley family just set aside rooms for the servants and have neglected it since as a write off of kindness and basic human decency when in reality that is not at all accurate. The rooms seem dull and monotone which almost portrays the way their life is, the same duties every day, working for the same people and living the same way for their entire existence, the main house, outside of the servants' rooms seems more lively which would also connect to the fact that they are treated overall more like humans than the servants. Even within the group of servants, the men of social-economic status are given slightly less degrading duty as butlers, showing that even down to the lowest portion of the hierarchy, there is still a difference in the way men and women are being treated. 

Oppression is a key representation in this show, the servants are being oppressed by the rich, they are being treated differently due to circumstances they are not given the opportunity to change. The men in the house are the oppressors mainly, they take authority in the house as they are stereotypically seen to be indebted to having more power and to be the backbone of a house as women are seen to be careless and not to be trusted with anything of major importance which is why all that they are trusted with is perhaps a mop and some wood. The non-diegetic audio of the warden woman saying “go down to the kitchens before anyone sees you”, shows us that this group of women are looked down on so much to the point where they should not even be seen by those of higher social importance. The men of the house wish to have all their duties fulfilled, all jobs are done without even having to glance at those that it was able to be done because of. This is because they are seen as the lowest of the lows so the men do not want to see them in a place they also spend time in because to them it would be degrading to be connected to them in any way. We also know this through a midshot of all the servants and butlers eating, at a separate table to the rich men and women, suggesting that they are not worthy to sit with people of such class. The lighting shown in rooms and situations where it is just the servants and/or butlers is always dull and lifeless, this would show that their lives alone are dreary and muted much like their basic human rights and emotions in this household.  The girl in the pink dress, Daisy is new to her addition of jobs, she is not resenting any of the work she had to do and instead is proudly announcing it as done to the head of the kitchen within the servants, this would suggest that since this is the norm, the girl has accepted this will pretty much be her life for the rest of the time she is here, connecting to the representation of social pressure that is being put on women and specifically women of lesser social status.