What do you expect from a character named Ethel?

[osprey_archer]

Ethel walks onstage in season 2 of Downton Abbey with a "Kick me!" sign on her back. Not literally, of course; but she's signposted as a disposable and despicable character.

Ethel starts her career at Downton by being rude to Anna, proceeds to sneer at the other servants for being content to remain in service, and then foolishly falls for it when O'Brien, with transparent malice, tells her that Lady Grantham wants to see her in the drawing room to congratulate her for doing so well on her first day - a prospect that Ethel should know was ridiculous, if she hadn't been so busy sneering during Anna's Country House 101.

With a beginning like this, it's no surprise when Ethel gets caught in flagrante with a soldier (of course nothing happens to him) and summarily sacked, only to wind up having the soldier's bastard child - which of course he refuses to acknowledge or support.

Abstractly I was sorry that Ethel was suffering so much and so unjustly, giving us a crash course in the vulnerability of maidservants. But really I didn't care a twig about her or her storyline, and felt the time would have been much better spent on Sybil & Branson, or on Edith, or really any of the characters we got to know and love in season one.

Extraneous and boring storylines are bad enough. But for a story like Ethel's, which is supposed to be consciousness-raising - being a maid could really suck, you guys! - an irritatingly boring storyline extra-problematic, because it makes the whole issue of sexual exploitation of maids seem unimportant and tiresome. Same tired old story (with an ennui-laden sigh): yet another girl getting taken advantage of. How trite.

(Apparently women's pain is interesting only if it's not about anything women classically suffer over. Bad break-ups, cruel boyfriends or husbands, rape, unwanted pregnancies, miscarriages - trite! I despise the word trite.)

For the storyline to work - to be interesting, and to highlight the issue of maidservants' vulnerability - it needed to feature a character who didn't walk in wearing a "Kick me!" sign. The victim needed to be someone we knew and loved, whose suffering we'll feel like a kick in the gut. Daisy, perhaps?

Of course it would be awful to watch sweet, naive Daisy suffer like that, and I would have been miserable and hated it and thrown things at the screen, but that's the point. If you want to bring home the horror of the sexual vulnerability and exploitation of maids, then the injured maid has to be a character we'll be horrified to see hurt.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Possibly by making Ethel dislikable they were trying to get the audience to care even when the character *isn't* a sweet victim, the way Daisy would have been. It's easy to feel bad about someone being taken advantage of, but what about the saucy knowing gal who thinks she knows what she's doing, but then ends up in trouble. But that's a hard one to pull off, especially when the issue is one that people are pretty much already decided on and therefore not as challenging or interesting as it might be.

Ethel's character existed in too much of a vacuum--she had no context. (Same with Daisy, actually--just an orphan out of nowhere.) She came in full of class battle but ... why? What had raised her consciousness? What was her past? We don't know. What if she'd fallen for Branson, admiring his politics. She could have challenged him about why it was that it was Lady Sybil he's attracted to, rather than her. Of course the heart goes where it goes, but maybe that would have provided a chance for some self-critical introspection on Branson's part.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Possibly by making Ethel dislikable they were trying to get the audience to care even when the character *isn't* a sweet victim

If this was their intent, then I don't think they succeeded. It ought to be possible to create a saucy knowing gal who is still sympathetic - make her be saucy to characters that the audience feel deserve it, for instance. As it is I feel like she was created to be easier for viewers who aren't already conversant in the issues to dismiss - like, they could think "well she's a slut who got what's coming to her, that's all."

(I don't agree with that at all, of course! But the storyline sets up that interpretation, and doesn't refute it, which is problematic.)

Theoretically, we should feel bad for people (and characters) who suffer, no matter how much we dislike them, but I think it's really difficult to get this point across on TV because so many people do react to it purely emotionally and don't go back to rethink it later. Possibly it would be an easier message to get across in books, which aren't quite as immediately visceral as television?

I think part of the problem with Ethel as a character is that she hasn't exactly had her consciousness raised: she just has a lot of free-floating bitterness, but it's not systematized like Branson. Of course it makes sense that she would be bitter, but it's hard to appreciate a character who directs her bitterness at characters we already like rather than the class structure as an abstract concept.

I think having Ethel fall for Branson has a lot of potential - channeling her bitterness into politics would make her much more interesting. Not crazy about the love triangle aspect, though...but it does have a lot of potential otherwise...because it would be interesting to explore why he is attracted to Lady Sybil, and is it a response to his internalization of class biases?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about the love triangle aspect! Even as I was typing I was like, "Oh... no... must ... resist ... pull.... of the... one plot ... that all .... shows .... succumb ... to....." but I failed.

Seriously, love triangles are omnipresent and boring. IMO.

I feel as if giving Ethel any kind of context would have made her more interesting and therefore potentially sympathetic. Maybe she was rude to Anna because Anna reminded her of her older sister, etc. etc. etc. (<--notice how my mind ends up moving along clichéd paths, too, though *ugh*)

And yeah, I agree with what you first say--if that *was* the writers' intent, it was unsuccessful.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Maybe this is why there are so many love triangles. Even when we try to avoid them, they sneak out because they're just so economical: you only have to create half as many love interests!

"Anna reminds Ethel of her older sister" is a much less annoying cliche than a love triangle, at least. Who could Anna remind Ethel of that wouldn't be a cliche of some sort, though? Her mother - an old boss - an irritating Sunday school teacher?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Who could Anna remind Ethel of that wouldn't be a cliche of some sort, though?

... yeah, if you made it something totally unprecedented, storytelling-wise, you'd have to take time to explain it, and suddenly Ethel would end up the main character. And for that we have fanfiction, so.