The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, January 12, 2016 — 5
‘Downton Abbey’ is
back for a final jaunt
By DANIELLE YACOBSON
Daily Arts Writer
The roaring twenties are stir-
ring up a storm, and things are
“positively frugal” at the Down-
ton
Abbey.
With only two
handmaidens
and
a
single
hall boy left,
how will the
lords and ladies
manage to go
on? It’s 1925,
and those who
can’t keep up
are left behind.
So, let the flap-
per dresses and
jazz music run wild — Downton
is entering the new age. Wom-
en’s rights, secret daughters,
marriages and threats of bank-
ruptcy are all on the horizon in
the Masterpiece Classic’s final
season, along with the usual
dose of snobbery and back-
handed sass, of course. In true
“Downton Abbey” fashion, the
lords and ladies eagerly trample
into their backyard expanse for
a weekend hunt as the final sea-
son springs to life, promising to
tie up loose ends without unrav-
eling too many new threads.
After winning three Gold-
en Globes and 12 Primetime
Emmys, the British period dra-
ma’s sixth season premiere lives
up to the expectations set by
its resounding critical acclaim.
Consistently showcasing epi-
sodes of breathtaking cinema-
tography and precise dialogue,
“Downton Abbey” proves, once
again, to be anything but a pas-
sive viewing experience. Much
of the series’ merit lies in the
nuances: the witty remarks,
oftentimes delivered by the bril-
liant Maggie Smith (“Harry Pot-
ter”) as Countess Violet Crawley,
and the exchange of snooty
looks color even the smallest
moments. Perhaps this attention
to detail is what drew audiences
to the series in the first place.
“Downton Abbey” has proven
to be more than a historical
analysis of the highbrow upper
class
elite
juxtaposed
with
the slim pickings lives of their
working-class
staff.
Instead,
the show highlights the surpris-
ing relativity of human nature,
even within seemingly opposite
groups of people.
Other than showing some
ankle and sporting dramatic
hairdos (winning the series
three Primetime Emmy awards
for outstanding hairstyles), the
women of Downton continue to
challenge the boundaries of the
status quo. The opening hunt-
ing scene shows Lady Mary
(Michelle Dockery, “Non-Stop”)
straddling her horse rather than
riding side-saddle, which, as
Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonn-
eville, “Iris”) points out, is “so
much more graceful.” Mean-
while, Lady Edith (Laura Car-
michael, “Burn Burn Burn”)
toils with her editor, whose male
ego cannot handle working for
a woman. In tune with previ-
ous seasons, Lady Mary and her
sisters (past and present) bring
the “modern” into a house des-
perately holding on to the tra-
ditional past, and the familiar
themes of progress and inevita-
ble change ring through.
Going back to the basics,
“Downton Abbey” starts its
sixth season with what it does
best: blackmail with the intent
of social destruction. The secret
fling between Lady Mary and
Tony Gillingham (Tom Cullen,
“Weekend”) was brought back
from the dead when a gold-dig-
ging employee of their getaway
hotel comes to haunt the Abbey’s
reputation. The scandal is put
to rest (for now), but the most
significant takeaway from the
interaction is Mary’s intent to
stay single — until the right man
comes along, anyway. Her grow-
ing self-sufficiency has allowed
the focus of Mary’s character
to switch from juggling her
budding love life to honing her
shrewd business savvy, and
exploring the idea that a woman
in the 1920s is not defined by the
husband at her side. Mary’s rela-
tionship status could take a vari-
ety of directions by the series’
end, a creative decision that will
make a significant statement to
the progression of women into a
new era.
Romances are heating up
downstairs too, as Mr. Carson
(Jim Carter, “The Golden Com-
pass”) and Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis
Logan, “Secrets and Lies”) take
the next step before officially
tying the knot. As the Abbey’s
relationships go, there have
been matches both political
and passionate, and everything
in between. Yet, Mr. Carson
and Mrs. Hughes’ love is one
rarely depicted on screen, and
it’s executed fantastically on
“Downton Abbey.” The two
middle-aged singles have devot-
ed their life to work, and have
grown to love each other years
after the conventional time-
frame of typical newlyweds.
Mrs.
Hughes’
reservations
before setting the date of the
wedding, however, are of the
unspeakable nature: she is wor-
ried about Mr. Carson’s sexual
expectations. Both comical and
surprisingly relatable, the story
arc brings out an innocence and
vulnerability within the char-
acters and serves as a gentle
reminder that love is never too
late. Although their relation-
ship is not bold or passionate,
the nuances in their friendly
exchanges hold more weight
than a grand, romantic gesture.
After all, hearing Mr. Carson
say he is tickled when she walks
into a room is infinitely more
satisfying than an over-the-top
declaration of eternal love.
Half a world and nearly a cen-
tury away from the modern day
America, the Abbey’s dramas
and scandals have found a place
within the emotions of its audi-
ence. In a season premiere that
showcases unforgettable visu-
als and the emotional versatility
of the cast, “Downton Abbey”
sets up high expectations to do
the beloved characters justice
as their stories, after five years,
come to a close.
A-
Downton
Abbey
Season Six
Premiere
Sundays at
9:00 p.m.
PBS
TV REVIEW
‘Man Seeking’ great,
hilarious television
By BEN ROSENSTOCK
Senior Arts Editor
It’s good to have “Man Seek-
ing Woman” back.
In its second season premiere,
“Wings,”
“Man
Seek-
ing
Woman”
repeats
the
winning
for-
mula
that
made its first
season
such
an unexpect-
ed
delight.
As in the first
season,
Josh
Greenberg
(Jay Baruchel,
“This is the
End”)
navi-
gates a surrealist dating world
with his best friend, Mike (Eric
André, “The Eric Andre Show”),
and sister, Liz (Britt Lower,
“Unforgettable”), at his side.
With the help of self-referen-
tially deployed TV and movie
tropes, the show uses absurdist
fantastical elements to tell relat-
able stories about millennial
dating (last season, for example,
featured Josh attending a wed-
ding in literal Hell to emphasize
the perils of going to weddings
while single).
The episode begins with an
excellent introduction, as Mike
is visited by a pair of weary sol-
diers coming to deliver some
tragic news: Josh has a girl-
friend, and as a result he won’t
be spending much time with his
best friend anymore. The scene
uses the popular trope of the sad
arrival of troops to break the
news to the family of a deceased
soldier, likening the impending
death of a friendship to an actu-
al, physical death. It’s all there
in one hilarious line: “Doctors
say he may never hang again.”
Because of “Man Seeking
Woman” ’s tendency to structure
its episodes in roughly three
segments, some episodes can
feel disjointed. So while there’s
a strong narrative through line
with Josh and Mike’s friend-
ship in jeopardy, it still feels
oddly structured. Mike is the
main focus in the first act as he
struggles to keep his friendship
intact, but the second act pivots
to tell the story of Josh and his
girlfriend Kelly (Sarah Gadon,
“Maps to the Stars”) going on
a trip to a cabin with Kelly’s
high school friends. Then the
third act pivots again, as Josh
and Kelly break up and Josh
returns home to find that Mike
improbably has a college-age
child (Maya Lowe, “Killjoys”),
apparently created when Josh
and Mike “accidentally jizzed
into the same toilet and then
it got struck by lightning.” In
this final sequence, Josh tries
to bond with his daughter, ref-
erencing the common story
of a father desperately trying
to connect with the family he
abandoned.
Despite the slight awkward
feeling that the shifting plots
create, all three of the stories
are strong. The first one espe-
cially is excellent because Josh
is almost always the sole view-
point we get to see, with Mike
relegated to the over-the-top
funny best friend role. The sec-
ond act uses a parody of slasher
films like “I Know What You
Did Last Summer” to show what
it’s like trying to fit in with your
partner’s friends, who all have
their own inside jokes and a
shared history you’ll never be
a part of (in this case, an acci-
dental murder that resulted in a
lumberjack being brought back
from the dead to get revenge).
And the closing segment ends
cleverly, with Josh and Mike
sending their daughter off to
college, musing on how it seems
like just yesterday that she
came into their lives.
Still, by far the strongest
material is when “Wings” focus-
es on the dynamic between Josh
and Mike and the core idea of
the episode: it’s hard to date and
still maintain your friendships.
It’s a relatable struggle that mil-
lennial daters understand, and
seeing it presented in such a fan-
tastical context makes it both
hilarious in its absurdity, and yet
all the more real.
LITERATURE COLUMN
The growing debate
over genres
“
I am on the side of the pix-
ies and the dragons,” said
author Kazuo Ishiguro,
defending his approach to the
fantasy genre in his 2015 novel,
“The Bur-
ied Giant.”
Ishiguro’s
statement
came in
response
to stones
thrown by
science fic-
tion novelist
Ursula K. Le
Guin, who
criticized Ishiguro’s use of the
“surface elements” of a literary
genre. Welcome to the genre
debate, the conversation about
the shift in reading and writing
that currently dominates liter-
ary discussion.
As I began to dive deeper
into contemporary fiction and
the corresponding discourse
about it, many questions arose
in my mind. How did these
rigid rules of genre form — was
this categorization out of con-
venience or pure snobbery? Are
genre books and traditionally
serious “literary” books, books
that hold merit through social
commentary or the explora-
tion of the human condition,
mutually exclusive? When did
it become acceptable to use the
word “genre” as an adjective?
Genre may have begun as
a matter of convenience, but
in the last century of Ameri-
can literature, a clear divide
emerged between genre novels
and literary novels. This bisec-
tion rested on the American
public obsession with realism,
a fascination not mirrored in
other countries. To this day,
award-winning novels tend to
focus on the minutiae of real-
istic life. Novels like Jeffrey
Eugenides’s “Middlesex” and
Jane Smiley’s “A Thousand
Acres” win Pulitzers while
other writers whose novels
consider the strange and the
uncanny are overlooked.
But after years of genre nov-
els beginning to incorporate
the characteristics that earn
literary novels prestige, the
boundaries between “literary”
and “genre” are beginning
to dwindle. A genre novel,
“Swamplandia!,” was a runner-
up for the Pulitzer for Fiction
in 2012, the year no one won
the prestigious prize. With its
transcendent writing about
a family running an alligator
wrestling amusement park in
Florida, the unusual “Swamp-
landia!” presumably would
have won if not for its uncanny
subject and the fact that the
author, Karen Russell, was
extraordinarily young when
she wrote the novel.
More and more established
authors are conflating the sta-
tus of literary with the escap-
ism of genre. When Colson
Whitehead, esteemed novelist
and winner of the McArthur
Fellowship, penned a zombie
novel, it was surprising. How-
ever, as Whitehead said in an
interview with NPR, “I did
have to give myself permission
because zombies were so popu-
lar. But I think the idea is that
if it’s good, people read it. So
all I could do is really salute my
childhood influences and try to
do the best I could in reinvigo-
rating the genre, putting a new
spin on it.”
With genre becoming a part
of mainstream “serious” lit-
erature, there is an increase in
capitalization of these beloved
methods of literary escapism.
Stores like the exclusively mys-
tery book-driven Aunt Agatha’s
in downtown Ann Arbor thrive
because of their audience’s
devotion to the mystery genre.
I talked to Jamie Agnew,
the co-owner of Aunt Agatha’s,
about how this fusion of liter-
ary and genre is affecting the
24-year-old store. He cites a
growing interest in mystery
and the loyalty of the mystery
reader as the backbone of the
store’s continued success. But
Agnew doubts there’s going to
be much synthesis between the
literary world and his genre of
choice: mystery.
“I know that many people,
especially in a place like Ann
Arbor, think that slogging
through a painfully serious and
literary book is somehow more
virtuous than reading a book
that is entertaining, but to me
that’s a fairly recent attitude,”
Agnew said. “The great novels
of the 19th century are both
profound and enjoyable to read,
and quite a few of them had to
do with the themes of modern
mystery such as identity, guilt
and murder. If ‘Crime and Pun-
ishment’ came out today, what
section of the bookstore would
it be shelved? I’ll add that I
think literary fiction is a genre
like any other, with just as many
artificialities and strictures.”
Agnew sees mystery, which
has an incredibly different
history from other genres like
romance or science fiction, as
growing to greater significance
since its conception.
“The movement I have
seen the most is from static
protagonists — like Poirot or
Philip Marlowe, who change
little over the course of many
series books — to more nuanced
figures like Steve Hamilton’s
Alex McKnight or William Kent
Krueger’s Cork O’Connor who,
over the course of succeeding
installments achieve a depth of
characterization impossible in
any single novel,” Agnew said.
“Lately, it has been the vogue
for ‘literary’ writers to attempt
thrillers, presumably seeking
the vitality and popularity lack-
ing in their own genre, but not
all of them have the skills to
pull it off.”
As the lines between liter-
ary and genre continue to blur
in this way, we’ll inevitably see
some failures and some daz-
zling successes. Genre conven-
tions will always exist, there’s
no arguing that — but maybe
in the next few years, some of
our favorite books will be ones
featuring more unconventional
protagonists. When the genre
war is over, Ishiguro will be
proven right — the victors will
inevitably include the pixies
and the dragons.
Lerner is solving the mystery of the
replacement editors. To give an anon-
ymous tip, e-mail rebler@umich.edu.
REBECCA
LERNER
B+
Man
Seeking
Woman
Season Two
Premiere
Wednesdays
at 10:30 p.m.
FXX
I’d be bullshitting you if I
tried to say anything too neat
and tidy like “ ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll
Suicide’ saved my life.” I knew
that Bowie didn’t really know
what I was going through. He
made great music, but he wasn’t
“speaking to me” or showing me
how I needed to live. But in his
music and in my weird way of
thinking, he gave me the tools I
needed to be courageous when
I didn’t know how, and he let
me be comfortable with myself
when I was in a full–on panic
about who I was.
I have a really hard time
being open and honest about
my feelings. I still — and I don’t
even know why I do this — I
still avoid identifying myself as
gay unless I’m really comfort-
able with whomever I’m with.
I take my anxieties and my pri-
vate fears and project them onto
art that I love and then I try to
talk about that art with people.
I nervously ramble about the
show “Community” when I’m
worried about loneliness or I
put on a Van Morrison record
and over-explain all the tracks
when I really want to say “I love
you” and mean it. But David
Bowie helped me with a dif-
ferent kind of emotional hon-
esty. I never really connected
with anyone else over Bowie or
had any kind of multi-layered,
meaningful conversations about
his work. Instead, he was an
artist who helped me so much
at just communicating with
myself. Instead of just saying
“I’m gay,” I could tell myself “I
want to be like David Bowie,”
and that made all of my feelings
so much better. Because David
Bowie is fucking amazing and
had one of the greatest careers
ever and just made the most
beautiful music that of course I
would love him and everything
he meant.
Bowie has so many amazing
achievements that I’m sure will
be counted up and summarized
by millions over the next few
days, years, generations. But for
me personally, he’s always going
to be kind of this mentor figure.
He wasn’t a substitute for the
friends who helped me in a very
tangible, important way and to
whom I’m forever in debt to. But
during an incredibly tumultuous
year, a rock star from Mars made
a gay, Midwestern high school
freshman feel unique instead
of freakish, proud instead of
despairing. He’s a huge part of
why music means so much to me,
and every time I see an artist be
really honest about who they are
in a public forum, I’m so happy.
Because I think of me and David
Bowie and I know that a con-
fused kid has just found a new
light in his life.
BOWIE
From Page 1
PBS
30 seconds ago she was a cat.
TV REVIEW
More authors
are mixing
literary and
genre.