A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece about
why those who claim they are 'hate-watching' shows like Emily in Paris or
…And Just Like That need to just admit they like to show and are ashamed
to admit it. I also said that I had some harsh words for those who actually
watch quality shows for that same purpose and that I'd get to it when I reviewed
The Gilded Age. So I'm going to withhold by usually gushing praise for
one of the best shows of the 2020s so far and deliver a slight diatribe. Don't
worry, we'll get to the good stuff.
Last year I read an op-ed in the New York
Times about certain shows that are considered prime for 'hate-watching'. The
five series the writer gave as prime examples were Emily in Paris, …And Just
Like That, The Gilded Age, The Morning Show and The Bold Type. What
do these five series have in common? All of them feature women at the center of
their stories, deal with female relationships, both at work or otherwise and in
the majority of these cases, women serve as the behind scenes forces as
showrunners or directors. (One of the co-creators of The Gilded Age, for
example, is Salli Richardson-Warfield.) Next
fact: the column who made the arguments about 'hatewatching ' for the times was
a female writer. For the record I've seen many of the most contemptible
comments towards shows like The Gilded Age about hate-watching and they
are primarily written by female writers.
This leads me to wonder about certain
things. Is it possible that the 'hate-watching' trend is the female mirror to
the toxic misogyny that one sees on the internet involving, I don't know, almost
every other television show for the last twenty years and particularly in
regard to comic books and adaptations of IP? If that is the case (and I don't
know for certain it is) it is yet another example of why I find the left's mindset
more incomprehensible than the right's. At least the right's thinking is built
in the kind of juvenile behavior that can't accept any interpretation of their world
outside of the cis white male concept of it. That's horrific but at least at
some level it's simple to comprehend. But for years and in the last decade in
particular we've been hearing understandable uproar from minorities and disenfranchised
communities demanding a seat at the table and recognition in Hollywood. Now for
the last decade they are getting to create their visions of the world – and the
audience that has supposedly been demanding it for even longer has taken a look
at the fruits of their labor and says: "I watch these shows but I don't really like
them." Not exactly the full-throated support of the sisterhood.
And it leads me down another path. For all
of the arguments that so many women and people of color made about the male
white antihero shows dominated television for the last twenty years and pushing
out everything else, did they really prefer them? Were they calling for
equality and diversity on social media but secretly really thought Debra Morgan
and Skyler White were buzzkills? Did they prefer these worlds of white male
rage as opposed to the more nuanced worlds of female friendship that these
shows offer them?
All of this is the kind of thinking I may
look at in another series of articles down the road. For myself I only know
that there are still three seasons into The Gilded Age a fair amount of
viewers, mostly female, who are incapable of watching without hating it. To
them I have the responses of the two elderly sisters at the center of it.
First I will take the voice of Agnes, played by the always wonderful Christine Baranski
who gets to deliver the majority of the great lines on the show. I can see her
looking down her nose at these viewers and saying: "More proof that Mr.
Darwin would have been better served keeping his theories to himself." Indeed the fact that so many people are
watching this show – which unlike most of the others airs on Sundays nights
live before streaming – I'm impressed that they have completed the process of
evolving enough to operate a remote control but that their cerebral cortex has
not evolved enough for them to appreciate great television when they see it.
Now I will take the more generous view of Ada,
the more sympathetic sister played by Cynthia Nixon. "Perhaps they have
been raised in an environment where they can not appreciate the finer things."
I've always suspected there's truth in that. The Gilded Age has never
met the metric of HBO dramas as the viewers like myself have enjoyed for two decades.
This is a period piece, but it's high
society of New York and not the muck of Deadwood or Rome. It
deals with the upper crust of New York society and the workings of several rich
families, none of whom are the Roys. This is a series that deals with reality
of race in America but at the higher echelons of society not in the way so much
of David Simon's work has done. The majority of the relationships in the families
are loving, affectionate and friendly, which really goes against everything
we've seen in Peak TV since. And of course there's no violence, no sex and not
really any profanity to speak of. (Promising update at the end of this article
by the way.) In short this show could just as easily air on network television
with no changes – and perhaps if it aired on PBS or even NBC (which is where it
was developed for originally) so many viewers would have a higher opinion of
it. I really do think that's been the biggest obstacle to its mass acceptance.
To be clear critics have never had that
same issue. Last year, the show was nominated for the SAG Award for Best
Dramatic Ensemble and received seven Emmy nominations, including Best Drama and
acting nominations for Carrie Coon and Baranski. To be sure, much of this was
in part because of the strike disrupting most shows and HBO in particular but no
one was upset about the nominations it received the same way people were irked
at Three Body Problem being nominated for Best Drama. Everything about
this series – writing, directing, acting and all of the technical aspects - represent the kind of great drama I've come
to love in my years of viewing.
And if anything in Season 3 writers Julian
Fellows and Warfield seem determined to up their game. In the Russell household
Bertha (Coon back at the top of her level) has promised Gladys (the wonderfully
frail Talissa Farmiga) to a European duke without her daughter's say-so – and critically
her husband's. She has spent months making sure that Gladys has a proper place
in society, but for all intents and purposes this is a merger the same way her husband
is doing in business. She makes it clear when the Duke's lawyer shows up when
he returns to Europe to work out the financial details to make sure he will
marry Gladys.
Our sympathy has been with Bertha for much
of the first two seasons but as the series progresses it keeps taking it away.
Bertha is clearly trying to put her children in the higher echelons of society so
that she can maintain her own place in it. It's clear much of this out of
frustration for her lot in life – when George asks why she's doing this, she
all but snaps at her frustration – but it's now clear part of the reasons George
and Bertha are so perfect as a couple is that both are in their factions of
society, completely ruthless and willing to do anything to get what they want.
George (Morgan Spector, quietly superb) is
in the midst of trying to build a transcontinental railroad and is more than
willing to show his more unpleasant side. Initially sympathetic to the ideas of
unions, he's made it very clear that he is just as much a force of capitalism
as George Hearst was in Deadwood when it comes to running over his
competition. He's far more sympathetic in private life and definitely more
loving that McRaney's Hearst ever was but he truly believes in the force of
capitalism and money to roll over at all. That he can't negotiate as well with
his family as in a saloon out west is something that he increasingly having
trouble with.
Across the street there has been a
disruption. After inheriting the fortune of her late husband Ada has embraced
societal changes and is essentially the mistress of the house. This doesn't
please Agnes at all, particular when Ada announces that she is invested in the
temperance movement which was starting to pick up steam around this time in
history (roughly the early 1890s) Agnes' conservative outlook towards life has
always masked a progressive streak: she's gone out of her way to hire Peggy (Denee
Benton) and support her throughout her career as a promising novelist. She is
still sheltered, when Peggy falls deathly ill and Agnes fetches her physician
she is shocked when her doctor makes it clear "he doesn't treat colored
people'. This causes her to send for Peggy's parents and the Scotts meet Peggy's
patron for the first time.
This leads to some moving moments when Agnes
talks to the Scott's not as a white woman to two 'Negroes' but as a grieving
parent to another. She shares how she lost one of her children to tuberculosis,
how she had to stand over his bedside with her late husband unable to return
and no medical help possible. Baranski rarely gets a chance to show her more
human side and the power of this monologue shows her at her best.
And it seems very likely that the two
households 'both alike in dignity' but not in wealth may be forced to interact
more than they have in two seasons. In the interim between Season 2 and 3 Larry
Russell and Marian have fallen in love and are now cautiously, adorably
courting. It's clear that these two young people are suiting for each other in
all the best ways: Marian has always been ambitious for a career more above the
limits of a woman in this period and Larry wants very much to emerge from his
father's shadow. (He's currently working with the Van Rijn footmen to try and
sell a clock that the latter spent most of Season 2 designing.) Both Marian and
Larry have empathy towards most people regardless of their race and class in a
way their elders don't. They are perfectly suited for each other – and right
now the only person in either household who is happy with it is Ada. Bertha is
alarmed when she learns her maid caught the two kissing and we just wait with
anticipation to see how Agnes will react when she learns.
The Gilded Age hits all the right notes for me as a
critic. For one thing is a historical drama and has countless walk-ins from some
of the biggest names and historical moments from society. John Singer Sargent
has been working on Gladys's painting for her debut in society and in dealing
with a financial panic George had to meet with none other than J.P. Morgan. (I
hope to see more of Bill Camp in this series.) The series also deals with the
realities of American history but doesn't gloss over them in the fantasy world
that so many current series (I'm looking at you, Bridgerton!) will.
The most critical example this season is
Peggy. She was being tended to be a doctor who was willing to become friendly
and then court her. But then the Scott family met his family which was also black
but the mother is described by the showrunners "as the colored Agnes"
Played by Phylicia Rashad, her family is descended from freemen going back
generations ("My great grandfather marched in the American Revolution."
"He played the bugle," her husband gently tells her.) The Scotts have
managed to raise themselves out of poverty to a very successful station in
black society but the mother judges them because the husband was a slave 'and
not so long ago." Throw in the fact that she is upset when her grandchildren
go outside without an umbrella - she
makes it clear she doesn't want their skin to get darker - and you see a discussion of bigotry that Shonda
Rhimes hasn't gone near in twenty years.
The series continues to feature some of the
greatest actors working today, usually in smaller roles and the cast keeps
getting more of them. We still haven't seen Nathan Lane show up yet but I'm
told Merritt Weyer will soon be here – as Bertha's sister. Now that's a family
reunion I'm looking forward to. And the dialogue remains as whip smart as ever
with exchanges that Aaron Sorkin himself would be impressed by. One such
example in the latest episode. Agnes asks her footman about the ideas of his
movement.
"Do you think wealth and success will
bring you happiness?"
"I don't know, but I'd like to find
out."
Even Agnes chuckles at that one.
Perhaps the reason I love The Gilded Age
more than so many other shows today is that it has such an optimistic tone
to it that is refreshing after twenty years of even the best dramas being gloom
and doom. This is a show that takes place in America on the cusp of the Progressive
Era when the world that these privileged people was finally beginning to shift
beneath them in ways that they couldn't ignore. (It wouldn't shock me to see young
Theodore Roosevelt at a society party soon.) It looks at the past and sees a
world similar to today's but not nearly as dark as so many of today's
progressives see it; it's the kind of show that would open its season with the servants
of both sides engaging a snowball fight. It glamorizes this world but it
doesn't hesitate to show its flaws and it never stops showing that even back
then the fairer sex could be just as cruel and cutting to each other separate
from a world where men considered them lesser.
So to those who claim they can only watch The
Gilded Age with only contempt and irony I will say as gently as I can:
please don't. You're making the rest of us who appreciate it look bad by
comparison. I'm sure Euphoria and Industry will be back soon
enough: you can enjoy the contemptuous backbiting and hatred between the races
and genders and call yourself enlightened. And if you are a female viewer and
you do watch it for this reason, I say this with all the sincerity of a white
cis male: To quote Logan Roy: "Fuck
off."
Note: In a sign of enlightenment I didn't
think either HBO or the TV ratings board were capable of Season 3 has had its
ratings moved from TV-MA to either TV-14 or TV-PG. To myself I cheer both organizations
for acknowledging reality. To the rest of you so called adults watching it,
this is your way out. This is now a show that teenagers and even adolescents
can watch without fear of their minds being scarred. I argue more forcefully
that they should be the ones to watch it. Who knows, they might even appreciate
more than those adults who can't.
My score: 5 stars.
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