Spoiler alarm! This story contains points of action from the final of the third season of The gilded age On HBO.
Everything is good for the newly changed Gladys, but the celebration did not last long for her mother Bertha.
After he had thrown a triumphal ball who presented the now happily married Duke and Duke and her new holy husband, who was shot in the previous episode, Bertha would soon find out that George could not be celebrated. The railway -Tycoon never overcome the idea that his daughter was forced to marry someone she didn't love and went out on Bertha at the end of the episode.
Here the creator Julian Fellowes and the executive producer Sonja Warfield explains what George has prompted to leave his wife and why Berha's actions against Gladys should not hold the viewers of the 21st century in their pearls at the beginning of the season.
Deadline it seems that this season had more than ever led the point home that this time was absolutely hell for women. Was that the goal all the time?
Julian Fellowes Actually, I don't really agree with them. I think it was hell for weak women, but I think life was hell for weak women to comparatively recently. But take a look at women like Alva Vanderbilt and different others who were the queens of Newport and really led the gilded age. I mean, society in most countries has always been led by women, but no women. It was guided by these very strong and hard women, one would say that one would say. I think they were interesting characters. I mean, Alva Vanderbilt was an extraordinary woman. She went through the time when she wanted to be socially prominent and her daughter wanted to be a duchess and all of the stuff. She came out at the other end and was very interested in women's rights, in the constitution and in other, more serious areas and actually made a difference.
I think Sonja Warfield, when you look at where modern women are, there was clearly growth and change. Do you refer to the fact that Aurora was avoided because it was divorced?
Deadline yes and what poor Gladies have gone through.
Sonja Warfield Bertha knew what she was doing with Gladys.
Deadline on this topic, was there a part of them who was tried not to marry Glady's hearts and the Duke? Have you worried that a forced marriage could now use the 21st century audience?
Julian Fellowes God knows Consuelo Vanderbilt [who her mother, Alva, forced to marry the Duke of Marlborough in 1895] did your best. I mean, how do you deal with a mother who deceives a heart attack in front of you? It was released on the ultimate test. [As she got older] The Duchess chose her second husband for herself. She was not a fool at all. And later she wrote a rather renovation version of what she had been enforced. Nevertheless, she got into many interesting things and was one of the great patrons of her time in various charity organizations and different right -wing questions. I do not recommend Alva's behavior and I don't think we would get through it now. But these women made a difference. Alva has made a big difference how much it is difficult to like them when you read about them and study them.
Sonja Warfield I will tell you we had a demonstration a few weeks ago and it was the wedding episode. After this episode I went out with a group of high -quality women and we talked about it, and half of them were Team Bertha and the other half was worried about Gladys. Team Bertha said that they moved mountains and did all kinds of things in the interest of their children so that their children could progress. One of them told me that Bertha knew exactly what she was doing and how she did nothing wrong. I believe that Bertha has enabled her daughter with this marriage this season because women had power in 1884. And then she also authorized Aurora and Ms. Astor's daughter as divorced women by bringing her back to society.
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Julian Fellowes I mean, she made the divorce in American society for 30 years before it was acceptable in Europe. That was Alva too. I mean she did it herself. We are a strange generation to assess previous generations according to our own standards and our own beliefs. It seems to me a completely ridiculous exercise that you have to judge people in the context of their own time. It is by no means a sad story that Bertha was the goal of giving Gladys a position from which they have a real influence and can make a real difference. I don't think that was dishonest. It would not have been the same to marry a banker and have a weekend house in the Hamptons.
Telled well, I thought it was a little unfair to George to leave Bertha because he was still sending these checks to the Duke. He was still going!
Julian Fellowes He hates for that. He has the feeling that she let him act against his instincts and that he did it. Of course, he can't forgive that. Overall, Bertha is more pragmatic than George. For Bertha, Gladys and the Duke are happy, you understand each other, what is the problem? Everything is OK. For George it is a deeper consideration. But what George almost frightens is that his wife was able to manipulate him to do something with which he disagrees.
Many of his robber barons towards the end of their career were worried about their lives and how they would be remembered. So they started to open art collections and give libraries all of these things. And to a certain extent it was successful. I mean, Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Carnegie were among the ruthless predatory houses. Frick was ready to open his own workers' fire, but now he is more or less reminded of the Frick collection and everything else was forgotten. I was quite interested in because it deserves the enormous amounts of money with certain business people you see today. And in the end they clearly want to be remembered for a little more than that. So give that and you give it and sponsor the other. And you can find a lot in the gilded age. So we built on it because we let George look at life after trying his life.
Deadline The death of Oscar's lover was rather dark. Why did you decide to go this way and take it out and not less with a buggy?
Julian Fellowes Well, we wanted to examine the difficulties in different ways to be homosexual during this time when it was still illegal. And of course I can remember when it was illegal when I was young. It wasn't long ago. And part of it was that you couldn't show grief, you couldn't show any emotions. They had to keep this in a room with a closed door. There is no reason to assume that the proportion of men and women, who were homosexual in 1885, differed significantly from the numbers. It is only that most of them have learned to live in hiding and artificial emotional life. And I think that was the point we tried to do.
Corporation can you talk about Peggy's action this season, especially about the introduction of Phylicia Rashad and the discrimination against your character against light -skinned people?
Sonja Warfield Colorism is a big problem in color communities, be it black communities or Latino communities. It's just not something that I have ever seen on the screen. I had two grandmothers, one who had a fair complexion and one who was darker. Both were very concerned about how much time I spent in the sun. The idea of having light skin privileges is very real in this country and beyond. And Elizabeth Kirkland, played by Ms. Rashad, embodies all of this. She is a bit like the black woman Astor from Newport.
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