HBO's The Gilded Age and Forced Diversity Storylines

• 1:00HBO's The Gilded Age follows old money families in New York being displaced by new money, centered on a Vanderbilt-like railroad tycoon and his wife trying to break into high society.
• 1:31The show depicts how badly the Irish were treated, prompting Tim to note his podcast now covers the story of Irish slaves.
• 2:02HBO forces diversity storylines into the show, including a Black character who gets robbed, receives money from the maid, and is taken in by the wealthy family within two days.
• 2:36Tim points out the contradiction: the show wants viewers to believe America was horrifically racist while also showing an old money family immediately welcoming a Black woman into their home.
• 3:11He'd rather watch a show about a Black family experiencing what it was genuinely like in that era than this forced storyline that wouldn't realistically have happened.
• 4:22The entire show centers on one old money woman being terribly uncomfortable with her vulgar new money neighbor, yet this same woman takes in a Black girl in under 24 hours.
• 5:04The show is fundamentally about how people hate disruptions and change, with the protagonist hating different classes of white people with money—not about race at all.
• 5:57Nobody asked for this show; the creator made Downton Abbey successfully, but there was no demand for an American version set in Gilded Age New York.
• 6:39The forced diversity plot point suggests the Gilded Age wasn't actually that racist, or that old Fifth Avenue women weren't that bad, which undermines the show's premise.
• 7:07Tim argues you can't have it both ways: claim the country was horribly racist while showing an old woman love and immediately move in a Black woman she just met.

The Gilded AgeDownton AbbeyChristine Baranski