Will nobody but Julian Fellowes think of history’s obscenely rich and their wants and needs?
With his new HBO series “The Gilded Age,” set in 1882 New York, the creator of “Downton Abbey” is bravely leading the mildewed charge back to days gone by, when robber barons papered over their exploitations with an elegant, high society-minded facade and everyone else knew their place. Truly, what would fair-minded people do without Fellowes here to remind us that the whims of the wealthy should be portrayed as prettily and sympathetically as possible — why do pedestals exist if not to elevate the elites? — and that depictions of the past are best romanticized, lest anyone to think too long or too hard about the sweat, grime and suffering that made these rarefied lives possible.
An exquisitely empty story of Old New York, “The Gilded Age” wanders aimlessly through Edith Wharton territory, minus the self-awareness, the wit or even halfway decent writing. Status is all, no matter how pointless. Imagine a show that actually considered more deeply the implications of these social stratifications (and who they benefit and who they trap) or even had some self-mocking fun with it all, rather than taking it at face value.
