How Black Elite Society is Depicted OnscreenThe air felt different as I sat across from Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald and Denée Benton. I was lifted simply by being with these women, three generations of Broadway royalty. (Of course, as the former Clair Huxtable, Rashad qualifies as TV royalty as well.) Now they are together on “The Gilded Age,” the HBO drama about late 19th-century New York City and the old-money elites, arrivistes and workers who live and clash there. I was initially worried about the show when it debuted in 2022. As a long-term fan of the creator Julian Fellowes’s more homogenous hit “Downton Abbey,” I feared this American counterpart would similarly overlook the racial dynamics of its era. But I was pleasantly surprised by the nuance of the character Peggy Scott (Benton), an aspiring journalist and secretary for Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and a member of Brooklyn’s Black upper-middle class. An early version of Peggy had the character posing as a domestic servant to gain access to Agnes. But Benton and the show’s historical consultant, Erica Armstrong Dunbar, pushed for a more multifaceted exploration of the lives of Black New Yorkers, who often interacted with Manhattan’s white elite even as they lived separately. (Dunbar and I were colleagues at Rutgers University.) This season, “The Gilded Age” has its most diverse and in-depth portrayal of Black high society yet, often pitting Peggy’s mother, Dorothy (McDonald), against the aristocratic Elizabeth Kirkland (Rashad), who arrived on the show on Sunday. Like other wealthy mothers on this show, Elizabeth spends most of her time trying to control the marital fate of her children and discriminating against other families, like the Scotts, that she believes to be socially inferior. Based in Newport, R.I., the Kirkland family also enables viewers to glimpse more progressive racial dynamics than those of New York City. “Because it’s so small, what was interesting about Newport in that time period was that Black and white communities mixed more than they did in other areas,” said Sonja Warfield, the other showrunner (with Fellowes). “The school system was, in fact, integrated. If you were Black or white, you could have neighbors around the corner from you who were Black or white.” “Elizabeth Kirkland is the Mrs. Astor of Black elite society in Newport,” she added. “So often when we see Black characters depicted in this time period, it’s just one story, and it’s all in relation to slavery or sharecropping. What people don’t know is that, in fact, these people existed.” In late June, the three actresses gathered at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, a former Gilded Age mansion, to discuss their characters and how the colorism and classism of the 1880s continue among some African Americans today. They also talked about how excited they were to work with one another — a reunion for Rashad and McDonald, who won Tonys for their performances in the 2004 Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun.”
Invite your friends.
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