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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Oh no, what do we think happened?!

I found Oscar’s story heartbreaking.  To love someone like that, then lose him and never be able to talk honestly about it with anyone… However, as lovely as Marian was to him, that was so incredibly unrealistic.  No one in that time would ever have treated a gay person kindly.  Quite the opposite.  This show really takes liberties when it comes to social issues.  [/quote]

Yes, I agree, same with the van Rhijn house entertaining black suffragettes. That would have simply not happened.[/quote]

+1
Exactly.  I mean, it makes for a nice story, but totally unrealistic.  However, they do seem to keep to the social mores re: things like Peggy’s child, divorced women, etc.  [/quote]

By both of your logic, we would have never progressed anywhere, ever. Of course it started with small kindnesses and small steps. And yes, ath that time there were white abolishinists who raised their children to be more progressive. There were “radicals” at that time, it’s documented. Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Margaret Chandler…[/quote]

Agreed, and also I don't find it that weird that Ada and Agnes would host the suffrage meeting because they are established as characters who are feminists, far more welcoming to black people than most of their peers (Agnes hiring Peggy and supporting her writing career, welcoming Peggy's parents into their home, etc., and Ada just kind of being an all around bleeding heart). This is in contrast to their social peers who don't do this sort of thing ever. Also I think there is an undercurrent with both Agnes and Ada that they view their own lot in life as somewhat unfair (Ada for so long being consigned to being her sister's ward because she was a spinster, and Agnes being forced to endure a brutal and loveless marriage in order to maintain the family fortune) which makes them more attuned to other unfairnesses. Yes they are also incredibly oblivious sometimes, and tone deaf, and Agnes is a stickler for certain old rules of civility. But the idea that they would support suffrage or be friendlier than most to certain black people (note they are only welcoming to upper class, educated black people).

A big theme on the show is the idea of tradition v. progress and these two families, the Russells and the Van Rhyns, were chosen specifically because of how they represent that tension. So I don't think it's that weird or surprising when Agnes is sort of progressive on racial issues while also being very old fashioned about her son's possible homosexuality, or that Mrs. Russell would be open minded about divorced women while also selling her daughter off for a title. The contradiction is the point.[/quote]

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