How ‘The Gilded Age,’ ‘Feud’ and More Period Dramas Walk a Fine Line Between Being Accurate and Offensive With Language

variety.com:

Whitney Friedlander The art of making a quality period drama isn’t just about ensuring authentic representation of how people of a bygone era would look, move, live and work.

It’s also about nailing what they would say and how they would say it — but in a way that doesn’t make today’s audience rush for a dictionary. “I try to give some words and language and phrases that they would have used but I also try not to use phrases that would distract a modern audience,” says Julian Fellowes, who created HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” about New York’s late-19th century social scene.

Fellowes, who works on the show with writer and co-executive producer Sonja Warfield, says that, consequently, the audience is “prepared to go on this journey with us.” And that may mean hearng outdated viewpoints and language that may be considered offensive. “I think it’s a mistake — because you want them to be sympathetic — to give characters modern attitudes,” he says. “What you want to find is the attitudes of people who, within their own period, would have been considered reasonably progressive.” At the same time, he says, “I think it’s perfectly possible to depict a character as unpleasant or unjust without using offensive language.

You can achieve the dramatic purpose without offending and making everyone uncomfortable. We didn’t try to falsify or pretend we were living in a happy period where nobody had an unkind thought.