elatedbird

[elatedbird]

On Twitter I’ve seen the claim that Bertha is similar to Scarlett from Gone with the Wind or that George pulled a Rhett Butler on Bertha, “Frankly, my dead, I don’t give a damn” in the finale. I was wondering what you thought of the comparison.

This is a specialist subject for @mariusperkins but I will give my two cents! (I am talking about movie!Scarlett because I've seen the film 765367x and read the novel once)

I think Bertha is Scarlett-esque. Obviously they're both extremely driven and extremely capable. They're both cockroaches (positive); they will survive under any circumstances, they will adapt to any situation. I think Scarlett is more entitled than Bertha- she does strive and work herself to the bone when she has to, but I think she feels that she shouldn't have to. Whereas I don't think Bertha particularly feels entitled to anything- she thinks she should have things, because she knows she can do the work to get them. Scarlett growing up rich and Bertha (presumably) growing up poor might have something to do with that. I'd say Bertha is more level-headed and in a George-less world, I do not think she'd ever get into the mess that is Scarlett's love life- I think she'd find the man most likely to be able to take care of her, throw her lot in with him, and do her best to be a good wife. Even if we cast George as her Ashley (in a world where she's as in love with him as she is in canon but can't have him), I don't think she'd let it rule her like it rules Scarlett.

I can see the finale as George's "I don't give a damn" moment, although I actually think he comes across as giving less of a damn than Rhett does, honestly (because I think that Rhett really does and always assume that they're gonna find their way back to each other again). He's colder, I think. But I think he's more practical too and if Bertha had actually hit him with "Where shall I go? What shall I do?", he would have been like... "back to 61st Street to work on the next season at the Met? Obviously?"

So I think the similarities are there but, apart from the obvious genre difference, I think George and Bertha are more pragmatic and less... not less egotistic, because they both are egotistic and selfish, but maybe a BIT less self-involved and so able to be generally a little more reasonable as human beings.

[elatedbird]

Playlist for ‘Seasons of Your Life’ 🌺 (in progress)

by @mariusperkins on AO3

[elatedbird]

decentralize and clean up your life!!!

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.

use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.

use storygraph instead of goodreads.

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

last updated: march 18th 2025

[elatedbird]

Me as an art critic: this piece really explores the… Misogyny of the artist 🤔

[elatedbird]

George going all "I thought it might be" about Andre being the spy was absolutely infuriating like fuck off my dude

And a reminder that part of the information Andre leaked to the press was about Gladys' underwear, god forbid George cared an ounce about that I guess.

[elatedbird]

Can we talk one moment about the fact that George send a telegram to inform Hector that the payment would be delayed, but not one to check on Gladys and ask her how she was doing or how Bertha's visit went - which is why he doesn't believe Bertha when she tells him Gladys is doing better. And after the financial situation is fixed, it's Bertha the one who sends a telegram to Gladys to invite her and her husband to Newport. During this season George has been consistently unwilling to lift a finger to help Gladys in any way that might matter. Father of the Year, Ladies and Gentlemen.

[elatedbird]

top ten: fictional characters

Bertha Russell - The Gilded Age (2020 - present)

Happiness as a by-product of a well-ordered life may last. As a goal, it is invariably doomed to failure.

[elatedbird]

Got called a lying sinful man on the phone today by a customer which is probably a top ten insult for me unique and interesting with a dash of gender euphoria

[elatedbird]

Hey horny writer lil heads up for you guys, the “ai” google is forcing into docs to “scan for grammar errors” has been proved to also be scanning for spicy content and multiple ppl have already got notifs saying like “we’re sorry, there was a system error and some of your work was lost” and it was only the horny stuff so uh

Pleeeeease back up your files !!!! Don’t lose your horny to a robot, that’s Doc’s job, not Docs’…

[elatedbird]

It’s crazy knowing Bertha as much as we do now how much her saying this means. Like his love being almost enough for her to be completely happy is incredible given all her personal passion and drive, and this man is throwing all that away. Insane.

George Russell & Bertha Russell The Gilded Age (2022—)

[elatedbird]

What I feared from this season was George gradually falling out of love with Bertha because he didn't agree with her parenting decisions. But that doesn't seem to be the case at all. Instead, he was fine with every decision she made up until the point that his business troubles started making him feel emasculated. Suddenly he needs to loudly assert himself as the head of the household, explode in vicious jealousy because of the perceived preference she gave to another man for 0.02 seconds, and then dump his guilt over Gladys on her (when in reality he had every opportunity to stop the marriage but was, in the end, unwilling to do anything that went against Bertha's wishes). It seems that his dumb male ego is blinding him from the fact that if he keeps this behavior up, not only is he is a cringefailing businessman and a bad father, but also a man who is not dumping his wife but whose wife will dump HIM.

I hope to see lots of groveling from him in next episodes. I want him on his hands and knees in front of Bertha, begging for forgiveness. And I hope she stays as long as possible visiting Gladys, maybe making a few detours around Europe so he has time to reflect on his actions and consider just how to kiss her feet when she deigns to come back.

In any case, I am writing a fic where I plan on humbling him a little as a form of therapy.

[elatedbird]

BERTHA RUSSELL, MAMIE FISH, and AURORA FANE in The Gilded Age, 3x05 "A Different World" (2025)

[elatedbird]

THE GILDED AGE (2022-) Costume Appreciation Bertha Russell in 3.02 - What the Papers Say

[elatedbird]

Not really sure what the point of the Monica storyline was, it feels like we came out of it still barely knowing anything about her relationship with Bertha and their overall family dynamic. Also really hated George and Larry laughing at Bertha when inviting Monica was first brought up.

Hello anon thank you for giving the excuse to rant about this!!

I did suspect Monica was going to be underused - every guest star basically is because the season is not long enough to support an arc for them, and I would be shocked if any new face besides Hector and The Future Mr Peggy Scott William (and family) gets more than 1-2 episodes of screen time. I do so wish that we had, if not the 20 episode seasons of ye olden days, then at least 10-15 to let some part of this show breathe a little more.

As for what we do learn, I think you can force more out of it than there is in the words on the page, since the gilded age is good at giving you a huge amount in the crumbs of Tone Of Voice or A Shared Look or even just looking up something to give yourself the historical context. Bertha and her family history is obviously a great example of this - the hint of Irish ancestry, the tiny fragment we know about her mother seeing Bertha as a vehicle for her dreams, her long view of their family's rise from the very start of her and George's marriage.

To me it was like... Their mother had two daughters and, for whatever reason, she chose Bertha as, if not The Favourite, then at least the one that she put her energy into. Bertha didn't learn the more controlling aspects of herself from nowhere, so you can assume that their mother likely chose her clothes and dictated her movements to a similar degree (though maybe less extreme, since they were - most likely - working class, and Bertha would certainly not have had the education Gladys had in a governess/etc). It would be impossible, I think, for the sisters to not be in conflict and resent each other in some way growing up (why can't you see what mother and I are trying to achieve For Our Family vs why can't you guys be happy with what we have), the kind of things that wedges itself deep in your soul, and I feel like we do see that on display in the episode - not in screaming fights like they might have done in their youth, but the constant prodding at one another: why don't you want a nicer dress to impress someone important vs why do you care so much about Meaningless Things. You can see the gap growing even wider as they got older and their mother died, that last point of connection gone (and now she'll never see either of them "win", so their tug of war will never be over).

But as with most backstories in the gilded age, if you don't want to actively seek it out and think it over, the show can fit the basic and very boring reading that Bertha is a stuck up bitch and her kind sister Monica has always been happy with what she has.

Which brings me to what I really want to talk about: this is maybe the cruelest the Russell family has been to Bertha in the show's run.

I am not unsympathetic to Gladys here, it's a tough position (made tougher by agreeing to the engagement! And thinking she could rely on George, who for narrative purposes the show needs to be shockingly ineffectual here), a devastatingly sad historical reality for a lot of young women in that time period, though as Marian points out again and again in this show when people think to ask her opinion: finding love in the 1800s was no guarantee that you would have a happy or secure life (a thing still true today, really), and that there were plenty of arranged partnerships where people made the best of it and made themselves happy because of it (which is clearly JF's position on the dollar princesses, given this and Cora DowntonAbbey). I'm glad that from what I have heard about her arc in the second half of the season that she finds some measure of happiness, and her refusing to come out of her room is the least bad of the Russell family in this episode.

As for the others...

I hated George laughing with Larry, yet another example of George getting to have the kind of relationship with his kids specifically because Bertha can't, because he never has to be the bad guy with them (even with Gladys, he frames it as not being able to stop Bertha, putting the blame back on her, as though they don't live in the 1880s). George and the kids constantly get to trade isn't Bertha being so ridiculous looks, and it honestly makes me so sad, to think of her being so isolated even within her own family, to never get to be brought into their jokes, to always be the opponent in some way.

It also lets him wash his hands of his role in the family. George clearly views him being a Good Dad as the thing that really shows his moral character (and not, you know...his terrible factory conditions and brutal way of doing business), and he's so obviously resentful that he can't so cleanly be The Good Guy here that he's taking it out on Bertha. I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's the 1880s. If he didn't want the marriage to go ahead, it wouldn't. Between this and his play out west, he's taking out every insecurity and frustration on Bertha, every trait of her's he's spent two seasons admiring now made to be a glaring fault in her character. It is, in a word, unfair.

And with Larry inviting Monica... Just what was that supposed to achieve, besides him trying to humiliate Bertha? There is a difference, I think, between being a protective older brother, and just being cruel to someone you do not like and this was the latter. Making Bertha uncomfortable in her own home does not protect Gladys. Humiliating Bertha in front of people she's trying to impress does not help Gladys. Having someone else to roll your eyes at when Bertha says or does anything does not help Gladys. I do not believe for one second he was motivated in any way by wanting her to be there, which makes it not only cruel to Bertha but also pretty rude to Monica. How would you like to be invited to a wedding as a joke on someone else?

On top of all of that, any and every scene of Bertha trying to impress someone and getting nowhere with them, because to them she will always be the potato picker's daughter in a fancy dress and nothing more, it just breaks my heart. Bertha is never trying harder than she is in those moments with Mrs Astor or Lady Sarah and it will never be enough. And Monica sort of reinforces that, doesn't she, as they look around at the wedding - the beautiful decorations, the place packed with beautifully dressed well to do people, all here to celebrate Bertha's daughter - and her sister says it's nothing. All her work is nothing to the Lady Sarah's of the world and to the Monica's. She will not get in above and they will not let her in below, and so it is her, isolated and alone forever, always grasping, always hoping that, next time, maybe you'll get it right, maybe that's the time it will really and truly work.

I know so many people seemed to have finished the episode feeling like Bertha was Unforgiveable, but honestly after episode 4 I feel more sympathetic to her than ever.

[elatedbird]

What’s god to a woman’s love, anyway?

[elatedbird]

georgebertha desiree frederik

[elatedbird]

bertha russell moments that make me want dive inside her head with a torch and scalpel