frelling_tralk

Just finished watching Feud: Bette and Joan, and really enjoyed it. It had all the fun campy moments and one liners that you’d expect (‘Fuck off, Sylvia!’), but it was also a really poignant and timely look at how Hollywood treats women, and what it’s like to grow old in that business. It seems like most people are Team Bette, but tbh I emphasised a lot more with Joan, she came across as so tragic and fragile in her desperation to be loved and respected as a star.

I really loved Big Little Lies as well, at the time I was cheering them on when they swept the awards, but now I’m kind of sad that Feud got overlooked in practically every category, it was so well put-together that they really deserved a few wins

One thing that did confuse me a little bit though is the show taking it at face value that Joan Crawford sabotaged Bette’s chances at the Oscar? To me it seems much more likely that Bette wasn’t ever going to win in the first place for what was essentially a B horror movie, and Joan schemed to accept the award for any of the other women as she realised that their chances were greater. My impression was that Bette was just so angry and humiliated at Joan deliberately upstaging her on the night that she convinced herself that Joan had been the one to engineer her loss, but I can’t see that Joan would have had that much sway over the Academy voters? Mind you she did manage to convince three of the lead actress nominees to have her accept their award at the ceremony (can’t see that happening today!), so perhaps she really was that persuasive...