#allison wright

This is another series recommended by my brother. Feud: Bette and Joan is based on real-life people and events. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were big starts in the 20th century. And everyone in the industry knew they didn't like each other. This series looks at them from the point they worked on the only movie they starred together (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?) up to Crawford's passing.

The 8 episode long series gives us so much more than just a feud between actresses, it gives a glimpse at how hard it was for women to succeed in the film industry in general, it hints at the cruelty of the business too, not just to women but to anyone really. It also gives a glance to the lives of these women off screen. No one really knows why they hated each other so much, but based on what the series gives us, I really think that they were alike in many ways. They mirrored each other's pain, fears and ambitions. Joan and Bette were fighters, they used different methods to achieve their goals, they placed value on different things but they survived because they were fighters and masters of their own art.

Here we have two women who married four times and got divorced that many times. We have two women who had very difficult relationships with their children. Bette's daughter and Joan's eldest adopted child wrote memoirs depicting them as horrible mothers. They relied on alcohol and smoking a lot too. They had to prove themselves still film material once they hit a certain age because the men in the industry didn't believe people wanted to see older women on starring roles. They were played by journalists, producers and directors who wanted to nurture their feud just to keep people interested on the film. I think they could have become cordial at least if they had been left alone. . .

It was sad to see how Joan adopted children so she wouldn't feel lonely and once her twins were older, she was denied the chance to adopt another child because of her age and the fact that she was divorced. And I'm not saying she was in a place in her life where she would have been a great mother; I'm saying that the adopting process then and now is so hard for people that want to be parents and want to give children a home. I do agree the screening needs to be careful, we don't want to send children into abusive households, but why be so old fashion to say a single person can't be an excellent parent, for example?

It frustrated me to see, Pauline work her ass off as Bob's assistant and when she has the courage to show her script and express her desire to direct it, she is turned down - not just by men- but also by women. The culture and men-dominated ideas so ingrained on people 's minds that Joan wouldn't agree to be in Pauline's movie. And Bob, who knew she had the potential, he just brushed her off saying he would support her and then showed his true colors. I was glad to know that later on she moved on to documentaries and there she was able to spread her wings. I would have liked to know what happened to her when we got a little summary of what happened to some of the main people in the series. She was a big part of the story but they didn't give us more information on her. It made me wonder if she was even real or just a fictional character.

I was also fascinated by Mamacita. She was a strong woman and very smart too. She was a friend to Joan and a caregiver too. I liked the scene when she tells Pauline to not lose hope, that at some point the industry would have to start targeting the female population with stories about them, written and made by them. This industry made by men it is still hard for women to break through barriers, though now we do see more representation in the background scenes.

Even though this is a fictionalized representation of real-life, the fact remains, these were hard times for people of the old age in the film industry. Bob also had it hard as a director and was insulted constantly and treated as less then a person. Warner was trying so hard to remain in the race trying to catch up with the popular genres and the likes. . . People in the industry give up their personal and family lives for a profession where they are disposed off once they reach a certain age. It is still so true, actors and actress don't get good, juicy roles offered to them after they hit a certain age and they have to be picky about it. They last longer as directors, writers and so on.

I must say that the cast who portrayed these people did an spectacular job.