Young Hollywood Refuses To Fall Victim To The ‘Feud’

Though he may have slightly reworded history, Ryan Murphy’s portrayal of young Hollywood women within the Feud universe starkly contrasts the show’s theme.

We’ve certainly discussed, at length, the bold intent of Ryan Murphy’s newest anthology series, which is currently more than halfway through its inaugural season. This year, at least, we can surely state that his focus on aging women in Hollywood and their myriad struggles is in service to today’s slightly more accepting industry, and that his over-the-top portrayal of these iconic women only makes their humanity more tangible and heartbreaking. But recently, after the show’s main arc had seemingly wrapped (the filming and aftermath of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?), an arguably more interesting sub-culture of 1960s Hollywood, or at least Ryan Murphy’s version of it, has emerged. In this younger, fresher, more naïve and less aggressive layer of women, there seems not to exist the desire to feud, nor even the underlying jealousy and anger that feeds the lady-to-lady drama.

In that generation, or at least in Murphy’s iteration of it, the women seem to recognize, understand, and respect the hierarchy of power in Hollywood. As far as we see, they never feel the need to challenge that hierarchy. Nor do they view the women in tiers above them as anything other than trailblazers and heroines. Last week’s episode, which found us in the midst of Oscar madness, spent much of the time highlighting Joan’s vindictive campaign to ruin Bette’s would-be record-breaking Best Actress win. And along the way, in the quieter moments, we get a peek at the younger women. We, the audience, know they will become industry front-runners.

Geraldine Page, Anne Bancroft, and even Olivia de Havilland, who we’ve already spent some time with this season, appear as secondary characters, incidental to our protagonists’ star-crossed journeys. But in reality, these women’s roles are much more resonant. They aren’t just tools that our actresses utilize to get what they want. They’re building blocks that are ready to mend the rifts that our actresses have, unintentionally but certainly, caused in their lady-laden era of Hollywood.

And the choice to portray them as such is important. In a show that is, at times, so heavy handed, it feels like we’re being beaten with a Ryan Murphy one-liner stick, the slow burn of the tiny scenes scattered throughout the episode serves to remind us of the necessity of everyday feminism. When Joan Crawford reaches out to Bancroft and Page, there isn’t even a lingering scent of competition in the air. When de Havilland accompanies Bette Davis to the Oscars, there isn’t an ounce of self-service evident. And not only is it absent, but the stark opposite is quite apparent. All three women are clear on their active support of their fellow women. So far in the series, that sentiment has appeared more as a manipulation tactic while one woman tries to outfox or undermine another.

So even if Feud’s portrayal of young Hollywood wasn’t completely factual, and even if Joan and Bette weren’t exactly as heavy-hitting with their aggression, the point still stands: it’s more shocking to see women empowering each other on television than it is to see them verbally, physically, and publicly attack each other. And though that may be exactly Ryan Murphy’s point, the line between warning us against this behavior by shoving it in our faces and perpetuating it by, well, shoving it in our faces remains painfully zig-zagged. How straight the line will end up, though the history has already been written, remains in Murphy’s well-meaning hands.

Next: Feud Episode 5 Recap: And The Oscar (Kind Of) Goes To…

But the way we interpret that line lies in our biased judgment, our limited exposure to and subsequent skewed perception of women in the media, and, of course, our own willingness to look past internalized sexism and recognize our own tendencies to be Crawfords and Davises in a world that desperately needs Pages and de Havillands.