Why Advertisers Should be Watching FX's “Feud”

I was looking forward to Feudamp160even before Edamp8217s rave Iamp8217ve logged a lot of hours with Turner Classic Movies and have long been fascinated with the careers of Joan Crawford and especially Bette Davis Rivals Crawford and Davis serve as the rich subjects in this first season of Murphyamp8217s latest anthology series They are played to perfection by Jessica Lange below right and Susan Sarandon at top and below left respectivelyCrawford may be best known to some of my contemporaries for Faye Dunawayamp8217s macabre portrayal of her in 1981amp8217s Mommie Dearest while Davis may be best remembered as the inspiration behind a 1981 karaoke favorite amp160So it is exciting that Feud Bette ampamp Joan has generated fresh buzz around these Hollywood icons and their work amp160I hope it encourages viewers of all ages to seek out their filmsamp160 I would recommend 1938amp8217s Jezebel for which Davis was honored with her second Academy Award and 1950amp8217s All About Eve which should have won her a third You hear a bit about that in FeudWhat I had not expected from Feud is the sheer brilliance in the way it tackles the commoditization of celebrity amp160Feud is important viewing for advertisers as it is fundamentally a show about selling products Bette Joan and their 1962 film Whatever Happened to Baby JaneThe show employs a telling metaphor to make this point amp160As the widow of an indebted PepsiCo executive Joan Crawford is named to its board and becomes a de facto Pepsi spokesperson amp160Davis mocks Crawford for her pandering of the product and spitefully gifts a CocaCola cooler to the crew of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane amp160This was the Cola wars before there were Cola warsFeud takes a hard look at what happens to major Hollywood brands that have reached their sellby dates amp160In that regard Lange and Sarandon give multidimensional nuanced performances worth analysis and EmmysFor Crawford the pain of aging out of Hollywood is manifest in her nighttime beauty rituals and sad attempts to seduce Whatever Happened to Baby Jane director Robert Aldrich Alfred Molina and studio boss Jack Warner Stanley Tucci Their repudiations of the onetime vamp make Crawford the more pathetic of the two starsFor Davis the pain is less cosmetic amp160Sarandon conveys with great credibility just how deeply and profoundly Davis loved her craft amp160This may be why she connected with middling yet pieinthesky director Aldrich on a more emotional level amp160Davis is the consummate professional unable to get the respect or acknowledgement she deservesAs actress Olivia de Havilland played by Catherine ZetaJones explains in Feudamp8217s first episode amp8220Feuds arenamp8217t about hate theyamp8217re about painamp8221 De Havilland should know a thing or two about feuds amp160She and her own sister the actress Joan Fontaine feuded for years over Oscars and men among other thingsThe greatest setback for Crawford and Davis is that they are women attempting to stage a comeback in a Hollywood run by chauvinist men The only place where Feud falls short is when it tries to make that point too clearly amp160A conversation on female buying power between Crawfordamp8217s right hand woman Mamacita Jackie Hoffman and Aldrichamp8217s ambitious assistant Pauline Jameson Alison Wright seems especially contrivedFeudamp8217s greatest strength is its ability to deftly draw the complicated relationships between brand and personal identities amp160What if Coke and Pepsi were real people with real feelingsLouis B Mayer legendary boss of MGM to which Crawford was signed for eighteen years famously said amp8220A star is created carefully and coldbloodily built up from nothing from nobody Age beauty talent least of all talent has nothing to do with itamp8221In the fourth episode when Crawford dismisses Paulineamp8217s script and directorial ambitions it is not because she is a woman but because she is a amp8220nobodyamp8221 harking back to Mayeramp8217s aphorism and the problem with Hollywood you are only as powerful as your commercial appealAs Davis tells gossip columnist Hedda Hopper expertly portrayed by Judy Davis amp8220This isnamp8217t real life amp160This is Hollywood amp8230 itamp8217s all fake from the manicured lawns in the desert to your manufactured concernamp8221 amp160It is such a winning quotation and so evocative of the nature of show business and advertisingIn Feud Crawford and Davis former stars of the studio era reconcile with their growing insignificance amp160Just imagine the day that the Kardashians become irrelevantClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this article are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggersamp160

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Why Advertisers Should be Watching FX's “Feud”

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Charlotte Lipman

Jon Miller | Cofounder Marketo, Engagio | The Gumball Machine is Broken - Rethinking B2B Marketing - By Mike Linton

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Why Advertisers Should be Watching FX's “Feud”

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Charlotte Lipman

Jon Miller | Cofounder Marketo, Engagio | The Gumball Machine is Broken - Rethinking B2B Marketing - By Mike Linton

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