Welcome to Queerty’s Looking Back 2017, an ongoing series featuring the best and brightest in queer entertainment that you may or may not have missed. Check back with us every day until New Years 2018 for a spotlight on all things entertaining magnificently queer.
Best Use of Gay Icons: Feud
Out television impresario Ryan Murphy scored another hit, this time with a show of unabashed queerness and bitchy fun. Feud debuted back in March to rave reviews, and starred two Oscar-winning actresses, Susan Sarandon & perennial Murphy fave Jessica Lange.
Related: WATCH: The ultimate ‘Feud’ supercut compares show to real-life footage
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
The real draw, though, came from the subject matter: gay icons Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, and the making of their classic film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. With wall-to-wall mid-century Hollywood scenery, the show dramatized some of the most outrageous anecdotes between the notorious feud between the two actresses. As with a number of Murphy’s shows, Feud also featured a litany of big name character actors, including Alfred Molina, Judy Davis, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stanley Tucci and queer sister Sarah Paulson.
With Sarandon and Lange in top form and competing for accolades, Feud proved nothing but fun, in particular when the two get into the bitchiest of dialogue because, believe us, we know bitchy dialogue. Best of all though, it revived much-deserved interest in the films of Crawford and Davis, and in the intriguing lives of the showbiz icons. Network FX has already renewed the series for season two (debuting 2018), said to center on the relationship between Britain’s Prince Charles and Diana Spencer. Those two royals, no doubt, have a tough act to follow in the Hollywood Royalty of Bette & Joan.
Feud is available for purchase on Amazon and YouTube.
Kieran
I’ll take the originals over these two any day of the week. Feud proved that we don’t have real stars or even characters like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford anymore.
Mandrake
I agree, but we don’t have any real stars today anyway like there were in the 40’s and 50’s. Not even writers and directors. Where’s today’s Rod Serling or Alfred Hitchcock? So we must take the actors who portray them as they are and just have fun with them.
Josh447
Awesome series, but David Reddish, why did you scrub Kathy Bates from this article?
Josh447
PS Kathy Bates has acted in more film and TV than any actor in the Feud series except Sarandon, which she ties at 51.