Season two of the popular Ryan Murphy anthology Feud premieres today. This installment, titled Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, the eight-episode series based on the book Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer, centers on Truman Capote (Tom Hollander) and his relationship with a group of New York socialites he nicknamed The Swans.
The group included Grande Dame Barbara “Babe” Paley (Naomi Watts), Slim Keith (Diane Lane), C.Z. Guest (Chloë Sevigny) and Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart). Capote gained the trust of all the ladies and became a confidante. That is until he later betrayed them by writing a book that featured a “thinly veiled fictionalization of their lives, exposing their most intimate secrets,” an excerpt of which was published in an issue of Esquire magazine.
In preparation for the series premiere, FX held a virtual press conference with executive producers Jon Robin Baitz and Murphy and executive producer and director Gus Van Sant. Stars Watts, an executive producer, and Hollander, Lane, Sevigny, Moore, Ringwald, and Flockhart attended.
During the press conference, Murphy spoke about the brilliance of each woman and the things they could have accomplished had society not held them back. “That’s actually something Robbie and I talked a lot about when we were first thinking of doing it, and I think the tragedy of that generation, which I would include my mother in, is, you know, a generation of women sort of caught between The Dick Van Dyke Show and the pill, you know, who were, I think, very frustrated a lot of times with the misogyny of the society, and I think all of those women in our show were so brilliant in their personal lives and so intelligent that I do think 10 years-post, they all would’ve had successful businesses or brands.”
He went on to say, “Some of them did have that – I mean, if you look at Slim, the tragedy of that is she was behind particularly, and so was Babe, so many incredible business deals that she helped put together professionally that she was not given credit for…I think, to answer another question, that’s one of the reasons they turned to Truman because they were all in marriages or with men who constantly put them in their place and told them they weren’t enough. Truman was the one who said to them, “You’re actually smarter than your husbands, you control everything. All of these lives are because of what you’re doing.”
After the excerpt from Capote’s book was released, he was ostracized because all of the Swans felt betrayed, and rightfully so. Ringwald spoke about why the women viciously turned on him. “Well, I mean, the character that I play is not a Swan. She was really like his last friend. But I feel that it was such a betrayal because they adored him so much. And I think even though they knew he was a writer, I feel like they didn’t — they were going to be immune to that, to what writers do, which is use material in their lives and fictionalize it. I think it was pretty self-destructive, what he did. I don’t think he wanted to lose their friendships either, but he is a writer, you know.”
Hollander, who plays Truman Capote, chimed in and provided his own thoughts on this. “I think maybe they didn’t really think he was one of them. And he didn’t believe that he was one of them either. He knew that he was a sort of, at some level, he was a tourist in their world, and at some level, they thought he was lucky to be there. So when he turned, or when they felt he turned, they were vicious because they — “From you? You were the adornment in our house. You are not our equal.” And I think at some level he probably knew that which is why he writes “Côte Basque” in the way that he does, because at some level he’s enraged at his own position.”
While sharing your bestie’s secrets to the public isn’t cool, we can see both sides of this situation. It sounds a lot like that mentality of “hurt people, hurt people.” Was what Truman did unwise? Absolutely. It seems to us that Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans is all about betrayal and not just the betrayal of Capote to the Swans. The Swans also in their own way betrayed him. And as the saying goes, two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans premieres with two episodes tonight at 10 pm ET/PT on FX, the next day on Hulu.
