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While it is true that the infamous rivalry between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis helped cement the legacy of “Baby Jane,” this is a genuinely great movie in its own right, and far more nuanced than its current status of campy cult movie might suggest. Throughout the film, Jane and Blanche are locked in a demented cat-and-mouse game fueled solely by jealousy. Each one of them has what the other wants: Jane wants Blanche’s lasting star power, while Blanche wants Jane’s freedom.
It is ultimately this conflict, wanting something that somebody else has, that makes “Baby Jane” so compelling. After all, who hasn’t felt that pang of jealousy seeing someone have something you don’t or can’t have? There it is, something that you want but is unfortunately out of reach, being squandered by someone you can’t help but feel is taking advantage of it. “Baby Jane” visualizes this concept and takes it to an extreme. What if you wanted something so badly, you forcibly extracted it from someone until they broke?
Of course, we wouldn’t want to actually do that in real life, but there is a certain catharsis in seeing it play out. Catharsis is what binds “Baby Jane” together, both on and off screen, in 1962 and 2022.
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