Thursday, December 4, 2014

Joan Crawford: Training for Narcissism?


I have an odd fascination with Joan Crawford ever since I read the book Mommie Dearest since it replicated so much of my life except of course Christine lived in far wealthier and famous household. The above picture is Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford. One wonders if the obsession with dirt in a narcissist comes about from the "dirty insides" to create a clean image. This is why Joan Crawford went nuts about the house being perfectly clean.

I'm a fan of TCM [Turner Classic Movies] and one thing I have noted is how there are two mega-narcissist women in old movies. One is Bette Davis, and the second one is Joan Crawford.



What scares me about Joan Crawford is in watching some of the movies, you can see that Joan Crawford has used some of her background and incorporated it into her acting, this is one reason I believe "Mildred Pierce" became such a famous film. She was literally playing herself as she played the hard driving single mother, who sacrificed all for her career and spoiled a golden child narcissist daughter who near the end of the movie shows herself to not only be a materialist but murderer. The daughter isn't the only narcissist, her mother as an ice queen has trained her well but maybe too well. She is a girl raised with no sense of morality or goodness. The two even compete with each other with the cruel daughter first stealing her husband and then killing him.



In that movie at least one of the villains get's caught but I was watching this movie, on TCM the other day, called Susan and God with Joan Crawford running around with a early form of a New-Age cult, her fellow cult members sing songs about a "new earth", and "Susan" runs about doing speeches for attention while ignoring a shy daughter who wears glasses. She is estranged or divorced from her husband but the wealthy family along with hanger-ons and other relatives are all spending a summer at one of their country homes. The daughter has asked for the family to have the summer together. The estranged husband is an alcoholic. In this movie, they have Susan repent of ignoring her daughter and family and she takes another look at how her meddling and bossy ways have hurt her friends, but I found myself finding this movie unbelievable because the character is so narcissistic and self absorbed, she is far from a mild narcissistic who may have the ability for introspection and true apologies. But then I thought if Joan Crawford the person was truly a narcissist maybe it was her personality having me judge this role in the way that I did.

One disturbing part of this movie, and we know Hollywood had some unwholesome themes, was the change the daughter makes to be more popular with the boys which works, tossing her glasses away, and dressing more "sexy".  Susan influences her to be coy, to lie and be competitive and actually more narcissistic to "win" the boy's affections.  Watching this movie the plot had all the narcissistic women win the men, not the "nice girls" and that kind of disturbed me. Was this some kind of early training for narcissism? It bothered me because you think about the growing narcissism in society and well, when did it start on a historical basis?

In the generations before, ladylikeness was a big thing, so by the 1940s, some of those social mores were being changed, so why were these hard cold women so celebrated? Of course this could have come in earlier with the so called femme fatales. They have always existed in literature but these themes grew stronger as the twentieth century proceeded. It wasn't the woman of character winning the day all the time anymore. In these movies, the seductive, backstabbing, crafty woman always won the man and came out on top. Sweetness and honesty was for losers, and the nerd girl with glasses such as the daughter above left in the back of the room. This was an early celebration of narcissism. You can see it in these old movies. It seems to worsen especially in the 1940s.

While the 1950s brings back some family themes and suburban life, these type of roles still exist almost with Elizabeth Taylor later seeming to take on the roles that Joan Crawford held with a different flavor. Think "Giant", and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof".

I never have seen Joan Crawford interviewed, I was still very young during the last days of her life and decided to see how she came across in person. This video screams narcissist, to me with the extreme pink turban, dress and heavy diamonds. She doesn't disappoint.



I think one reason Joan Crawford did so well as an actress in some of these movies,  she was LITERALLY playing herself.  "I'm a compulsive housekeeper" [1:11] is one thing she says that made me laugh.  She states that Mildred Pierce was her favorite role. "A star is someone who can.....KEEP AN IMAGE" is one telling comment she makes in the above video.




Joan Crawford's has her defenders including two children, who defend her and say that Christina, her daughter who wrote Mommie Dearest was lying. We ACONs know exactly how two children can claim they had an entirely different mother then the one who was scapegoated. Narcissists can treat one child as sweet a pie while continuing to abuse another.




I have been thinking about how narcissism is promoted in our society, and may write more articles about this. How being a person who is two-faced, and is focused on image is so advanced. It began earlier then we think. The celebration of narcissism began in our old movies.

12 comments:

  1. I'm a big fan of Turner Classic Movies too. I got Mildred Pierce on my DVR. I don't know. I didn't get the impression that she wasn't a narcissist in the movie. Neither one of the daughters was abused. But when the little one died, Mildred didn't seem to bothered with it. Just went on with life. Oh well, she died.

    I get the spoiling part, and that was for Mildred's sake not so much for the girls. I don't know. Mildred just seemed like some misguided mother or something. JMO

    I do get Joan Crawford is a narcissist though.

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    1. Hi Joan, I am glad you are a fan of TCM too. I suppose I saw Mildred Pierce as a narcissist character but more muted, perhaps in her use and abuse of men? It was some years ago I saw that one. She was definitely cold, as you point out with the death of the little one. Yes Joan Crawford is definitely a narcissist.

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  2. I absolutely think Joan Crawford was a narcissist, and a malignant one at that, but most sources say she suffered from BPD rather than NPD. Probably because of her famous mood swings, which were due to her alcholism (substance abuse very common in Ns). She came across in the media as the "perfect mother" with the "perfect family" but behind closed doors she was anything but. I read "Mommie Dearest" too and saw the movie. Crawford acted a lot like my own mother. In fact, cross Joan Crawford and Mary Tyler Moore's character in "Ordinary People" and that's exactly what my mother was like. Pretty scary.

    The cleanliness thing too--my mother definitely was the ultimate clean freak, and everything had to be perfectly spotless and organized at all times. Interesting theory you have there about them being obsessed with cleanliness to cover their own "dirtiness" inside. It's another image they project.

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    1. She seemed to me to be a histrionic narcissist, to me, there is overlap with the BPD stuff but she was definitely a malignant narcissist. She was extreme cognizant of her image and maybe this is what sold the career to begin with. Yes I saw the movie and read the Mommie Dearest book, I want to read the updated edition too when I can get it. Yes a combo of the Ordinary People mother and Joan Crawford is scary. Mine was less histrionic, always in control so closer to the Ordinary People mother.

      I saw the extreme cleanliness thing too. I had to dust and vaccum everyday and the house was never clean enough. Both my NM and Nsis keep their houses like museums, spic and span, perfectly wiped down counters and tables. Neither have hobbies, well outside of shopping for my mother, there would be no time with all the cleaning. Everything for them has to be perfect. I think it is about image and to make up for the 'dirty' insides. I remember visiting my Nsis in 2003, at her house, and her weirdness even with wiping out her bathroom sink after using it, so there would be no water spots.

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  3. Perhaps part of the homemaking/cleanliness obsession is absolute control. It's creating a STAGE SET instead of a home. Image and artifice. An interesting book is My Way of Life by Joan Crawford. All I remember were some OC packing tips and a heartbreaking photo from Christina's wedding. It looked like some kind of business meeting - men in suits, all looking at Joan who was beatific. Christina in her veil was looking down.

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    1. I definitely think it is stage setting. They don't make a real family or a home but are into presenting it a certain way. That is a narcissistic book title, MY way of life. LOL Sounds like Mommie Dearest even sucked up all the attention on her daughters own wedding day.

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  4. Omg! I can't even look at that picture of Joan Crawford without my personal terrorist aka mommie dearest coming to mind and triggering me. Memories of the ice cold stare downs and biting remarks,ugh. When will the tapes in my head of that walking dead corpse I called a mother die already. I'm a prisoner of my own mind. When does it ever end?

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    1. I know I have to be careful seeing her pictures or movies for the same reason. I read the book Mommie Dearest when I was 12! and was horrified, it was MY LIFE! Too bad Christina didn't know what narcissism was yet. Yes I had the ice cold stares and biting remarks. I worry the vampires live longer sucking off the energy of others. Ugh!

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  5. Oh wow Peep, you read Mommie Dearest at twelve!!! No wonder those losers targeted you! You sound like you were a gifted and concious child among the losers and they KNEW this. I've also come to learn as an adult a couple of dormant talents and abilities I never knew I had because I wasn't supposed to be nothing but a loser to them so it was never developed. Who knows what I could have achieved and become if those talents were nurtured. The GC got the best Ivy League education that money could buy along with cars, trips and a home. I got my degree at a technical college while working and being sabotaged every step of the way. Steak for the GC and corn dogs for me. Yea, that pretty much sums it up. No contact all day every day!

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  6. Hi Anon. Oh she hated me for having a high IQ when I was young. Got angry when teacher told her. Pissed off about it. She even mocked me for winning a student reading contest at elementary school and did everything in her power to ruin it for me making fun of the award. Livid about it. This is what kept her more secretive.

    Hey get this, when I was in my early teens, sometimes I would fight back and I would scream MOMMIE DEAREST at her and even once when she yelled at me for not being cleaned enough, screamed. "NOT THE WIRE HANGERS!". When I was in fight back mode with father and this was worth a few smacks, I would click my heels and throw my arm up in a right salute and go HEIL HITLER. One time his face got red and he ran down the stairs to beat me but I somehow got away, that one was worth it. I guess I should be happy homeschooling was not legal in my state by then, she probably would have kept me home to clean and beat. I support homeschooling in general but not done by abusive parents.

    So I did get to go to school but I wonder what my achievements would have been if I had been allowed to study outside of school or been encouraged. We both think alike on this. What would I have become? I could not go to high school extra curriculars like other kids, my parents were too lazy to drive me and we lived 13 miles away which for a fat kid was too long of a bike ride. I had to fight for my lowly state college degree but they refused to let me go to a better higher tier state school I got into due to the costs and since I was paying so much of it, I was overwhelmed too. I worked for hours a day in college at the dorm cafeterias. I used to look at all the kids who didn't even work at all and it blew my mind.

    Sorry your GC got so much. I think they arranged my sister's marriage to a rich executive. How did a C and D student who never dated in high school and was average in looks, get a 6 figure earning husband by the age of 18? He was 9 years older then her. It still boggles my mind, but yes, they never picked on her for every dime. I think that her wedding was equal in costs to what they spent on my college, but they didn't take a pound of flesh for every dime like they did me. They did sabotage my education. I was severely abused while student teaching and being forced to live at home and work basically 14 hours a day with lesson plans and I wonder even how that would have turned out, if they had been supportive of my future career and had gotten me the medical care I needed.

    Yes, it was night and day for my GC. When my brother moved out, it didn't escape my attention, they gave her the bedroom three times the size and I got the small one. It was like that all the time. I agree about no contact definitely. I want nothing to do with them. Both of the narc twosome make me sick.

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  7. Hi Peep. Lmao at how you put the mirror to their faces as a child! They can't handle the truth EVER. My anger would just build up in my body until I became toxic to myself and would suffer from unexplained bouts of itching. Then when I did explode,I was accused of being a rageaholic. Gotta laugh to keep from crying cause you just can't win with these pitiful people. Peace and blessings to you.

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  8. Abused children can do a few things - namely rise above their abused past, become so insecure that they eventually are driven toward promiscuity; or become abusers, themselves.

    Joan Crawford probably chose the latter in regard to her two older children. She was abused by her mother and older brother. And in turn, she became an abuser herself.

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