Vinson Cunningham: This is Critics At Large, a podcast from The New Yorker. I'm Vincent Cunningham. Alex Schwartz: I'm Alex Schwartz. Naomi Fry: And I'm Nomi Fry. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening and the culture right now and how we got here. Hello. Alex Schwartz: Hello. Vinson Cunningham: Dang, Naomi Fry: my friends. I would like to invite you to join me on a journey. Vinson Cunningham: Oh, gladly. Naomi Fry: Picture this. Vinson Cunningham: Hmm. Naomi Fry: We're in New York City. It's the 1990s. You guys were actually there on the ground as junior New York City natives. Vinson Cunningham: I was. I was much in 19 in, in the New York of the 1990s. Naomi Fry: You were right there. Vinson Cunningham: I can smell the smells. Naomi Fry: You can smell the smells. You can, you know, see the sights. What comes to mind? Alex Schwartz: Roller blades. Naomi Fry: Roller blades. Alex Schwartz: Where did they go? Yeah. I ask you a fun way to get around. Yeah. That people were into in the nineties. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Broken windows policing Rudy Giuliani. Naomi Fry: Okay. Alex Schwartz: One of those things was good. One of them was bad. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: How about for me? Because although I didn't grow up in New York in the nineties, I did visit New York in the nineties. The scent of CK one. Alex Schwartz: Mm. Naomi Fry: Everywhere you turn, can you describe Alex Schwartz: it? Naomi Fry: Yes. So CK one for those not in the know, uh, Calvin Klein's unisex fragrance. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Naomi Fry: Uh, light, um, spring-like not cloying. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Naomi Fry: Just a little bit sweet, but a little bit tart. Alex Schwartz: Sounds nice. Naomi Fry: Yeah, it was great. I had it myself. A minimalist bottle. Vinson Cunningham: That was a great description of the smell. Naomi Fry: Thank you very much, Vincent. Good. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. I Alex Schwartz: felt like I could smell it. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Naomi Fry: Anyway, what we're describing, the, the, the time, the scent, the, the, the screech of the roller blades is the setting of a new show love story, yet another project from producer Ryan Murphy. It's the first in Solomon in a new anthology series that tells the stories of famous couples, and in this case, the couple in question is John F. Kennedy Jr. And Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. CLIP: Love Story trailer it's a story of their relationship from the time they met to their tragic end that everybody knows about. They died in a plane crash, of course, off the coast of Martha's Vineyard in 1999, and we're gonna get into what we think about the show for sure. But I think the reactions to it are just. Is interesting. How would you guys describe the response that you've been seeing? Vinson Cunningham: It's like a rabid, viral sort of meme-like in its dependence on images, people changing the way they dress, looking at style guides, it’s a really interactive and rapid response. Naomi Fry: Right. Like a crazy fan response. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: Right. Uh, I believe. It's become one of FXs most watched series ever. Alex Schwartz: Yes. This is a very, very popular show. And I had done everything I could to not pay attention to it, and then I started paying attention to it and realized that it was huge. Yeah. And that people also have the response to it, the ownership response. That's not how she looked. That's not how she dressed. That's not how he was. That is how he was. Whatever it is. Projecting their own very intense feelings about these real people onto the fictional portrayal. Naomi Fry: Yeah. And also, you know, Ryan Murphy has kind of beefed with Jack Schlossberg, uh, Caroline Kennedy's son, and you know, there's been a lot of kind of response to the nine, the depiction of the nineties in the show. A lot is going on, you know, suffice to say. People are still, still very invested in the Kennedys and in their legacy. My question today is why the Kennedy story shows up in the culture. On repeat, uh, especially as RFK Junior's, impact on our current politics complicates the Kennedy legacy, and that's something I really would like to talk about today. How do we square our nostalgia for the Kennedy myth with reality? So that's today on Critics at Large Love Story and why we cling to the Kennedy Myth. ________________ Okay guys, do you have any particular memories of the JFK Junior and Carolyn Bassett? Era, like were you aware of their kind of iconic relationship as it was playing out? Alex Schwartz: No. I had no idea who these people were or that they existed. And the reason for that is that I was a child. Naomi Fry: She was simply too young. Alex Schwartz: My friends, I was, I was just a young, innocent. But I will tell you how I did become aware of them. Because their tragic deaths were the absolute talk of visiting day, the summer of 1999. All the grownups, Vinson Cunningham: mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: Showed up for visiting day at summer camp. Uh, and that is how I became aware of them. Wow. And what happened Naomi Fry: to them. So you became aware of them only, only in their death. Alex Schwartz: Yes. Naomi Fry: They had to die for young Alex Schwartz to be made aware of their existence. Alex Schwartz: Sadly, yes. I was 11 all of a sudden we had been living in the cocoon of summer camp and there the real world entered. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. I was, I don't know, 15 when he died. And I remember him dying, but I do not remember, I did not know about this couple until much, much, much later in my life. Naomi Fry: Okay, friends? No, me, this is, take us back. This is where, this is where you separate the men from the boys. Vinson Cunningham: Tell us about Alex Schwartz: which am I? Vinson Cunningham: You're the boys. Naomi Fry: You are the boys. I am the man. Yay. Uh, no, I am just as, uh, both my friends sitting with me at this round, this round table. No, I. Dear listeners, just turned 50 last week. Vinson Cunningham: Woo. Happy birthday. Naomi Fry: Thank you. Thank you. It is, Alex Schwartz: this is a huge moment for us on the pod and for American culture. Naomi Fry: It's a big moment for American culture, and I'm coming clean. I know I have the infantile spirit of a young girl, but yes, it's true. I did turn 50. And culturally it means yes, that I was very aware of John, John and Carolyn Bessette. I was aware, uh, of John, John as kind of, you know, the sort of hunky scion I was aware of, of the Kennedy clan. I was aware of George Magazine as it was happening, the magazine about politics, a sexy magazine about politics mm-hmm. That he, you know, put out. And I was aware of Carolyn Bessette through my religious reading of American Vogue and, and, and, and so on. Um, because she was. Uh, uh, which we'll talk about a figure in the culture, A fashion figure. Yeah. A huge fashion influence in her life as well. She was impeccably, turned out like the absolute distillation of a certain moment in style And so, yes, I totally remember them as a living couple. They looked amazing. And I remember when they died, I wasn't in America. I was in Israel then. And I remember watching it live on the news in Israel and I kept repeating the words to my then boyfriend. It's the Kennedy curse. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: And it was, I mean, when they didn't find that plane and they kept searching, I was like, that's it. They're done again. Yeah. What is it with this family? Et cetera, et cetera. And so I came to love story Ready to Murphy show. I came to it ready because I, I remember. And uh, I want us to start talking about it. As we've mentioned, executive produced by Ryan Murphy, created by the writer Connor Hines. It starts Sarah Pigeon as Carolyn Bessette, and Paul Anthony Kelly as the fabulously here suit, John F. Kennedy Jr. Okay. Give me your kind of opening remarks. Alex Schwartz: Okay. I don't think this is a good show. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: And yet I'm very much enjoying watching this not good show. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. That's it. Alex Schwartz: That's what I, that's way mix. Absolutely. Vinson Cunningham: That's Alex Schwartz: it. Do you, do you think that too, Vincent? Vinson Cunningham: That's exactly what I think of. Of course it's not good, but Alex Schwartz: it would be an affront. If it was good. Vinson Cunningham: It should. I mean, how could it be good, but at what it is, which is a sort of extended lookbook and yes, exercise and intensifying nostalgia. It works. I mean, I mean, we could say that this is like really like Ryan Murphy Aesthetics. It's like, am I trying to make it good? No, no. And, and if you're asking for that, get outta here. It's just like, I want to, how does this shirt fall on this person's shoulders? Is the test of the show? Naomi Fry: Who's gonna lay out the scope? Where are we? What is kind of the arc? Vinson Cunningham: Well, the cocoon of it is. From when these people meet and uh, in which ways their paths. Cross. So, um, John, John JFK Jr is sort of in the middle of this moment in his life where, um, he seems to be, yes, this hunky tabloid fodder, um, scion of the famous Kennedy family, but also at a crossword in his life. He's failed the bar twice. is kind of coming up against ridicule that makes him question sort of what he's doing and where he is in his life. CLIP: “Love Story” Carolyn Bessette is a rapidly rising figure at Calvin Klein, we see her sort of interjecting her style advice when she's supposed to be like the silent assistant. And even though this enrages her boss, it catches the eye of Calvin Klein and through her sort of. Ascension within Calvin Klein. She's a salesperson when we meet her, but she's like, you know, everybody can tell she's just got it. She's this really charismatic person and through that she's at a party with Calvin and then she meets JFK Jr. And it's off to the races. CLIP: “Love Story” Naomi Fry: Just to get back to what you were saying before about kind of the drape of the shirt. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Naomi Fry: The drape of the shirt on the shoulder and you know, the kind of like. Lifestyle porn of it all. It's really interesting to me that this show is kind of like entirely convincing as this. Yeah. Kind of like this visual album, right? Mm-hmm. This like look book of like, this is how, this is what it was like to be in New York in the nineties if you were like, you know, wealthy. Sure. And like young and beautiful. You know, I'm not talking New York in the nineties was many things. Of course. Um. This is what it felt like to like smoke in the office. This is what it looked like when at the Calvin Klein office. You were only allowed like black paperclips and white orchids, you know? Yeah. It's just like all of that world, you know, like the heels are just, so, the pencil skirt is penciling, you know, the, the, the white button down is crisp and, and, you know, snatched to the waist, et cetera, et cetera. Um, on that level. It really did take me back to. Those moments of, of me being like, you know, I dunno, 20 or something, and like leafing through American Vogue in my like mm-hmm. Disgusting apartment, you know, and being like, look at these, this is it beautiful people? Mm-hmm. This is it. This is what it means. Oh my God, here they are. They say it's this place called Tribeca, you know, it's like, all of these things that like, I didn't know firsthand. And that show, um, is very successful. I think in, in doing that. Like, I do feel like an ache when I watch it on that level. Like remember when? Yeah. Like, but on the level of like the love story and the attraction story, apart from kind of the visual attraction. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: Not convincing. Not convinced. Alex Schwartz: I think something a little weird is happening in the show. I, and I know that members of the Kennedy family, specifically Jack Schlosberg, Caroline Kennedy's son, have spoken up about how this is this very vulture depiction of their relative and kind of hands off. And there's been that whole kerfuffle between Jack Schlossberg saying to Ryan Murphy, you're basically profiting off of someone you didn't know. And Murphy has responded saying some really horrible and Vinson Cunningham: terrible. Alex Schwartz: Yeah. It's just like, why this bad? Yeah. Yeah. Bad stuff. He said, I thought it was an odd choice to be mad about your relative that you don't really remember, which is like a sick thing to say. And beside being not true, however. John F. Kennedy Jr. Comes off amazingly in this show. Seems Naomi Fry: as does, as does Carolyn Bessette. Alex Schwartz: So I disagree. Naomi Fry: Oh, Alex Schwartz: I think this show makes JFK Jr look fantastic. He looks like, first of all, he looks gorgeous and handsome, which he was in life. Mm-hmm. He looks good spirited, which by all accounts, he was in life charming and well purposed and trying to really figure stuff out. And I do think the show is doing Carolyn Bessette dirty. She, that's Naomi Fry: really interesting. Alex Schwartz: I do not like. The performance by Sarah Pigeon. Mm-hmm. Who I, otherwise very much like, I really loved her in Stereophonic the play mm-hmm. Based on Fleetwood Mac. Mm-hmm. Um, that she was in both off Broadway and on Broadway. I thought she was fabulous in that I do find there to be something a bit brittle in this performance, and I think it's very hard to get that performance right. So I'm sympathetic to her because We really have this very superficial understanding of Carolyn Bessette since she was transmitted to us exclusively in images. There were no big interviews, Naomi Fry: interviews. Yeah she tended to avoid interviews. Alex Schwartz: Exactly. So there was, there were, there was nothing really to go on. And I like the parts of her in this show she’s seen standing up for herself, her defining characteristic is extreme wariness, she’s the product of a bad divorce, adn there just is something a little brittle about her in a way that makes me feel that the show is set up to critique her and to kind of reify. The fantasies of JFK Jr. Naomi Fry: That's Alex Schwartz: interesting. Am I the only one with this reading movie? Vinson Cunningham: I received it totally opposite, yeah. Oh, interesting. Okay. Okay. Like I, my feeling about JFK Jr. Uh, after watching the show. You know, may he rest in peace, was that he sort of was the, um, to put it in the words of f Scott Fitzgerald and the Great Gatsby, he is like, you know, they were careless people that Yeah, he was good natured and yeah, he, he, he, he was, he even well intentioned, but at every step he didn't really understand. Um, the power of his influence and its effects on other less shiny, uh, people. I came away with more, not that I had a, a well-defined sense of her, but with open to having more sympathy for her than I did necessarily for him. Naomi Fry: I think there is a sympathy towards both of them. I think in fact, there is too much sympathy towards both of them. Is, is my, my read of it. Uh, which is not to say that they were horrible people and it doesn't reveal it. Like I have no idea what they were actually really like as people. Mm-hmm. Vinson Cunningham: But Naomi Fry: it doesn't give me a sense of what they actually were like as people. My sense that I get from this depiction. Is very much an idealized sense. Like they're kind of both saints in a way. Not saints. They're not perfect, I think also we should say that one of the books that the series adapts relies on is a, a. Uh, biography by Elizabeth Baller called Once Upon a Time, which is kind of a revisionist biography of Carolyn Bessette, and the show is very much in line with that so far, at least from what I've seen and kind of like painting her is completely. saintly in her lack of interest in JFK Junior's prominence in a celebrity mm-hmm. In his riches, you know, all of that. She, in fact, she co rejected wholesale. Like, you know, it was probably more complicated than that. I'll venture to say, you know what I mean? Probably. And it would've been nice to see that complication on the screen. Alex Schwartz: I think there is some Kenendy image rehabilitation going on on this show, And the person who doesn’t look good is Daryl Hannah, I don’t know if you guys have been following the kerfuffle? Yes. So Daryl Hannah, actress who dated JFK Jr is made to look here like the dumbest person alive, ditz, absolute ditz, she has now like I’m sure many people have seen written this very elegantly written oped in the NYT asking a rather appropriate question which is how dare you? It’s ick. Naomi Fry: But in general it’s almost like plot over character is what I find with this show which is like, everything is subordinated to the cleanliness of the plot. Like maybe Daryl Hannah wasn’t a total dummy, maybe she was actually a secret Shakespeare scholar, whatever! Life has a lot of complications, and all of that needs to be smoothed over in order to kind of provide this epic love story plot. Alex Schwartz: yeah, I agree with that, there’s a scene at the very start of the show, the show starts on the day of their death, they don’t know it’s going to be that day, but it opens with Carolyn at a beauty parlor, visibly very anxious about the paparazzi getting a picture of her, and as she rushes out of the nail salon and gets away, you see all the paparazzi clustered. And I think this show has a very ambivalent relationship to its own participation in the continued paparazzi spectacle around these two people. That’s a great point. I think it holds it close and it pushes it away and it tries to give you both. It tries to give you that paparazzi slavering panting let’s get the outfits let’s get them let’s take you inside their famous fight let’s get you there, and to raise an eyebrow at that at the same time and say of course, we’re fiction, but I do think it participates in that which definitely diminishes its ability to speak to the story as a whole. Naomi Fry: Um, let's talk a little bit about the response to the show. What have you noticed? Alex Schwartz: Well, the first response I became aware of predated the show coming out. I think it was how I even found out that there was going to be a show. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: Which is that press photos were released of the main actors of Sarah Pigeon and Paul Anthony Kelly. And there was an uproar over the fashion. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: And there was one picture in particular, I can bring it to mind, where Sarah Pigeon walking down the street and she's wearing some beat up converse and this kind of shimmery flip skirt that doesn't look particularly expensive. Mm-hmm. And she's wearing also what? Someone memorably in an Instagram comment referred to as a wrinkled vegan leather coat. Just embarrassing for the most stylish person ever. Naomi Fry: Yeah. Alex Schwartz: And so people had this very intimate sense of ownership. Over these images and this figure and oh, and the hair. Of course, the hair. Naomi Fry: The hair, Alex Schwartz: the hair blonde is not good. It's the wrong ashy blonde. It's ashy. She had this most amazing golden glow, and I have to say, when you do look at these pictures of this person, I've never seen so much charisma in a. Person on camera. It's the whatever Carolyn Bessette had, it was amazing on camera. And that combined with the general mystery of who she was. Yeah, it's absolute catnip. I get it. Naomi Fry: I, I think the issue was the attention and the particularity, right? People were like, okay, the contours of this like camel coat, it's like, it looks like Zara, it doesn't look like, you know, Prada. And, uh, they seem to have fixed it. people are like going crazy, finding like the originals. Like sunglasses and the original headband that she used to wear, which you can still buy apparently. And then there's also kind of like more nostalgia induced things of people who used to work at Calvin Klein in the nineties going on TikTok and being like, so this is what it was really like. Ooh. But also like kind of like giving props to the show. They got it. Right. Right. I do think though that this fixation on image and images Yeah. Does speak to how the Kennedys continue to be received. It does seem like we have ever more efficiently, uh, stripped the Kennedys and their image and their style from any notions of political power. Naomi Fry: Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: Um, there's a moment in the, in the, it's really telling, I think there's a moment in the show where. Uh, Carolyn is at Hyannis Port and um, Ethel Kennedy is sort of presiding over the table and they get to the, the part of dinner where Ethel sort of drills people, testing them about geopolitics and their ideas about domestic international affairs, et cetera. And, uh, Carolyn like can't play this game and she is sort of embarrassed CLIP: Love Story and it's played as like, of all the things. Kennedys could be villains about, this is like where the Kennedys come off worse, that they care about politics and talk about it at the table. And it's like, no, no, no, you've got this totally backwards. It's like, it's like the show was asking, why can't you just be beautiful and not have to talk about the world? So it's, it's so strange that the, the, this moment of high familial embarrassment for her is the moment when it's like the show is trying to remind us that. Oh, by the way, these are political figures. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Vinson Cunningham: Uh, the show wants to get rid of. It's like politics are an annoyance in this show. We barely even know who the president is. Alex Schwartz: That's interesting. I took that dinner differently actually. That's one of my favorite scenes of the show. I took it as this cruel. Creepy performative politics where of course you have to just perform as if you're a school child. Mm-hmm. Being called on to come up and say, what's 12 times 12? And she doesn't have thoughts about the world, but because she doesn't have the exact right answer on the micro question. She's just been asked to inform about, and it's a, it's a cruel. Pretend engagement with politics. Naomi Fry: Right? In a way, in a way, it paints the Kennedys in a bad way. Not just because they're bullies, but also because the way it shows their engagement with politics is that it's purely about power. They care about showing off and earning points. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: So I thought that was Vinson Cunningham: a, that was Naomi Fry: certainly, that was an interesting Vinson Cunningham: thing. That was the representation. It just struck me as interesting that the one time politics is discussed at any length, it's a, it's to show the sort of. Villainous character of these people. It's, oh, you know, I don't, I don't know. Like they don't care about that stuff, but neither does Carolyn and neither does Ryan Murphy Naomi Fry: In a minute, we close read the Kennedys critics at large from the New Yorker will be right back. :: MIDROLL:: Okay, you guys, we've been talking about Ryan Murphy's love story, but that is only the most recent example of the Kennedy's and pop culture. Let's talk about some other ones, Alex Schwartz: I recently did engage with American Prince colon. JFK Jr. Tagline, the golden Boy with a heavy Crown. Oh boy. Naomi Fry: And the heavy hair. Alex Schwartz: And the hair. Naomi Fry: Sorry to go back to the hair. Alex Schwartz: No, it actually is very important. It's, I'm not kidding. Naomi Fry: It's, it's crazy. Okay. Say, say more about the hair. Alex Schwartz: The hair. If you have such hair, Naomi Fry: it's incredible. Alex Schwartz: And we're talking about a thick helmet of it. Naomi Fry: It's a, it's a, it's a pelt Alex Schwartz: for a white man to have that distinctive crown of hair. It's just, and it's been passed onto Jack Schlossberg and it just mm-hmm. Signifies wealth and power without having to do anything. How Naomi Fry: does he do it? Alex Schwartz: It's genetic luck. It's incredible genetic luck that further, yes, they may be cursed, but they have this hair. This hair is. It is the crown. Naomi Fry: It's like a, it's like the, the the, Alex Schwartz: and I'm not trying to be Naomi Fry: like bald lasano guy vibes. Right. Is that the right? You know what I mean? Yes. Like the, like the chosen one. Alex Schwartz: Right. Either you can make objects move with your brain or you have this beautiful head of hair. Naomi Fry: Yes. Alex Schwartz: Not just great head hair, but did you guys know that one issue they had with casting this role was that so many men no longer have chest hair? They have removed it. It's not the trend anymore. It's bring that back. I say it's, Naomi Fry: like I felt like we were back to the chest hair. Anyway, Alex Schwartz: this may bring us further back, but I'm bringing, I'm bringing this up because two of my, well, my number one favorite is of course not about the Kennedys at all. It's the Seinfeld episode, the contest, one of the greatest episodes of television mm-hmm. Ever made. Our friends from Seinfeld. George, Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer undertake a pact to not masturbate. Naomi Fry: Refrain from Alex Schwartz: kicking Naomi Fry: off, Alex Schwartz: right to refrain, and they wanna see who will last the longest, who will be master of his or her domain. And Elaine, are you king of your castle? Exactly. Elaine attends Elaine attends. Unfortunately for her and her role in this contest, an exercise class in which she's put directly behind John, John. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. CLIP: The Contest Alex Schwartz: This is still one of my favorite things about the Kennedy family period. Definitely about John F. Kennedy Jr. And then I come across American Prince, which I don't know anything about the production history of this thing. CNN made it. I watched it on HBO. Naomi Fry: This is recent. Alex Schwartz: It was released. August 9th, 2025, which makes me think that they heard I'm, I'm about to engage in some rampant speculation based on no research at all. I Vinson Cunningham: bet you right. Alex Schwartz: It makes me think they heard love stories coming down the pike. How can we get in on this thing? Mm-hmm. So how they got in on this thing was to make. An absolutely beautifully empty three episode documentary about this amazing man that guys I watched Glued to my computer. Perfect, meaningless documentary. I highly recommended to absolutely everyone because you get what the hype was about. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: I mean it's, but I think with the Kennedys and their representation, I mean, this is kind of what we're circling around. One thing that I think about when I think about kind of like representations of the Kennedys, one of kind of my favorite examples is the paparazzi photographer Ron Go, who died? Just a few years back, one of his premier subjects, maybe his most famous subject was Jackie. And so much so, um, that she got a restraining order against him because he, it, it's, you know, it's that doubleness. Right. It's like he harassed her. He stalked her. Yeah. Like he, she was his prey. and there's a series of photographs where you see her running from him, like in the park. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. But the images are, yeah. So interesting. these people are. Kind of examples of how we are complicit, um, in this, uh, kind of like. Worship fandom that verges and sometimes goes over the line to harassment. And this is of course, part of the issue that is examined in in love story. Yeah. As well. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Alex Schwartz: So let's talk a little bit about one of the recent texts, Jackie. Clip: Jackie This came out in 2016. It was directed by Pablo Lorraine, written by Noah Oppenheim, and it stars Natalie Portman in the title role. Nomi, did you like it? Naomi Fry: I like, you know, I liked. Um, I like Natalie Portman's performance. I thought it was really good. I, I, the thing is, and with Pablo Lorraine in general, you know, he did the, the Spencer, the. Uh, the di, the Princess Diana movie, he did, uh, uh, the Maria Callas movie, you know, it's over raw. It's like, it's interesting, again, it's interesting to watch, but it's like, again, one of those things where you're like. You're critiquing the fact that we, you know, like put these women, like, um, us as a culture, put these women like, uh, um, so many butterflies on, on, you know, on, on like a wall in a box, but you're kind of doing it yourself and you're, you're kind of like. Uh, you know, theatricalizing, this, this, this, this like, uh, problem, uh, but also participating it and making it into this melodrama like crazy melodrama. So I. I'm kind of in, in two minds about it, I guess. Alex, what about you? Alex Schwartz: Oh, I, I think I feel the same way. I think it's an amazing performance by Natalie Portman. I re-watched pieces of it recently. Mm-hmm. And was again struck by her visual, her, her facial expressiveness. I think she gets the. Accent spot on. She really gets it down. And Pablo Lorraine's whole deal is this, over the top melodrama that when already swirling around a story with so much drama, with bloodshed, with her, wiping the blood off her face, I thought took it to, uh, an extreme so ridiculous that it was for me, almost unwatchable. But it is around that moment. The, the structuring device of the movie is, is the interview that she gave Teddy White with Time Magazine after. JFK's assassination where she coins this idea of Camelot and she's famously very, very press savvy about how to spin the entire era that's just suddenly ended and the movie is very interested in her being able to achieve that kind of. Poise and forethought. Naomi Fry: Vincent, what about your Kennedy text or texts? Do you have any? Uh, Vinson Cunningham: yeah, one of my favorites. I guess as a sort of like, as we also kind of talk about the building of the Kennedy Mythos, I think my, one of my favorite things about the Kennedys is a kind of myth busting text. It's the Kennedy Imprisonment by the writer Gary Wills who, I mean, I just think he's one of the best writers about America. Ever his uh, book, uh, Lincoln at Gettysburg is just, I mean, it's just one of my favorite books. Um, but the Kennedy Imprisonment, the subtitle of which is a Meditation on Power is just that. And a lot of, uh, the space taken up in the book is about how image and style. There's a whole chapter that's just called style contributed, um, to the making of real. Power. Um, there's are passage that I really like. Is it okay if I read it? Naomi Fry: Of course. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Uh, here's, uh, here's wills. He says, so glittering, did the Kennedy style appear that some accused the president of being all style. No substance. Schlesinger, he's talking about here, the, the historian and social kid, uh, Arthur Schlesinger, who was a friend and confidant of the president. Um, says Schlesinger answered that such style was itself a political act of substantial import. Now we're quoting Schlesinger. His coolness was itself a new frontier. It meant freedom from the stereotyped response of the past. His personality was the most potent instrument he had to awaken a national desire for something new and better. End quote. This is Will's again. When one man's personality is an administration's most potent tool, then efficient use of resources dictates a. Cult of that personality, a shrewd administrator must to achieve his policy goals, maximize the impact of the leader's charm must, that is join in the contriving of images to celebrate the prince. Um, that seems to me so true about the Kennedy thing. The presidential debates of 1960 that brought Kennedy into office against Nixon were the first ones that were ever televised. And the story goes that, you know, he Kennedy being so Kennedy, so dapper and sort of cool and debonair under pressure and Nixon is like flop, sweating. Um. Won that election. It was, it was, it was a really big part of the accrual of, of power for Kennedy. So it's almost like, yeah, he had some special qualities. But the larger story is structural, is that at the moment that the American presidency was ready to be kind of celebritized. Um, here someone came. Along to sort of fill that necessity, fill that need, fill that almost like just technological imperative. Um, and so, and the, and the book is all about, you know, it's got a lot about the total predation of the Kennedys. Like they're not just careless, they're predators in many ways. John f Kennedy's many, uh, uh, Naomi Fry: dalliances, Vinson Cunningham: dalliances acts, acts of awful abuse toward much younger women are mm-hmm. Are cataloged and also. His insane belligerence in the case of the Cuban Michel Missile Crisis. Mm-hmm. There's a lot to be said about the short Kennedy presidency. Um, but all of it riding on this, these coattails of style, I just think it's a, it's a great book. I. Alex Schwartz: I love that point, and it does remind me my favorite Kennedy is Joe Kennedy. Father Kennedy, the father, patriarch Kennedy. Naomi Fry: When you say favorite, Alex Schwartz: he's the one who's most fascinating. Okay. And when people, Naomi Fry: I'm like, what? What's your favorite thing to antisemitism? The, Alex Schwartz: I say favorite in terms of In terms terms of fascinating character analysis. Yes, he was. He was a major antisemite. A flagrant, flagrant antisemite. No, the reason I say that is because. When people talk, Vincent, you're reminding me when people talk around about the mythos of the Kennedys around Camelot, around the continued glamor that extends, that the name keeps carrying generation after generation there is behind it. And when, and especially when they talk about the Kennedys as the American Royals. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: With the same obsessive interest in their personal lives and projection onto them and a dynasty like quality. It, it is the most American story possible where one man decides that he's going to find a way to wield enormous power through trading in Wall Street, through Hollywood and the acquisition of movie companies through political influence. Mm-hmm. By getting his own way into political administrations and becoming the first SEC chair and, and ambassador to England and things like this through just pointing it. The first of his nine children and saying, it will be you who wears the crown only to have that child die in World War II tragically. And to then point at the second one and say, actually it's you. That is an American story. It is. So the opposite of. Well, hundreds of years ago, our ancestors did this, so we're gonna keep doing this. It's about crazy grit and drive and a really rapacious will to power. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: That will trot on anyone in its way. And I think because of exactly what you're saying, because of the conjunction of. Television and image coming in and giving that glorious sheen to the JFK presidency. And Jackie also providing the glamor for that. Mm-hmm. This beautiful young couple, their young children, all these things. We've sort of ignored the pre 1960 stuff in the popular Mind and that's all about to change. Thanks to Michael Fastbender who's about to play. Joe Kennedy. For Netflix. Vinson Cunningham: There we go. Hooray. Alex Schwartz: So that's gonna be my real Kennedy moment. I am very excited for that because that story, that story is the most Father Naomi Fry: Joe. Alex Schwartz: Father Joe. It's the most fascinating. All Naomi Fry: Michael Faser is Joe Kennedy, Alex Schwartz: and he will be, we don't know exactly when it will come out, but I'm gonna watch it and I, I wonder. I can't make any big predictions, but I wonder if seeing that very non Camelot origins will provide any kind of counterweight Naomi Fry: in a minute. What happens when the myth behind this family brushes up against real politics? Critics at large and the New Yorker will be right back. :: MIDROLL:: I didn't rewatch Oliver Stone's, 1991, Kevin Costner's starring movie JFK, uh, but I did watch the trailer CLIP: JFK and the tagline is JFK, the story that won't go away. And of course, uh, in the context of the movie, it's about like, okay, it's actually, there was a conspiracy. This is why we need to find out. It'll never end until we like figure out what actually happened. Mm-hmm. But as I was, you know, watching this trailer and that tagline came up, I was like, yeah, why won't the story go away? It's like, from father to son, from son to gra, you know, it's like mm-hmm. We're always somehow dealing with the Kennedys. Why are we so obsessed? Alex Schwartz: Okay. Naomi Fry: Well, tell us Alex. Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: I was just fondly remembering that I believe I reviewed Oliver Stone's, uh, JFK in spite of never having seen it. What? For a self-published newspaper that I produced one issue of during my elementary school years. My God, I did Naomi Fry: that too. Alex Schwartz: I lost, of course. Yeah. I actually may not even have reviewed it. I'm now remembering it was so prominent that I think I just put an ad for it right. In my paper, you know, as if they had bought space. Naomi Fry: Yeah. Alex Schwartz: yeah if you’re in this room you probably did that. Alright, so number one is conspiracy. Of course conspiracy, as we know from living in the United States of America, is a very popular narrative trend here. Yeah. More and more in these 50 states, especially from a family that had a lot to hide. Mm-hmm. It's not like these were squeaky clean people. So there's that. There's the element that we haven't touched on yet really because we're all of a younger generation. Um, but the collective feeling for the Kennedys brought about by the youth of. JFK and Jackie and their kids in the White House. And then of course JFK's assassination. The where were you moment. Where were you when you heard the news that JFK had died? This huge collective shock, collective mourning, a sense of collective loss. And you know, one thing that really interested me recently. Around another horrific, very sad and upsetting Kennedy tragedy, the death of Tatiana Schlosberg, Carolyn's daughter, uh, who wrote so beautifully and amazingly for the New Yorker about her cancer diagnosis in a, in a really beautiful essay that was published just before she died last fall when I was looking at comments around her obituary, uh, so many people were writing and to say. We have lived through Caroline's experience. We remember when Caroline was a little girl. I was the age of Caroline when her father died. I remember when her brother died. Now her daughter has died. This sense of real sympathy, obviously it can have a very vultures and worse edge. Mm-hmm. But I think the flip side to that is a real sense of emotional identification, which is an enormous, yeah. Unspeakable pressure for a person to go through life with. But I think that's part of it, that there is this American family representation for the rest of us. Naomi Fry: Yeah. You know, you, you mentioned the Tiana Schlosberg essay that ran in the New Yorker. In the essay, one of, one of the interesting things was she wasn't just talking about, you know, suffering from cancer and the, the effect of it on her family and being a mother and, and, and all of that, but she also spoke about her cousin RFK Jr. Now the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and how he, while she is. Suffering this disease. Doctors are trying to help her with certain medications, certain, um, you know, treatments. He is busy decimating treatments for America. Alex Schwartz: Yeah. Cutting, cutting research funding that, that Naomi Fry: can help people. Yes. Cutting research funding that can help people in her, in her position. I think it spoke to the Kennedy's as kind of like symbolically. And literally perhaps the best of us and the worst of us. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Like, we are looking to this family still, But also, we know we're talking about RFK Junior, the things that have been revealed about this man are, are, are pretty bad. And those two sides, Vinson Cunningham: yeah, Naomi Fry: our hopes are perhaps outsize, but the behavior is also outsize often. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. And, and, and it's like they symbolize this really lasting political problem, which is, you know, how much stock do you take in charismatic leadership at all? And you know, whether, yeah, what is the. What is the upshot of that form of leadership? but I don't know, especially in America, it seems like we've always been riding this dialectic of like suspicion, but total devotion to charismatic leaders. The founders were like, this president thing might be a bad idea because they can turn into a demagogue, they can turn into a cult of personality. You know, Washington being the first great example was like really famous dude, and then he decide, you know, so it's. It, it strikes me as like a, an illustration of that suspicion, you know, like that it's like something deep in human nature, um, really does attach to f figures of as guarantors of, I don't know. Virtue political stability, et cetera, et cetera. And it is a, it is a worry. And the fact that we're still talking about these people seems to meet a total ratification of that suspicion. Naomi Fry: I mean, look, even at Trump, right? Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: If we think about his, you know, his kind of like Booth Legg Kennedy clan, you know, his two sons and daughter trying to create his own. Crazy version of Camelot. Mm-hmm. Or to, to remake the presidency in his image. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Naomi Fry: It's kind of like a a, a hall of mirror's version of, of what you're talking about. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. I think I can't wait for love story, the Ivanka and Jared story. It'll be great. Naomi Fry: I mean, it's crazy. Vinson Cunningham: What a backdrop. Alex Schwartz: I felt such a chill run down my spine. Such a horrifying chill. What I do, I do think there's, I do think you're onto something. Nomi. Uh, there a lot of the darknesses of. The Kennedy history. I'm thinking of, for instance, Chappaquiddick come up in the Trump world in terms of the general horrific way that people are treated by the Trumps women in particular, but not exclusively women. And the sense of dynasty, personal dynasty, we wanna have it all, it's all for us. And then the huge piece that's missing the key piece, and I think a key part of the positive aspect of the Kennedy allure, because I, I'm not f. I'm of course cynical about the projection onto people. Mm-hmm. And the creation of characters out of real human beings. But I think there is this idea of service that the Kennedys do not perfectly embody, but do attempt to embody some of them. This idea of serving the country. Vincent, I know you're just gonna be so skeptical of this. You're just like, they've created. Ruin wherever they've gone. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Alex Schwartz: Enough, yeah. Vincent is not gonna be involved by, Vinson Cunningham: yeah. I mean, if you want to accrue power and not be seen, not seem to be totally craven, this is the language you use. But I, but please. Alex Schwartz: I agree. I agree. But what if you do wanna seem totally craven and you wanna accrue power and there, there are things that the Kennedys were trying to accomplish outside simply of power. There was the civil rights bill that was going forward, that ended up being passed under Lyndon Johnson. There. There were things that. I look, I agree with you. Yeah, I of course agree with you, but, Naomi Fry: and what if it inspires others, even if they are themselves, craven? Do you see what I'm saying? Like, uh, Vinson Cunningham: YY yes, yes, yes. Totally true. And sometimes it takes people, this is, you know, this is why it's kind of like the Obama thing works Naomi Fry: too. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. I Naomi Fry: mean, Vinson Cunningham: one, 100%. Yeah. And the, the danger of that is that we live in exceedingly. Disillusioning times. It seems to me that if your worldview is dependent on the conduct of certain people, um, there is a certain, there is a kind of, uh, a flip can happen, an arc that ends in, um, a sort of explosion of. Social cohesion, you know what I mean? Um, and that does not mean that this like very human need will not always be with us. It, it is though a cautionary, uh, arc perhaps. Alex Schwartz: I think you're totally, I think you're totally right. Yes. And your point is well taken. And this is why, to me, the overriding thing that love story does for me is to, again, make me feel that. Yeah. John Kennedy Jr. Came from the most fucked up world possible and actually like, turned out okay. Considering how fucked up all that was. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, Alex Schwartz: maybe. Yes. Naomi Fry: Could have been way worse. Alex Schwartz: It could have been so much worse. Naomi Fry: Yeah. And I think the, uh, the, the, the question is the idea of like image and lore being a, a possible dis distraction from political realities, right? I mean, it's like if we're thinking just about the visual or the cut of the shirt or something, and I'm not saying that love story needs to do more than that, you know, necessarily. Alex Schwartz: No. I think in doing that, it's the best piece of PR they could possibly have gotten. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. It's interesting for people who care about art to really. Pay attention to the Kennedys because they knew this, their, their White House was the first one that was so insistent on like, no, we're gonna have artists visit us and artists are gonna love us and talk about us. And, and, and what does Jackie do when she gets to New York? She gets a job in the publishing industry. Vinson Cunningham: Um, I think it, I think it should, I mean like all of us care about style in various ways, For me, like I think of myself as like. An aesthete, whatever, you know? Yeah. And, and this is like, it troubles me. It's like, it's, it's a reminder that the surfaces of things and the spirit of things are linked, but not in the way that we always think that they are. beneath the layer of images, there's also a moral happening And I should be attending to both things. Alex Schwartz: You're saying that the aesthetics of something can cover up the truth of the power operating beneath it? Vinson Cunningham: Yes, yes. Or, and just like that the, the look of something and the sort of moral thrust of something are not always one-to-one working in parallel. Alex Schwartz: You're saying, okay, so that a beautiful pencil skirt and a handsome white men's button down do not. Attribute virtue much as we may enjoy the Vinson Cunningham: look of them. It's, it's, it's obvi. It's an obvious observation that some, for some reason needs to be repeated over and over again. Yeah. Alex Schwartz: Because it's not that obvious, because we all get sucked in by the aesthetics. Vincent, I, I feel like your role in general, but definitely right now is to just, is to lead No me back from the brink and say, Naomi Fry: you have, Alex Schwartz: come on, Naomi Fry: you have to say love story. You might be on the couch eating potato chips like a pig and shit, but remember, Vinson Cunningham: remember Alex Schwartz: your words. Vinson Cunningham: Remember her. Naomi Fry: Remember? Yeah. What, what do we need to remember, Vincent? Vinson Cunningham: No, nothing that, nothing that I haven't already said. Alex Schwartz: Vincent's, like ask, not Vinson Cunningham: your Alex Schwartz: country can, can do for you Vinson Cunningham: can. Cetera, et cetera. Naomi Fry: for I, yeah, by the declare. Naomi Fry: Yes. This has been critics at large. Alex Barish is our consulting editor, and Rhiannon Corby is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Our show is mixed by Mike Kuman, and we had engineering help today from James Yost with Music by Alexis Rado. We're taking a break next week. But we'll be back in your feeds the week after that. And remember, join us on Oscar's night for the critics at Large Live blog, champers, red carpet, all of it. Alex Schwartz: We're gonna be equipping. Vinson Cunningham: I can't wait for, we're just gonna be, it's gonna Naomi Fry: be a quip Vinson Cunningham: fest, you know, just Alex Schwartz: commenting, Vinson Cunningham: rolling around in it, Alex Schwartz: equipping rolling around it. Naomi Fry: That's right. And this is all taking place on New yorker.com.