Ryan Murphy’s Love Story: “John F Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette” is a limited series that follows the “complex and heartbreaking” journey of JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. As of right now, there are 6 episodes out, the first episode relaying how they met, and the most recent episode shows the details of their wedding. Upon watching the show, which I’ve watched twice so far. I think that we can learn a lot from Carolyn Bessette and not just from her minimalist chic style, but from how she carries herself in her relationships with men, especially in today’s society.
Today, it’s as if we’ve forgotten that women are supposed to be the catch, and oftentimes we find ourselves chasing and centering ourselves around men. Especially with how we act towards them. It’s already hard enough to be a girl, and now it feels like there are so many criteria for how we should be and act. You can’t try too hard, and you can’t try at all; you have to show interest but not too much, you have to leave them on delivered for the correct amount of time, and have a response that’s witty and interesting, all without saying too much. Social media and text messaging have made life so much easier, but in that aspect, they’ve made talking to someone so much harder. This is where I think we can learn from the Icon that is Carolyn Bessette.
The first lesson we can learn from her is how she always spoke her mind and didn’t let people walk all over her in the workplace or in her relationship with JFK JR. When he showed up late, she didn’t plan on sticking around, and she made it known that she didn’t look fondly upon that. At her job at Calvin Klein, too, she let her opinion be known, which obviously paid off, hence her promotion in the show. Women have had to hold their tongues for so long in every situation under the pretense of being professional, but honestly, we should speak our minds because men don’t hold anything back, and they have never had anything good to say ever. Additionally, and I’m gonna metaphorically hold your hand when I say this, the bar is way too low. We have got to stop accepting the bare minimum and letting things slide. At the end of the day, it comes down to respect, and if we can’t respect ourselves enough to expect more, how can we want respect from other people?
The second lesson we can learn from Carolyn is from when she tells Michael Bergin that, after spending all day catering to people, she wants to be able to relax and do whatever she wants. I think that her argument is 100% correct. Her statement is extremely valid, and it is applicable to real-life situations, for me at least. After catering to people all day, whether it’s being a good friend to someone, or showing that you are paying extra attention in class to your professor because no one else is, or figuring out what to say to a guy. We are constantly straining our brains for social interaction, when do we get to let go and do or say whatever we want ? It is difficult enough with phones today because you have to worry how something will come across, and we can get so critical of ourselves because of something we said that we thought was embarrassing at the moment, it can get so consuming. Thats why, in the words of Carolyn Bessete, make sure you find some time in your day to “do whatever the hell you want”.
“Date ’em, train ’em, dump ’em,” Carolyn had the right Idea when she said this. He sent flowers to her office every day, and that didn’t faze her. I’m just saying that we should stop accepting the bare minimum and being so impressed with it, too. I’m also saying that we need to stop putting so much emphasis on men and do whatever we want regardless of what they might think, because what does it matter anyway, and who are they to say anything at all.