If there’s one thing I love, it’s watching a show as it’s coming out. This is sort of a newer thing for me in my college years. Most of my childhood shows had already been out for several years by the time I got to watch them. However, in the past few years, there have been so many shows that I have been able to watch all the way through as they have come out. From The Summer I Turned Pretty to Stranger Things, fans of television, myself included, have been fed with content.
My latest TV fixation has been FX’s Love Story, which follows the love story between former President Kennedy’s son, JFK Jr., and Carolyn Bessette, a salesperson and later publicist for Calvin Klein. Of course, I was familiar with the Kennedy family and the “curse” surrounding their legacy. However, I had never really understood the obsession and almost cult-like following that was associated with them. That was, until I started watching the show and noticed the reaction that it was getting from the media.
Generally, every time a new show or movie becomes popular, people tend to romanticize some aspect of the show or movie that they deem aesthetically pleasing or cool. I have always easily fallen into these trends, and the trends following Love Story are no exception. Carolyn Bessette’s classic ’90s minimalistic style, along with her effortless beauty and quick wit, has become something that young women across the country are trying to emulate. Aside from her obviously impeccable style, while watching the show, I was more drawn to her personality and how she handled life. She seems so sure of herself and her decisions; it’s hard not to want to be like her, for me at least. Aside from the icon that Carolyn Bessette is, the style of her husband, JFK Jr., has also gained a significant amount of traction with male audiences. Men all over TikTok have shown their JFK Jr.-inspired outfits that basically consist of a backwards hat and a button-up shirt.
While I do love the show and find it to be very entertaining, it has faced a significant amount of backlash from the Kennedy family, particularly JFK Jr.’s nephew, Jack Schlossberg. In an interview with CBS’s Sunday Morning, Schlossberg referred to the series as a “grotesque display of someone else’s life.” Schlossberg also had a lot to say about the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, claiming that he had no authority to make the series, as he knew basically nothing about the Kennedy family.
For me, this did kind of taint my enjoyment of the show. It’s hard to not consider Schlossberg’s comments while watching the series. Especially when considering Ryan Murphy’s reputation for sensationalizing real-life crimes with his Monsters series, which has followed various criminals such as Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez brothers.
I think that any kind of media depicting the life or lives of people should not be taken as the gospel truth, especially if the people being depicted are no longer alive. Additionally, the fact that the central plot of the series revolves around a member of the Kennedy family adds to the general lack of factual truth or accuracy. So, while this story is intriguing and easily romanticized, it is important to remember that most of the key details are probably inaccurate.
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