Our Enduring Fascination With the Kennedys

We changed articles and so having read the same article, we can discuss it. She sent New York long subscription so I've access to all the games. The New York Times contributes to our quality time together. It enriches our relationship. It was such a cool and thoughtful gift.

We're reading the same stuff, we're making the same food, we're on the same page. Learn more about giving a New York Times subscription as a gift. At nytimes.com/gift From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams and this is the Daily On Sunday. Here in Manhattan, downtown in the East Village, there's this tiny Indian restaurant called

Panna 2. It's a bit of a hole in the wall, but like any restaurant that survives, it has its charms. For Panna 2, one of those charms is that it is filled with Christmas lights. Absolutely covered.

Like imagine, the most Christmas lights you could fit into a restaurant and then double or triple that. That's how many lights are in Panna 2. Panna 2 has been a novelty for New Yorkers for decades.

We lived in the area for like a couple years, so we've never been in here.

But lately, it's been drawing a different kind of crowd. I was asking my mom like, "Where should we go for dinner?"

“And she was like, "You should try the place that was in love story."”

Love story. The fictionalized retelling of the relationship between John F. Kennedy Jr., son of a president, one of the most famous New Yorkers of the 1990s. And Carolyn Besett, the Calvin Klein publicist whose relationship with JFK Jr, vaulted her into what the show portrays as an unwelcome spotlight.

In the series, JFK Jr. takes her to the unpretentious and empty, Panna 2, on their first date. This is your good to date, is that? Yeah, I'm the sucker for a 180 minute. The show, which ended this week, has been ascending into a real cultural moment.

Even if you haven't heard of love story, you might still be aware of it, or at least know about the kind of phenomenon that's become. It's like a huge thing on TikTok, like all my friends. It's where people are texting about, posting about, criticizing, loving. It's impacting fashion, it's impacting people's memories, a lot of people's parents.

And suddenly, and this is according to Hulu, it is the most streamed limited series in its history. And the cravings of an innocent thing to royalty we've ever had in America.

“So I think this is like very impactful in the...”

It's got its own center of gravity. So much so that a single scene, in a single episode, could bring a fresh wave of business to a small Indian restaurant in Manhattan.

Motivated us finally go, I don't care the food, it's not that great.

Like I just want to go for the vibes. So today, we're going to explore why the show has become so popular right now. My colleague Alexander Jacobs, who writes about culture here at the Times, will join me to talk about nostalgia, the Kennedy's, and the eternal allure of Cinderella stories. Sunday, March 29th.

Alexander Jacobs, welcome to the daily, I see that you are wearing a leopard coat and big sunglasses and very simple minimal jewelry, did you dress perhaps for our conversation today? Not consciously, but I have found that the aesthetic of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy has snuck into all of our wardrobes.

“I think that is exactly right, speaking from personal experience.”

We're going to talk about that, we're going to talk about a lot of things today. But firstly, Alexander, you have spent a lot of time thinking and writing about America's fascination with the Kennedy's. You wrote a piece last summer, long before love story started airing about the continued cultural fascination with JFK juniors specifically.

What prompted you to write that piece? Well the occasion for the piece was that CNN was doing a documentary about JFK junior. And my reporting for the piece suggested that this documentary was going to happen anyway. It wasn't just because Ryan Murphy was coming out with a show that CNN had done this documentary. However, I felt the timing was a little bit close.

Something about this guy is in the air right now.

The Kennedy's have never left the political conversation, but with RFK junior in the mix,

Jack Schlossberg on social media, there was just a sort of swirl of interest around the family around this couple. So speaking of the show, for people who are listening to this, but have not yet seen it, no spoilers, but tell us what it's about. The show is a pretty simple idea.

eligible bachelor. I know, like, five people here. Well, you wouldn't know that from the way Ryan's staring at you.

And Carolyn Besett Kennedy, who was a non-known, basically, you know, she worked at Calvin Klein.

I don't know what they're up to. Please, I'm not about begging, I'm all of my closest friends. You know where I work? Traction reception. And they are living and falling in love in the '90s, which was really a prosperous, slightly

frivolous time when glamour industries such as magazine publishing and fashion were very much centered in the office in the street. That was that, thank you. I ended up at the tunnel rolling around in the ballpoint with Mickey Rook. Like, hooking up?

I don't know. I don't remember, but the sun was coming up when I left, so now I'm just raising for our impact. It's based on a popular book called "Once Upon a Time" by Elizabeth Beller, which is a biography of Carolyn Besett Kennedy, and, you know, that title, it just evokes the fairy tale nature

of the romance and puts her in a category with another tragic figure, Princess Diana. It's sort of this idea of American royalty, an American princess, who died before her time. As the idea, at least, is a normal woman plucked from skier, yes. Who ends up in this royal family, and it ultimately, at least in the shows telling, is her undoing.

It's her undoing. Exactly. So I promise you, our personal lives will be off-limits to the audience. Yeah, you can't promise that, though.

You've never been married before.

You have no idea how this will escalate everything, I know how to handle the press. Any show that breaks through these days, when our attention is so divided, there's so much competing for it, feels really noteworthy.

“Do we know how many people are actually watching love story?”

Who, who is saying this is the most streamed limited series they've ever had? Mm-hmm. I think 40 million viewing hours? Not only is it streamed, people are interacting with it in real time. They are making their own content on Instagram and other online platforms.

You can see on retail websites that demand is up for vintage, Calvin Klein, vintage product, CO Bigglow, the famous apothecary in Manhattan's West Village has been stormed by women and probably some men seeking tortoise shell headbands, such as Carolyn Bessette War,

third-bin JFK, junior look-alike contest in multiple cities.

And so, you know, it's not just a show, it's a phenomenon. You mentioned Calvin Klein, I saw that they had even done their own 90s edit, but they and others are really capitalizing on this moment to sell Carolyn Bessette inspired fashion. Everybody is trying to sell me, like, here are the pieces that you could wear. Yes.

You can look like they're. It's quite extraordinary.

“It's the best thing that happened to Calvin Klein since Brook Shields in the jeans.”

And the famous jeans, that's right, that's right, which also makes a cameo on the show. That's right. This is a series that is executive produced by Ryan Murphy. Tell us about the kinds of shows he is known for and where this fits into those.

Ryan Murphy is one of the most successful producers in Hollywood. You know, I go back to Nip Talk and Glee by the way, another big cultural phenomenon. Yes, we should know. That's right. However, you know, in recent years, keys become known for these types of things like American

crime story about the O.J. Simpson case and the Clinton impeachment and monster which spotlighted Jeffrey Dahmer and what love story, it's not true crime, but it's has an element of kind of from the, yeah, it lines, it's not a TV drama. Yeah, and the Kennedy's might say it's a crime, but right, it has that feeling of like, we're going to reenact something you remember.

“I mean, that's what I think is extraordinary about it.”

It's not that far away. I see you got a new bike. I did. Yeah. I reported the last one stolen, but I think the case has gone cold, and yet still no luck.

Well, you know, baby steps. Maybe we start with the helmet and we're going up from there. Over the set of hair? Well, thanks a lot. Obviously, the public has devoured the show.

Can you just talk a little bit about how it's been received critically? Well, the reviews haven't been as positive as the audience reception. I think that the New Yorker called it a forgettable LG for Gen X. I think that look, Ryan Murphy shows our cartoonish. It's a cartoonish portrayal of something that lives in collective memory.

I think for anyone who lived through that time of the media or even just used it for research,

And just to explain why, perhaps they found it cartoonish.

A lot of people have pointed to something that I personally found sort of hard to watch, which was the depiction of Jacqueline O'Nassas.

“There's a scene where she's dancing to, what does she dancing to?”

She's dancing to the song from the musical Camelot. Each evening from December to December. She's dying of lymphoma and the official portrait of Jacqueline O'Nassas is hanging somehow in her living room on Fifth Avenue and she is dancing. Of Camelot.

I kept thinking of Black Swan, I don't know, you know, a dying Swan on a... Yeah, it was crazy. It was cringe. There was a fleeting wish of glory for Camelot. So now that we've both established that we found that scene of her dancing, both cringy

and campy, this feels like a good moment to ask you overall, did you like the series? I hated it and I watched it. I watched it for the same reason.

I watched not only Dynasty when it first came out in the '80s, but I watched the remake

of Dynasty, you know, even though I found it for inferior. I mean, there's certainly something Escapist about watching depictions of rich people, you know. I was intrigued to see how these real life characters were portrayed and some of them are portrayed very well.

“But I think also, it's that kind of thing where I'm as fascinated with the discourse around”

the show as I am with the show itself. Well, then let us discourse, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we are going to take a deep dive and some of the reasons that the show is as big of a hit as it is. We might be in a new era of it's so bad, it's bingeable, right?

My name is Audrey B. Esperge and I am a national correspondent covering race and identity for the New York Times. This coverage is complicated, it can be joyous and affirming, it can be uncomfortable, but I feel like it's still absolutely necessary. Race and identity are not just understanding who you are, but who the person in front of

you is, and wanting to understand more about them. We're trying to wrestle down these really hard subjects, and maybe not answering the question, but asking the right questions, and listening, listening. Listening a lot. The Times is dedicated to ambitious and deeply reported coverage of race and identity, and

they're willing to back it up with resources. If you are curious about the world on which we live, if you're interested in who you are, where you come from, and how you relate to others, I would encourage you to subscribe for the New York Times. Alexander Jacobs, why do you think the show has been so popular?

Well, one thing is it's a classic Cinderella story, and that was always resonate.

Typically, our clients make appointments. I'm a 33-waste, I know that. Carolyn Besett was not sweeping out the Garrett, you know, she was not from a poor family, but she wasn't a Kennedy or a celebrity. She's not famous.

Yeah, she was not famous. How can I make it up to you? By swiping your credit card. Or give that me take it a dinner. And when he chose her, the question was, well, why not?

Why not me?

“That's what everyone in America was probably like, why not me?”

Yeah. Yeah. I think the feeling was if he could choose her, then someone like him could choose me, what did she do to get a guy like him so in trance with her? Right.

Anyway, the Cinderella story isn't some ways why I think perhaps people in the UK are really interested in the story of Prince William and Kate Middleton, right? Or perhaps go back farther to the now King Charles, the then Prince Charles, and Prince as Diana, which also, of course, ended very tragically, I think that's even more of a parallel. And like Princess Diana, people are still really interested in the Kennedy story, including

people who are too young to remember any of the people that we are talking about in the show, I wonder why you think the public fascination with the Kennedy's has endured. Well, I think that's partly because of the continued participation of the Kennedy's in public life, they carry themselves as standard barriers for certain American values. They seem to embody a time of America rightly or wrongly that where there was sort of a sense

I think they, for years, they embodied a realization of the American dream, which is that

you could come from an ethnic group that was frowned upon, marginalized. Yeah, marginalized exactly, and achieved the highest office of the land, and sort of like the ultimate glamour and success, business success, romantic success. Well, yes, also having tragic elements that give it that Shakespearean quality.

“I can't help but sometimes one now, I'd be, remember if I had, if I wasn't.”

Mack is way down. Right, the family's tragedies have very much become part of their public story.

Well, also don't forget the, they, they were running in parallel with the development

of the media, of which this show is only the latest iteration. So you have, you know, Joe Kennedy's exploits were covered in newspapers and Jacqueline Bouvier met John Kennedy when she was a photographer and then when he's shot, when John Kennedy is shot, there's the Zapruder film and it's covered on television, you know, then you get to this generation we're talking about and you have magazine print magazines and tabloid

television and tabloid newspapers, and now you've got the internet. So, you know, the, the entities of today are creatures of, of the internet, of social media,

like RFK, Jr. or Jack Schlossberg, when we're watching the Ryan Murphy show, we are looking

at a couple that was very much a creature, they were creatures of glossy magazines. Okay, so that's the Kennedy's. I want to turn to Carolyn Bissette. There's a lot of big stuff we have to talk about before we can get married, like how our lives really fit together, you know, something I found really interesting is I was doing some

research for this episode is just how little there is out there about Carolyn Bissette. She was photographed a lot, but she very rarely gave interviews. In fact, I think she quite famously declined a couple of major interviews and I wonder how you think that vacuum of information about the real life Carolyn Bissette contributed to her portrayal on the show. I think it gave those shows creators a feeling of license

to create a character and this character is elusive, ambivalent, private, disambitious, already, you know, she doesn't like the spotlight either, she does like the spotlight on the show.

“What a novelty, you know, it's so rare to find everyone's oversharing now, you have to”

conscientiously object to not give of yourself online and photograph yourself, be photographed. So what exists of her is really not very much and in the absence of that, I guess people have to or get to project, yes, their own images aren't to her. I mean, she seems glamorous and what is glamour, you know, it's mysterious. She seems glamorous and mysterious and unknowable. Aren't you going to go get it? No, just let it ring. Her character reminds

me of an embodiment of this book that came out in the '90s that was called the "Rolls." Oh, you are unreal. Screening him. But did you read that in the rules or something? It's just feeling a little intense. Yeah, as it should be. It was a huge bestseller. We all made fun of it. That book was sort of a dating guide for women that was instructing them to let men chase them, which in the '90s was a very retrograde

concept. It seems to be, you know, coming back again. But there was a phrase in that book, "Be a creature like no other." And I think that Carolyn Beset seems to have embodied the idea of being a creature like no other. I have no idea if she ever read the rules or this was just who she was. I think it probably was just who she was. But she seems very self-assured and, you know, John Kennedy Jr. was besieged not only, I mean, he had women throwing themselves

at him all the time. But, you know, what we know about her, and, and as depicted on the show, she did not seem particularly, wowed by him. No, you had to deny the engagement because you couldn't hand to the world knowing there was a woman I'm played at Earth who might not

“want to marry you. Because I think it has to be patched now, huh?”

Right. So the fact that we know relatively little about her might have given the show's creators this feeling of license to kind of fill on the gaps in the way that was the most

that they created is glamorous and mysterious. And most importantly, perhaps seemingly

immune and maybe even put off by JFK Jr's fame and spotlight. She's basically portrayed

in opposition to all the other women in the universe of the show as being the only woman perhaps who's able to resist the sexiest man alive, which almost certainly flattens the real world experience of these two people. But nevertheless, makes for extremely watchable television. Right. Okay. Let's talk about another major element of the show here. And this has been talked about a lot, which is the style and fashion of the 90s. And specifically,

also, Carolyn Bessette's style and fashion. Hey, what is that that you're wearing? It's really kind of terrific. Oh, I just threw it on this morning. It feels like, as I mentioned,

every clothing retailer, everything on Instagram is trying to sell me some version of her

style. How would you describe the way that she dresses in the series? Carolyn Bessette's

“style. I think of it as a sort of very high-enversion of frankly, the gap, which I don't”

mean as an insult. I mean, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy was wearing really sort of basic minimalist items, which was really kind of a palette cleanser after the Rococo fancy over the top, style of the '80s that it was perhaps embodied more by the Trumps. This was like a kind of broom and, you know, the labels she preferred, like Prada or Yoji Yamamoto, these were very kind of stark lines and classic silhouettes. And but I think part of the appeal is

that they're refreshing to the eye. But we can, can I just say though that like, I feel like Carolyn Bessette's style on the show is a Rorschach test. Because either you look at her and you think as you do, this, this looks like the gap. It's just like simple jeans, long sleeve white shirts, swayed skirts with knee-high boots and a black top. Like, what is so special about this? Or your reaction is, this is the sheekest thing I've ever seen,

all I want is a bias-cut slip dress that's black and like simple heels, no jewelry on, she

was famously never worn a jewelry. Apparently that's a resurgence, not wearing jewelry. So

like, the show has created these two poles. I've seen a couple saying, what is so special about this is the gap and how can we all dress like her? That's right. And I really do think there's, for younger people, there's probably some level of exhaustion with how much you are all marketed to and how much trends change now. So to see these sort of clean, simple lines must be very appealing. The other sort of visual element of the show that I

think is appealing to people is just the portrayal of the 90s. Of the 90s in New York City,

“I never expected to see this era romanticized in the way that it has been. I think that”

there is tremendous nostalgia for a time before iPhone. Right. Certainly a time before 9/11, a time when creative people could afford to live in Manhattan, perhaps with roommates, but you know, still knock out a living there. A time when creative industries were unthreatened by artificial intelligence and, you know, writing for magazines or working for a fashion designer seemed like a viable career path. You had a phone on your desk. You might have had a cell

phone, but if didn't contain, you weren't ordering your lunch, you know, you weren't like ordering your lunch from an app. You were maybe wandering down the street. You were anonymous. You were anonymous, and you were not documented. Not every single moment of your life was under the microscope. There were no locations or vases, not that I was aware of anyway. So you think people are looking at this and feeling either nostalgic for it or pining for it,

“if they never got to experience it? Honestly, if someone who lived through it, I'm not nostalgic for it,”

but I think there's a great curiosity about it. But you can understand why, actually, you're bringing up a good point because if you didn't live through it, it's this idealized version of the 90s that maybe you're fascinated by and like it's the same way I was nostalgic for the 70s and the 90s. I looked at those 70s fashions, which by the way, the 90s recycled. I mean, every 20 years, it all gets recycled. And yeah, I mean, I just think young people can't

digital natives can't imagine a time when their phones didn't dictate every aspect of their life. So I feel like the appeal of love story in terms of the the era that it portrays and how it could appeal to an entirely new generation is so similar to sex in the city. Sex in the city, the city was a character. The fashion was a character. And even if you didn't live through that time, you look at that and I think that brought an entire generation of women to New York City.

Sex in the city had Magnolia Bakery and just like they're going to panic too. They're yes or so big, low or whatever you get her headband. You're in a little broke with the order about as pleasantly surprised. I went back packing through India after I graduated and I learned very quickly that ordering chicken tikka masala as a sharefire where to get made fun of.

“You bad bag? Yeah. I mean, I think people want to revisit the rhythms of dating life before”

apps, before the, you know, tender and hinge and all that and grinder and bumble and all those

stainless stages. Yeah, I can keep going because the fact is, you know, I mean dating has always

been difficult, but it's funny. Yeah, to my surprise or to my inevitably that this is now seems like something romantic and exotic and interesting. And well, no, I feel like this is you've kind of summed up why the show has become so popular. It got some really key ingredients. It is a, it is a Cinderella story set in an idealized 90s New York that everybody wants to be in and it involves America's royal family. Like, like, it has a perfect, it is a perfect, it is a perfect

world-building show that people are fascinated by and want to be in. And on top of that, I think one other thing that is driving people to the show is the controversy around it. And when we come back, we're going to talk about the backlash and the controversy to love story and whether

ultimately it has been good or bad for the show. We'll be right back.

Alexandra, we have talked a lot so far about the appeal of the show, the reception of the show. We have not yet talked about the criticism, not the reviews, but the actual criticism and controversy of the show. Specifically, that it is based on very withering criticism from two people in particular, Jack Schlossberg, JFK Jr's nephew, and Darrell Hannah, the actress that JFK Jr was in an off again on again relationship with in real life. One of the central complaints that they both had

was essentially that the show took a lot of liberties that were not necessarily based on real life. Right, well, Jack Schlossberg, who's running for Congress, is making the point that Ryan Murphy is

making a tremendous amount of money off his family and this portrayal of his family without actually

talking to them or getting any kind of authorization or participation. The guy knows nothing about what he's talking about and he's making a ton of money on a grotesque display of someone else's life. I would hope. Ryan Murphy actually responded to this criticism when he was on Gavin Newsom's podcast. He was asked about Schlossberg's critique and he said it was quote, "I thought it was an odd choice to be mad about your relative that you really don't remember."

Which, you know, is that for him to say? It seems like it would have been so easy for him to say, I don't know, literally anything else. I'm sorry, he feels that way or we tried to respect the legacy of the Kennedy family, but the fact that he was like, well, he didn't know him anyway. I don't know what he feels like that. What do we make of that? Well, what else do you expect from a producer

“who had a whole show called feud? I think it's quite audacious. It shows his irreverence.”

It's a lightweight way of putting it. He has seen it graphically disrespectful. I think Ryan Murphy is starting from out of a different gate. He's just not even engaging on the same level. He's saying something that will stir up intentionally or not. He's saying something that will stir up the dialogue. And even though I side with Jack Schlossberg on this, I'm also team Murphy in the sense that I believe he should have the freedom to do this, which might bring us to Darrell Hanna's opinion.

Yes, the other major public criticism of the show came from the actress Darrell Hanna, who dated JFK Junior before he met Carolyn Besett. They were on again, off again, in real life. They were on again, off again, on the show. She is portrayed on the show as clingy and desperate

“and whiny and above all rejected. He doesn't want her. Why did you want to get back together?”

Again, if you're just gonna act like this. You came back to me. On the condition of a clean slate, would you agree to? And yet every time I look at you, your mind is clearly someplace else. The real Darrell Hanna wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled How Can Love Story Get Away with This. And she says in this piece, quote, "The character Darrell Hanna portrayed in the series

The actions and behaviors attributed to me are untrue." And she goes on to say, quote, "In the

weeks since the series aired, I have received many hostile and even threatening messages from viewers who seem to believe the portrayal is factual. When entertainment borrows a real person's name, it can permanently impact her reputation. Alexander, what do you make of that critique? I mean, I think it's a valid critique. Legally, Ryan Murphy's absolutely fine. Creators, producers, directors, writers have tremendous latitude with public figures. But so she wrote an article

about it. This is one of the most popular articles I think on the New York Times site for a couple of days. And the comments reflect readers agree. Many readers say we're refusing to watch. You know, I can't account for the many, many, many others who are gobbling up the performance. Some people think this is the price you pay for being famous. But also, I mean, if I was your Hanna, you know, nobody can get inside a relationship who knows how she

actually was. Oh, I forgot what it was. Yeah. But nonetheless, I mean, I can understand being really upset by having such a negative, unflattering portrayal of me out there that some people

“might think was true. But that's what entertainment does. It takes real stories and warps them”

all the time. This is not necessarily a new complaint. And I just don't know, while I can understand why should be upset about this, I can't figure out where do we think the ethical boundaries are when it comes from taking true stories and fictionalizing them? You know, I've this old boss, this editor of the New York Observer. He'd say if you run into a celebrity on the street, just interview them, interview them. Just go right up to them. He said,

yeah, he said, they chose this life. I'll never forget him saying that. And you know, he wasn't

wrong. I mean, I get his point. But you know, but okay, but in Darrell, Hannah's case, if she had been interviewed, if she had been consulted. I mean, I think that's right. Where he would have been populated right exactly. If Ryan Murphy and his staff had had been able to get

“the buy-in of, now, I think, on the other hand, they're portraying a whole family. So I think”

buy-in would have been difficult because we, as we know, they're disagreements within the family. And that's part of what he's portraying. So I think to get buy-in would have been very complicated. But what he does have going back to the idea that we're sitting here and talking about this is attention from all of this and attention. Have you heard of the Streisand effect? Yes, reiterate for me what it is. Okay. So the Streisand effect, so Barbara Streisand,

once sued a photographer for taking a photo of her house in Malibu. And what do you guess the result of the story when you heard it? Oh, everybody knows the house. That's right. Everybody knows more people probably want to go to the house to see the famous Barbara Streisand lawsuit house. And I would get, and I have no data. I'm not just saying something that I've absolutely zero data for, but I'm going to guess that the number of people who have refused to watch the show because they

side with Jack Shlosberg or Darrell Hannah is less than the number of people who are watching it because they want to be in the conversation and know what all the fuss is about. I mean, listen, if you are using publicity and the press in any way in your career, in your life, that changes the equation a little bit, right? Like if you want the press when it's time to get your side of the story out there or your pictures out there or whatever, but then you don't like it

if other creative entities, you know, you want to make the rules for every portrayal of yourself, that's challenging. So the same fame that makes her vulnerable to what Ryan Murphy has done is the fame that enables her to place a highly red op-ed piece in the New York Times about

“what's happened. You have to factor that into the mouth about how to feel about the situation.”

It's interesting because in some ways, the op-ed like the show asks the audience to make a choice. And the choice is, how much sympathy do you have, how much empathy do you have for somebody real or not born into it or not that has that kind of fame and privilege exactly?

Alexander Jacobs always a pleasure to talk to you. Rachel, I'm always available. All too

available. I'm not a rules girl when it comes to coming on the daily. Today's episode was put by Alex Baron with help from Luke Vanderplug and Tina Antelini. It was edited by Wendy Dore with help from Michael Benoit. It contains music, by Marian LaZano, Dan Powell, Diane Wong, and Alicia B. YouTube. It was engineered by Rowan Neemisto. A production manager is for any cartoff. That's it for the daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.