On Feb. 12, FX released “Love Story,” an anthology series with a first season that follows the romance of John F. Kennedy Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly, “Body Language”) and Carolyn Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon, “The Wilds”). The first three episodes mostly illustrate John’s relationship with his family: Floundering in the overwhelming legacy of his deceased father, grappling with his mother’s (Naomi Watts, “Birdman”) declining health and wading through the final stretch of his on-again-off-again relationship with actress Daryl Hannah (Dree Hemmingway, “Starlet”), John isn’t sure of his position in the world. He struggles to get his political magazine, George, off the ground without using his family’s name, but he can’t seem to find success using his family’s name either — most of the attention he garners is too sensationalized to feel earned. He seems used to the attention and praise that come along with being a Kennedy, but he still finds himself suffocated by it.
His love interest Carolyn, on the other hand, is set up as someone able to move easily within social circles, yet humbly uninterested in the spotlight or laurels cast around John. They are, in these first episodes, painted as perfect victims of their situation. It seems that the rest of the series will be them grappling with their relationship as they are thrust into the spotlight, and their fatal plane crash will act as the final blow to their beautifully tragic love story.
In this setup, the show seems to largely understand the unfair scrutiny the family has lived with. But in its understanding, the show also declares this scrutiny to be fair. The Jackie Onassis character — for character she is — is perhaps the driving voice of this philosophy, telling John that, despite the show they are expected to put on for the public, he has been given a gift with his life and he must find a way to use it. The series puts all its stock in this bargain of celebrity: We, the public, never leave you alone. We build monuments and TV shows, we publish that you failed the bar exam and follow you with cameras. In return, you are anointed, you are adored, you are a god. It’s sad but necessary — and we get to watch you feel sad about this as well.
Belief in this pact is the focal issue with this show, and others like it. It certainly might feel romantic to wax about the struggles, pain and scrutiny of a family pushed into the public eye, but any show attempting to explore these ideas is forced to construct more mythology and fiction surrounding its central figures, and, in doing so, fails to acknowledge that its success is based on the very system of celebrity it attempts to condemn. In a sentiment often used to argue that “anti-war” movies only ennoble the violence they purportedly denounce, French filmmaker Françios Truffaut wrote that to depict a victim trapped hurtling toward a tragic fate without condemning the forces that placed him there — as it seems “Love Story” is content to do — only exalts the structures that manufactured their downfall. There is no such thing as an anti-war movie, just as there is no such thing as an anti-celebrity culture show, especially not one that is based on the life of real celebrities who suffered greatly because of the media. The very act of depicting these situations glorifies them, and continually producing them only feeds into the circus.
Hulu’s “Pam & Tommy” shares this problem. Following Pamela Anderson (Lily James, “War & Peace”) and Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”) through the eventual theft and distribution of the couple’s sex tape via the early internet, the show’s events challenge the measures of consent and privacy owed to human beings, even if they are famous. Although the showrunners adamantly state they attempted to portray Anderson and Lee as victims, the show still fictionalizes and manufactures a portrayal of their very personal lives that were exploited in the distribution of their video. These fictional portrayals of real people are invasive; Anderson herself expressed distaste for the show and its creators, ignoring outreach from everyone involved.
However, there are still shows in our media landscape that discuss celebrity while minimizing this baggage. For example, “The Crown” manages to follow Queen Elizabeth II’s legacy in less idolatric ways. In doing so, the show grounds itself in a more nuanced reality. Its moments emphasizing the spectacle of celebrity — Diana’s death or the children’s upbringing — exist as a part of an ecosystem rather than a framing device. The show also has no problem portraying Elizabeth as cruel, or unfeeling. There’s more to her character’s story than simple adoration and fame exchanged for pity-provoking surveillance and obligation. Queen Elizabeth was a person who, because of her family line, was also given an unjustified level of power, and didn’t always use it correctly, and so “The Crown” attempts something beyond a martyrization of its central character: critique. Critique that ultimately makes it a more palatable show.
Similarly, “Daisy Jones and the Six” plays with the morality of its central character, a singer in the show’s titular fictional band. The band is based on the ’70s group Fleetwood Mac, but because it is not chained to a prescribed reality or kept busy dancing around criticism of its victimized figures, the story is much more free to play with the morality of its central characters. It avoids the hypocrisy of “Love Story” and “Pam & Tommy,” telling a story that has no real people to implicate or toes to step on. It is free from hurting any real people — because it doesn’t pretend to portray any.
This kind of show can empathize with their subjects and their complicated relationship to fame and the public, and they can explore the ways they suffered and were made to feel inhuman — but they cannot escape actively feeding into the fascination of the public eye. By crafting fictional versions of these celebrities for entertainment purposes, “Pam & Tommy,” “Love Story” and shows like them double down on the very thing they attempt to criticize. Episode 3 of “Love Story” depicts Jackie burning her correspondence to keep prying eyes away — at the same time, manufacturing closed-door conversations and puppeteering its central figures’ corpses around. It empathizes only to exploit. It is grotesque and unsettling, and most definitely not a “Love Story.”
Managing Arts Editor Cora Rolfes can be reached at [email protected].
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