Anybody who’s seen “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette” knows what it should really be called: “Love Letter.”
I can hardly recall a kinder, gentler or more appealing depiction of the Kennedys ever onscreen.
Yet Jack Schlossberg, President John F. Kennedy’s attention-loving grandson, is so enraged by the popular new FX miniseries that last week he took to TV to condemn it while running for office.
On CBS Sunday Morning, the Democratic candidate for New York’s 12th congressional district went off on “Love Story”’s portrait of his famous family, calling it “grotesque.”
Grotesque? Jack should go see “The Bride!”.
The 33-year-old son of Caroline Kennedy laid the blame at the prolific feet of executive producer Ryan Murphy.
“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,” he ranted.
Um, that is what movies and television based on actual events tend to do, yes.
The thing is, the phenomenally entertaining “Love Story,” starring Paul Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon, is the best and nicest p.r. the Kennedy clan has had in ages.
It made me like them!
Of course the show begins and presumably will end with the death of Kennedy, Bessette and her sister Lauren in a 1999 plane crash over Martha’s Vineyard.
But that was a major historical event involving the son of an assassinated former president. Obviously somebody was going to dramatize it.
But apart from the underpinning tragedy, “Love Story” is a fizzy and often sublime show about a normal New York woman who basically becomes an American princess — and the highs and lows of that rare experience. Viewers are falling hard for her and her man.
The alluring series of flirty East Village dinners at Panna and Indochine, relatable couple fights and sneaky paparazzi evasion has restored some romance to the Camelot clan that the public has grown weary of and that has been repeatedly tarnished by harsh reassessments.
Ahem, perhaps you might have heard that Kennedy men do not have a great track record with women.
“Love Story” also, for better or worse, has taught Gen. Z who the Kennedys are.
The Times of London reported that young fans of the series are joining Schlossberg’s campaign solely because they’re obsessed with it and its privileged East Coast elites they were previously unaware of.
“I think a lot of people love him because they are in love with the show and who JFK Jr was,” a 27-year-old Schlossberg volunteer said.
She discovered her candidate by Googling JFK. Jr. to learn more about him and his relatives. See? Schlossberg is meaningfully benefiting from “Love Story.”
Yes, his mother Caroline, her mom Jackie and grandmother Ethel all come off stiff and strict. Much like they always have and did!
But, come on, that family should be paying Ryan Murphy — not berating him.
How can the Kennedys act like “Love Story” is somehow worse than their other recent moments in the spotlight?
It’s certainly not former New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi alleging in her memoir that Secretary of Health Robert Kennedy Jr.’s favorite part of her body is her nose.
Or President Kennedy raping Marilyn Monroe in the largely fictional and horrendous 2022 film “Blonde.”
There was the episode of “The Crown” when Jackie O. got nasty and called Queen Elizabeth II “incurious, unintelligent and unremarkable.”
And I think the title of the 2017 movie “Chappaquiddick” speaks for itself.
Next to those, “Love Story” is a Sunday skip through a field of daisies. And, as the best-performing limited series on Hulu and Disney+ ever, everybody’s watching it — especially, I’d assume, the people Schlossberg wants so badly to represent.
Look at his potential constituency — the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side and Midtown.
Call me crazy, but something tells me that that affluent enclave encompassing Lincoln Center, MoMA and the Met might enjoy prestige TV dramas about political dynasties. Just a hunch.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land ’
