The Kennedys Mini-Series

 
The Kennedys (ReelzChannel, presently streaming on Netflix)  

OO

This past winter and spring there was a great deal of noise made about a TV miniseries about the Kennedy family that was purported to be less than flattering.  It had a solid cast, including Greg Kinnear as JFK, Barry Pepper as RFK and Katie Holmes as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, but because it focused on the scandalous aspects of the story the Kennedys wanted it buried, or so the story went.  It was supposed to air on the History Channel, but was dropped and after much hand wringing ended up on the ReelzChannel (I never heard of it before either).  The eight episode series is now streaming on Netflix for anyone interested in actually checking it out.  Let's just say the fuss was less than a tempest in a tea pot, considering that the final product is pretty sympathetic toward our titular heroes.  Are the main characters all squeaky clean?  Well, no they aren't.  And I want someone to tell me what historical figure is treated like a saint by film makers today?  We live in a post-modern, historically critical world where we are told to reject myth or hagiography for truth, even if, and especially if, the truth shatters our false illusions.  If The Kennedys was denied airtime on a top cable channel it shouldn't have been because it defamed anybody, but because it is shockingly sub-par television.  No one should have felt threatened by it, and considering that some people may have points to an apparent belief in some corners of the popular press that nothing less than a warts free, airbrushed portrayal of the 35th president should be presented to the public.


The eight episodes are constructed as a series of flashbacks and forwards, more or less covering the years that Joseph Kennedy, Sr. (Tom Wilkinson) was the U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James before World War II, to his death in 1969.  Joe Kennedy is really the central character for most of the series, the great emphasis in the early episodes being the elder Kennedy's living out of his own failed political ambitions through his children.   Is there womanizing by Joe Sr. and Jack?  Yes, but it doesn't dominate the story in any way.  Are there depictions of JFK's health problems? Yes.  Do we see him taking a potpourri of different prescription medicines and getting injected with pain killers by "Dr. Feelgood" in the White House?  Yeah, we do.  But all this is public record by now, and only the most strident hero worshiper would claim it had no effect on his ability to govern. 


But JFK is always presented as a likable, if flawed man, whose heart is always in the right place.  He is shown as a champion of civil rights and a leader who learned from the mistakes of the Bay of Pigs Invasion to stare down the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Even Joe Sr. for all his conniving and cruelty is, in the end, presented as a loving father who wanted the best for his children.  After his stroke, early during his son's administration, Joe gets less airtime but his specter still looms large.

Again, are there depictions of Joe Sr. dealing with the Mafia?  Yes, but done in a way that diverts blame and make the whole thing look like a misunderstanding.  If anything the estate of Frank Sinatra should be more upset than the Kennedys.  Do we see the questionable handling of their daughter Rosemary's emotional problems? Yes, but again its a matter of record that she was lobotomized, the wisdom of which was questionable even by the standards of the day. In spite of these depictions The Kennedys is far from the "hatchet job" some have claimed.  We know too much today to be fooled by the tightly controlled myth making that passed for biographies and biopics in the two decades following JFK's untimely death. I don't think we should go out of our way to focus on the negative aspects of the Kennedy story, but neither should we pretend that it was all Camelot. 


If The Kennedys fails it's because it's simply not very good.  There is little complexity given to the characters; Rose Kennedy is presented as an unstable religious fanatic,  Robert Kennedy is practically sainted,  Jackie is uptight as opposed to the free spirited Ethel.  And Katie Holmes plays the former First Lady with this strange accent that seems to sway between Brooklyn and Brookline.  This is a good cast, but the script gives them little to run with, and the entire production never rises above an average made for TV movie. 

JFK is still a mythic figure in our history partly because he was our first, and so far only, Catholic president and his murder in 1963 is seen by many as the end of an innocent time in American history.  The social scene in the United States would grow increasingly turbulent over the next five years, culminating in the assassinations of Martin Luther King in April and RFK in June of 1968 (The sequence depicting the younger Kennedy's death are the only truly moving and affective scenes in the entire series).  As I'm pretty sure I've written before, getting our history from movies or TV is foolish, and I'm not defending The Kennedy's as good history.  But I am criticizing the mentality that brackets those three years as some sort of charmed time when knighthood was in flower, and that the troubles that followed would have necessarily been avoided had JFK lived.  Life is too complex for that, and we are too knowing today, or at least should be.