John F. Kennedy, one hundred years later
John F. Kennedy's centennial of his birth will be on May 29, which won't stir the emotions of the younger generation. There's a statue of the former president on Massachusetts Statehouse in Boston, an aloof, unapproachable figure who is as marble as Abraham Lincoln. Hollywood would show a glaring difference between the two.
Kennedy was a rich, educated New Englander, but his colleagues saw an indifferent Democrat with independent tendencies. Jonathan Kaplan's "Love Field", which was released in December 11, 1992, may be a definitive representation of the assassination of Kennedy in popular culture. Lurene Hallett was a Dallas housewife obsessed with the then First Lady Jackie Kennedy, but her platinum blond hair would allude to Kennedy's feckless attitude towards his wife. Mrs. Hallett seemed to channel her inner Marilyn Monroe, who died under mysterious circumstances. Did the former president have an affair with this talented bombshell? It wasn't an open secret. Was there a foul play behind Monroe's death? It seemed to point to that direction. Would the truth make any difference at all? Dead men won't tell tales.
Mrs. Hallett, a role that gave Michelle Pfeiffer an Oscar nomination, was earnestly grieving over Kennedy's death. She was willing to travel all the way to Washington, D.C (to witness his funeral), only to end up befriending a young girl named Jonnell. She was a daughter of Paul, a black man. At this point, Don Roos's screenplay would transcend boundaries. There was no doubt about the interracial relationship, but this was a tip of the iceberg. "Love Field" subtly showed Kennedy's efforts to make a change in American society, even siding with the struggles that were creating ripples all over America. Some saw a Camelot coming, and it wasn't hard to be romantic about Kennedy's term. Kaplan and Roos would stop short of suggesting that Kennedy's reelection could change the American landscape forever, for the better. Not even Oliver Stone's pointing fingers (in "JFK") would do anything to validate it.
Remembering John F. Kennedy during his centennial could be timely for many reasons. American society would look so different from Kennedy's. It may have seemed silly to suggest that Kennedy would approve the end of the Cold War, but it may have happened after his reelection. On the other hand, he might have been saddened at how the state of affairs in the South remained the same (more or less). Not that slavery would still exist, but some paranoid minds may be thinking of another form. Some viewers saw a heartless widow in Pablo Larraín's "Jackie", which was recently shown in the theater. It would be misleading at all. Perhaps the former first lady did what she had to do, preserving the former president's good name as best as she could. It wasn't hard to idealize the man after his forthright stance against colonialism in Algeria. It could remind him of what was happening in troubled America. He was the real thing despite of his shortcomings and the public perception on his WASP background. Americans might not have been ready back then.
