The Ethics of Fictionalized Celebrity Narratives

This podcast is supported by United Health Group. Now finding a doctor is a little less challenging. United Health Group is investing in tools that make it easier for patients to navigate health care and pay less. These transparency tools help patients find providers, and this is the big thing, compare costs up front. The big picture? More transparent pricing benefits everyone. And these tools from United Health Group can help patients save hundreds of dollars annually. Learn more at United Health Group.comslash commit ment . From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is the daily on Sunda y. 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 Panat 2. I wonder what they're electrical. Panat 2 has been a novelty for New Yorkers for decades. We lived in the area for like a couple of years so we but we've never been in here. But lately it's been drawing a different kind of crowd. Place that was in Love Stor y. 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. Big JFK. And Carolyn Bissett, 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 Panatou on their first date. This your go-to date sp ot. Yeah. I'm a sucker for a laminated men u. 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 it's become. It's like a huge thing on TikTok. Like all my friends have to be It's what 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 are the closest 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. It motivated us to finally go. I only prepare the foods, not that great. Like I just want to go for the vibes . So today we're going to explore why this 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 Kennedys, and the eternal allure of Cinderella stor ies. It's 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? Uh not consciously, but I have found that the aesthetic of Carolyn Bassette Kennedy has snuck into all of our wardrobes. I think that is exactly right. Speaking from personal experience. We're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about a lot of things today. But firstly, Alexandra, you have spent a lot of time thinking and writing about America's fascination with the Kennedys. You wrote a piece last summer, long before Love Story started airing, about the continued cultural fascination with JFK Jr. specifically. What prompted you to write that piece? Well, the occasion for the piece was that CNN was doing a documentary about JFK Jr. Um and my reporting for the piece um suggested that this documentary was gonna 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. Like something about this guy is in the air right now. You know, the Kennedys have never left the political conversation, but with RFK Jr. in the mix, Jack Schlossberg on on social media, there was just a sort of swirl, swirl of interest around the family and around this couple. So sp okay, 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 uh pretty simple idea. It traces the romance between John F. Kennedy Jr., who was at the time the country's most eligible bachelor. I know like five people here. W ell you wouldn't know that from the way everyone's staring at you. And Carolyn Bissette Kennedy, who was an unknown basically, you know, she worked at Calvin Klein. I don't want to get your helps up. Please, I'm not about begging. In front of all of my closest friend s. You know where I work. Try recep tion. And they are living and falling in love in the 90s, which was really a a prosperous, slightly frivolous time when glamour industries such as magazine publishing and fashion were very much centered in the office in the street. How was that name? I ended up at the tunnel rolling around in the bulbit with Mickey Ro ok. 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 bracing for impact . It's based on a popular book called Once Upon a Time by Elizabeth Beller, which is a biography of Carolyn Bissett Kennedy. And you know, that title, it just evokes the fairy tale nature of the romance and sort of puts her in a category with another tragic figure, Princess Diana. It's sort of this s idea of American royalty, an American princess who died before her time. The idea at least is a normal woman plucked from obscurity who ends up in this royal family and it ultimately, at least in the show's telling, is her undoing. Is her undoing. Exactly. So I promise you. Our personal lives will be off limits of the public. Yeah, you can't promise that th ough. You've you've never been married before. You have no idea how this will escal ate 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? Hulu is saying this is the most streamed limited series they've ever had. I I think forty million um 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 Prada, CO Bigelow, the famous apothecary in Manhattan's West Village has been stormed by women and probably some men seeking tortoiseshell headbands such as Carolyn Bassett war. There'd been JFK Junior lookalike contests in multiple cities. And so, you know, it's it's not just a show, it's a phenomenon. You mentioned Calvin Klein. I saw that they had even done their own like 90s edit. Like they and others are really capitalizing on this moment to sell Carolyn Bassett inspired fashion. Everybody is trying to sell me like, here are the pieces that you could wear. Yeah. So you can look like that. It's quite extraordinary. It's it's the best thing that happened to Calvin Klein since Brooke Shields in The Jeans. In the Jeans, a famous jeans. That's right. Yeah. That's right, which also makes a cameo on the show. And speaking of the show, 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 I g I I go back to Nip Tuck and Glee. Mm-hmm. Glee, by the way, another big cultural phenomenon that we should know. That's right. However, I've you know, in recent years, he's 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 why love story, it's not true crime, but it's has an element of kind of ripped from the headlines true story TV drama. Yeah, and the Kennedys might say it's a crime. Right. Um but right. It it has that feeling of like we're gonna 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 uh I think the case has gone cold. Oh. And yet still no lock. Well, you know, baby steps. Maybe we start with a helmet and work our way up from there. Over this set of hair? No, I don't think so. 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 elegy for Gen X. Yikes. I think that that look, Ryan Murphy shows are cartoonish. It's a cartoon 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, it's gonna not be entirely satisfying. Aaron Powell 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 Onassis. There's a scene where she's dancing to what is she dancing to? She's dancing to the a song from the musical Camelot . Each evening from December to Decem ber. She's dying of lymphoma, and there's a the official portrait of Jack Kennedy is hanging somehow in her living room on Fifth Avenue, and she is dancing. Of Carmel ot. I kept thinking of you know black swan. I don't know why or you know a dying swan on a ballet skate. It was cringe. Once there was a fleeting wisp of gl ory. So now that we have both established that we found that scene of her dancing, both cringey 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 far 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 I think also it's it's that kind of thing where I'm as I'm as fascinated with the discourse around the show as I am with the show itself. Well, then let us discourse. We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, we are going to take a deep dive into 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 These days, the online world moves fast. That's why TikTok approaches teen safety with families in mind from the start. On TikTok, teens get over 50 built-in protections right when they join. Accounts for teens start private by default. For those under 16, direct messages are turned off, and only friends can comment on their videos. 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Or you let me take it to din ner. And and when he chose her, the question was, well, why her? No, why not her? Why not me? That's whyy ever woman in America's probably like, why not me? Yeah. Yeah. I think the feeling was if if he could choose her, then someone like him could choose me. What did she do to get a guy like him so Or perhaps go back farther to the now King Charles, uh the then Prince Charles and Princess Diana, which also of course ended very tragically. I think that's even more of a parallel. Aaron Powell 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 Kennedys has endured? Well I think that's partly because of the continued participation of the Kennedys in public life. They carry themselves as standard bearers for certain American values, they seem to embody a time of America, you know, rightly or wrongly, that where there was sort of a sense of promise and expansion and dream American dream. I think they uh for for years they embodied a realization of the American dream, which is that you could come from a an ethnic group that was frowned upon. Marginalized. Yeah, marginalized, exactly. And achieve 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 wonder how I'd be remembered if I hadn' t if I wasn' t what America's wid ow 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, uh there's the Zapruder film, and it's 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 Kennedys of today are creatures of inner of the internet and of social media, like RFK Jr. or Jack Schlossberg. When we're watching the Ryan Murphy show, we are looking at uh a couple that was very much a a creature of they were creatures of glossy magazines . Okay, so that's the Kennedys. I want to turn to Carolyn Bissett. There's a lot of big stuff we have to talk about before we can get marr ied. L ike how our lives really fit toget her. You know. Something I found really interesting as I was doing some research for this episode is just how little there is out there about Carolyn Bissett. 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 Bassett contributed to her portrayal on the show. shows creators a feeling of license to create a character. And this character is elusive, ambivalent, private, uh do I say ambitious already? You know she doesn't like the spotlight either. She's got a spotlight. What a novelty. You know? It's so rare to to find everyone's oversharing now. You have to conscientiously object uh to not give of yourself online and photograph yourself, be photographed. So what exists of her is i is really not very much. And in the absence of that, I guess people have to or get to project their own images onto her. I mean she seems glamorous. And what is glamour? You know, it's mysterious. She seems glamorous and mysterious and unknow able. Aren't you gonna go get it? No, just let it r ing. Her character reminds me of an embodiment of this book that came out in the nineties that was called The Rules. Oh, you are unreal. Screening him. But did you read that in the rules or something? 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 nineties was a very r retrograde concept. It seems to be, you know, uh coming back again. But uh there was a phrase in that book, uh, be a creature like no other. And I think that Carolyn Bissett seems to have embodied the idea of being a creature like no other. Whether I have no idea if she ever read the rules or, this was just who she was, I think it 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. Well you know what we know about her and and as depicted on the show, she did not seem particularly give wowed by him. No, you had to deny the engagement because you couldn't handle the world knowing there was a woman on planet Earth who might not want to marry you . Who's looking for the escape hatch now, hu h? 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 in the gaps in the way that was the most dramatic, would make the most entertainment, would make it the most watchable. And the character 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 this show as, being the only woman perhaps who is 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. R ight. 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 Bissett's style and fashion. Hey, what is that that you're wear ing? It's really kind of ter rific. 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 Bissett's style, I think of it as a sort of very high-end version of, frankly, the gap, which I don't mean as an insult. I mean Carolyn Bassett Kennedy was wearing really sort of basic minimalist items, um, which is really kind of a palette cleanser after the Rococo fancy over the That it was perhaps embodied more by the Trumps. Um, this was like a kind of broom, and and you know, the the labels she preferred like Prada or Yoji Yamamoto. were Th veryese kind of stark lines and classic silhouettes. And but I think part of the appeal is that yeah they're refreshing to the eye. But we can can I just say though that like sh I I feel like Carolyn Bassett's style on this show is a Rorschach test because either you look at her and you think as you do, this this is this looks like the gap. It's just like simple jeans, long-sleeve white shirts, suede skirts with knee-high boots and a black top, like what is so special about this? Or your reaction is: this is the chicest 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 any jewelry. Apparently, that's a real So like it it the show has created these two polls. I've seen articles saying what is so special about this is the gap and how can we all dress like her? That's right. And 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 this show that I think is appealing to people is just the portrayal of the 90s. Ah, the nineties 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 iPhones. 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 still knock out a living there, a time when creative industries were unthreatened by artificial intelligence. And you know, writing for magazines or or um 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 it didn't contain you weren't ordering your lunch, you know, you weren't like ordering your lunch from an app. Um you were maybe wandering down the street You were anonymous. Anonymous and you were not documented. Not every single moment of your life was under the microscope. There were no location services, 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, as someone who lived through it, I'm not nostalgic for it. But 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 nineties that maybe you're fascinated by and like the same way I was nostalgic for the seventies in the nineties. And I I looked at those seventies fashions, which by the way, the nineties recycled. I mean, every twenty years it 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 stor y 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 cityity, the c 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. I'm sure. And and you know, again it there's also analogy and you see these places like Sex in the City had Magnolia Bakery and Just like they're going to Panat 2. Yes, or CO Bigelow or whi whatever to get her headband. Order, but I was pleasantly surprised. Well, I went backpacking through India after I graduated and I learned very quickly that ordering chicken tikka masala is a surefire way to get made fun of. You babagged? Yeah. What? I mean I think people want to r revisit the rhythms of dating life before apps, before the you know, Tinder and Hinge and all that and grinder and bumble and all those things. Yeah, keep going. Because the fact is, you know, I mean dating has always been difficult. But it it's funny, yeah. To my surprise or to my i i 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's got some really key ingredients. It is a it is a Cinderella story set in an idealized nineties New York that everybody wants to be in, and it involves America's royal family. Like like i it it has a perfect world cocktail. It is a perfect it is a perfect world building show that people are fascinated by and wanna be in. And on top of that, I think one other thing that is driving people to this show is the controversy around it. And when we come back, we're gonna 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. Are you vacation curious? Do you love the idea of traveling somewhere new and finding fun ways to explore the local culture? But hate all the planning it takes to get there? Not to worry. Trip2go has you covered. With their advanced technology, you can easily book trips, upload documents, or contact their customer care team. Whether you're heading to Hong Kong, Morocco, or anywhere in between. 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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 this show. Specifically, that it has faced some very withering criticism from two people in particular. Jack Schlossberg, JFK Jr.'s nephew, and Daryl Hanna, 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 li fe. Right. Well, 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, uh, without actually talking to them or getting any kind of Ryan M criticism when he was on Gavin Newsom's podcast. He was he was asked about Schlossberg's critique, and he said it was quote . Which you know Is that for him to say that you know it's like it it seems like it would have been so easy for him to say I don,'t know, literally anything else, like, 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 why he feels like that. Like what what do we make of that? Well what else do you expect from a producer who ran y had a whole show called Feud? I think it's quite audacious. It shows his irreverence. It it's It's a polite way of putting it. I mean it's grotesquely disrespectful. I think Ryan Murphy is starting from a d out of a different gate. He's just not even engaging on the same level. Uh 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 Tim Murphy in the sense that I believe he has, you know, he should have the freedom to do this, which might bring us to Daryl Hannah's opinion. Yes, the other major public criticism of the show came from the actress Daryl Hannah, who dated JFK Jr. before he met Carolyn Bassett. 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 which you agreed to. And yet, every time I look at you, your mind is clearly someplace el se. Oh the real Daryl Hannah 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 Daryl Hannah portrayed in the series is not even a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct, or my relationship with John. 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. Alexandra, what do you make of that critique? I mean, I think it's a valid critique. Legally, Ryan Murphy is absolutely fine. Cre 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. Um and and the comments sh reflect readers agree. Uh many readers say we're r 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 Daryl Hannah and I you know, nobody can get inside of a relationship. Who knows how she actually who how she actually was. But but n nonetheless, I mean I can un understand being really upset by having a 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.