Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-05T02:22:03.589Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A Celebrity Afterlife in American Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2017

OLINE EATON Open the ORCID record for OLINE EATON [Opens in a new window]
OLINE EATON*
Affiliation:
Department of English, King's College London. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In modern life, we encounter stories of people with a frequency unfathomable even twenty years ago. In American culture, the lives of celebrities, in particular, have proven the dominant form of mainstream life-texts from the mid-twentieth century to the present day. Dynamic, volatile and open-ended, celebrity lives are useful for examining the renegotiation and revision of biographical narratives within culture over time. In this article, I will use the life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to analyze a specific life-story's flow through culture. Focussing upon the intersections between multiple stories in a given historical moment, this article will demonstrate the revision such intersections prompt and the ways in which those revisions reverberate through subsequent scholarship. The article will argue that these narrative corruptions should be accounted for when we use stories of lives as a mode of cultural analysis.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , May 2019 , pp. 317 - 332
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Boorstin, Daniel, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America (New York: Vintage Books, 2012; first published 1961), 53Google Scholar.

2 Ibid.

3 Bauman, Zygmunt, Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty (Cambridge: Polity, 2011; first published 2007), 1, 3Google Scholar.

4 Bauman, Zygmunt, Liquid Life (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), 50Google Scholar.

5 Turner, Graeme, “Approaching Celebrity Studies,” Celebrity Studies, 1, 1 (2010): 11–20, 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Dyer, Richard, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society (London: Routledge, 2004), 7Google Scholar.

7 Sontag, Susan, On Photography (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1982; first published 1977), 4Google Scholar.

8 “Remembering Jackie,” “Talk of the Town” column, New Yorker, 30 May 1994, 36, original emphasis.

9 Frow, John, “Afterlife: Texts as Usage,” Reception: Texts, Readers, Audiences, History, 1, 1 (Fall 2008), 1–23, 20Google Scholar.

10 Ibid., 16.

11 Ibid., 20.

12 Thompson, John B., “Mass Communication and Modern Culture: Contribution to a Critical Theory of Ideology,” Sociology, 22, 3 (Aug. 1988), 359–83, 365CrossRefGoogle Scholar, original emphasis.

13 Gould, Lewis L., “History: First Ladies,” American Scholar, 55, 4 (Autumn 1986), 528–35, 528Google Scholar.

14 The evidence being a recent poll in which scholars rated the First Ladies’ performance (a practice in which only the Presidents had previously been considered); the Modern First Ladies: Private Lives and Public Duties conference, which was held at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in August 1984; the fact that Rosalynn Carter's autobiography outsold her husband's presidential memoirs; and NBC's production of a one-hour special on the life of First Lady Nancy Reagan in 1985.

15 Gould, Lewis L., “Modern First Ladies in Historical Perspective,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, 15, 3 (Summer 1985), 532–40, 537–38Google Scholar.

16 The subjects of feminism (Dubriwny, Tasha N., “First Ladies and Feminism: Laura Bush as Advocate for Women's and Children's Rights,” Women's Studies in Communication, 28, 1 (Spring 2005), 84–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Maddux, Kristy, “Feminism and Foreign Policy: Public Vocabularies and the Conditions of Emergence for First Lady Rosalynn Carter,” Women's Studies in Communication, 31, 1–1 (April 2008), 29–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar), gender performance (Erickson, Keith V. and Thomson, Stephanie, “First Lady International Diplomacy: Performing Gendered Roles on the World Stage,” Southern Communication Journal, 77, 3 (July 2012), 239–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vaughn, J. S. and Goren, L. J., Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (Louisville: University of Kentucky Press, 2013)Google Scholar; work (Kahl, Mary L., “First Lady Michelle Obama: Advocate for Strong Families,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 6, 3 (Sept. 2009), 316–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Borrelli, MaryAnne, The Politics of the President's Wife (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2011)Google Scholar; and media (Mortensen, Tara, “Visually Assessing the First Lady in a Digital Age: A Study of Michelle Obama as Portrayed by Journalists and the White House,” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 36, 1 (2015), 43–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar), in particular, have attracted recent scholarly attention.

17 Schwalbe, Carol B., “Jacqueline Kennedy and Cold War Propaganda,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 49, 1 (March 2005), 111–27, 113, 114, 123CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Lehn, Melody, “Jackie Joins Twitter: The Recirculation of ‘Campaign Wife,’” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 15, 4 (Winter 2012), 667–74, 672Google Scholar.

19 The biographies of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis largely fall under a biographical form Bloom, Lynn Z., “Popular and Super-pop Biographies: Definitions and Distinctions,” Biography, 3, 3 (Summer 1980), 225–239CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has identified as “super-pop.” Churchwell's, Sarah The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe (London: Grants, 2004)Google Scholar offers a sustained and extremely valuable critique of super-pop conventions, especially the problems that arise within this mode over time. Churchwell diagnoses a stubborn biographical resistance to narrative revision, so that the biographies are characterized by a circularity wherein errors and corruptions are habitually repeated. This problem occurs consistently in the biographies of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and is, I would argue, an effect of super-pop's proximity to gossip journalism.

20 The story of Elizabeth Taylor proves a useful counterpoint because Taylor is a close match in terms of age, stardom, exposure and biographers. Her story also repeatedly intersected with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's throughout the 1960s and 1970s, both in the media and, occasionally, in life. I discuss this phenomenon in detail in “‘Desperate Women Gamble All’: Stars, Sex Toboggans and Jackie,” which appeared in Sepie, Andrew J., ed., Search for the Real: Authenticity and the Construction of Celebrity (Oxford: Interdisciplinary Press, 2014), 139–57Google Scholar.

21 Gould, “History: First Ladies,” 533.

22 Thomas Oliphant, “… And There Are Five Ways We Can Honor Her” (22 May 1994), in First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: Memorial Tributes in the One Hundred Third Congress of the United States (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1995), 103–4, 104Google Scholar.

23 David, Lester, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A Portrait of Her Private Years (New York: St. Martin's, 1976), 221Google Scholar.

24 Michael Curtin, “A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy,” Museum of Broadcast Communications, Web, 28 Oct. 2016.

25 Mailer, Norman, “The Existential Heroine,” in The Presidential Papers (St. Albans: Panther, 1976), 91–108, 103Google Scholar.

26 Wanda De Shazo, “Women Shouldn't Act ‘Kittenish,’” El Paso Herald-Post, 27 Feb. 1962, 14.

27 Jodi Enda, “Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Dies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 20 May 1994.

28 “Jacqueline Thanks World for Letters of Sympathy,” Odessa American (TX), 15 Jan. 1964, 1; “Jacqueline Kennedy Film: John F. Kennedy Library, 1964,” video, youtube.com; “‘Make Difference’: JFK's Philosophy,” Tallahassee Democrat (FL), 30 May 1964, 1.

29 Bob Considine and Frank Conniff, “‘It Isn't Always Easy for the Children,’ Jackie Says,” Indianapolis Star, 12 March 1967, 1.

30 “Jackie in Tehran,” Parade, in Sunday Gazette-Mail (WV), 16 July 1972, Web, accessed 16 June 2014; Betty Beale, “Jackie's Line Too Busy Before,” Express and News (TX), 18 June 1972, Web, accessed 12 Jan. 2015.

31 National Enquirer News Service, “Jackie Just Wants a ‘Normal Life,’” York Daily Record (PA), 16 June 1975, Web, accessed 24 Aug. 2015.

32 Gregg Patton, “The Silent Goddess,” San Bernardino County Sun, 21 May 1994, Web, accessed 18 July 2016.

33 Mary McGrory, “The Eternal Jackie,” Washington Post, 22 May 1994, in First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: Memorial Tributes, 106–107, 107.

34 David Shribman, “Her Lasting Gift Was Majesty,” 20 May 1994, in Memorial Tributes, 88–90, 89.

35 Pete Hamill, “A Private Life Defined by Wit, Compassion,” Newsday, 22 May 1994, in Memorial Tributes, 104–6, 106.

36 “America's First Lady,” Time, 30 May 1994, 27.

37 “America's Queen,” Boston Globe, 20 May 1994, in Memorial Tributes, 90–91, 91.

38 Noonan, “America's First Lady,” 24.

39 Jim Dwyer, “Above Everything, a Special Mother,” Newsday, 20 May 1994, in Memorial Tributes, 86–86, 85.

40 Bauman, Liquid Life, 8, 2, 2, 6.

41 Jess Cartner-Morley, “Hillary Clinton's Scrunchie: The Truth,” The Guardian, 10 June 2014, Web, accessed 31 Oct. 2014.

42 Berger, John, The Shape of a Pocket (London: Bloomsbury, 2001; first published 2000), 4, 58Google Scholar.

43 Leslie Bennetts, “Pinning Down Hillary,” Vanity Fair, June 1994, Web, accessed 16 Nov. 2016.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid.

46 Maureen Dowd, “Candidate's Wife; Hillary Clinton as First Lady: Role Model, or a ‘Hall Monitor’ Type?” New York Times, 18 May 1992, Web, accessed 31 Oct. 2014.

47 “Sept. 1992 Dateline NBC Profile of Hillary Clinton,” youtube.com, 19 Sept. 2015, accessed 28 Oct. 2016.

48 “Thousands Show for Rushtock ’93,” Galveston Daily News, 22 May 1993, Web, accesssed 1 Nov. 2014.

49 “First Lady Goes on the Road in Counterattack on Critics,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, 10 April 1994, Web, accessed 18 July 2016.

50 Ibid.

51 Quoted in Borrelli, MaryAnne, The Politics of the President's Wife (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2011), 111Google Scholar.

52 Larry Jordan, “The Real Hillary Clinton,” Midwest Today, June 1994, Web, accessed 21 Dec. 2013.

53 Frischauer, Willi, Jackie (London: Michael Joseph, 1976), 109Google Scholar.

54 Ellen Goodman, “Old chauvinist spirit makes first lady the ‘first target’,” Boston Globe, 18 Jan. 1996, 18.

55 Frank Rich, “We Didn't Expect It to Hurt so Much,” Salina Journal, 28 May 1994, Web, accessed 3 Nov. 2014.

56 “Jackie Funeral, May 23, 1994,” youtube.com, 7 Sept. 2006, accessed 27 Oct. 2016.

57 Ibid.

58 Susan Sheehan, “The Happy Jackie …,” New York Times, 31 May 1970, Web, accessed 12 Nov. 2015.

59 Birmingham, Stephen, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (London: Gollancz, 1979), 228Google Scholar.

60 “America's Queen,” in Memorial Tributes, 90.

61 Arthur Schlesinger Jr., “Behind Onassis’ Charm Lay Irony,” San Francisco Examiner, 22 May 1994, in Memorial Tributes, 95–96, 96.

62 Rich.

63 Ibid.

64 Koestenbaum, Wayne, Jackie under My Skin: Interpreting an Icon (New York: Plume, 1996), 9Google Scholar.

65 Robert D. McFadden, “Death of a First Lady: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Dies of Cancer at 64,” New York Times, 20 May 1994, Web, accessed 27 Oct. 2016.

66 Kaite, Berkeley, “The Pink Suit: Jacqueline Kennedy and Celebrity Defilement,” Celebrity Studies, 5, 1–2 (2014), 175–96, 176CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Ibid., 175.

68 Ibid., 190.

69 Ibid., 185, 191.

70 Cohen, Josh, The Private Life (London: Granta, 2013), xii–xiiiGoogle Scholar.

71 Ibid., xvi.

72 Theodore H. White, “For President Kennedy: An Epilogue,” Life, 6 Dec. 1963, 158–59; Dora Jane Hamblin, “Mrs. Kennedy's Decisions Shaped All the Solemn Pageantry,” Life, 6 Dec. 1963, 48–49.

73 Berger, John, Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin Books, 2008; first published 1972), 16Google Scholar.