# John F. Kennedy on screen : the ambivalence of idealization

Laury Vandenterghem

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Laury Vandenterghem. John F. Kennedy on screen : the ambivalence of idealization. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2021. dumas-03885436

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Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
JOHN F. KENNEDY ON SCREEN:
THE AMBIVALENCE OF IDEALIZATION

Laury Vandenterghem

Master Recherche : Langues et Sociétés 2019-2021

Sous la direction du Docteur Marianne Kac-Vergne

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Doctor Kac-Vergne for her support, her advice and her enthusiasm for my subject of research. My grateful thanks are also extended to Professor Spill for the motivation she ignited in me, throughout my college years, within the language department of the Université de Picardie Jules Verne.

Finally, I wish to thank Nicolas, without whom nothing would have been possible.

Cover credits: ST-250-16-63. President John F. Kennedy Smoking in Hyannis Port. Cecil Stoughton. 11 May 1963. JFK Library and Museum. https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKWHP/1963/Month%2005/Day%2011/JFKWHP-1963-05-11-A
Table of Contents

<table><tr><td>Acknowledgements</td><td>ii</td></tr><tr><td>Table of Contents</td><td>iii</td></tr><tr><td>Introduction</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Part 1: Theoretical Arguments</strong></td><td><strong>5</strong></td></tr><tr><td><u>I)Protection of JFK's Portrait in films</u></td><td><strong>6</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1)Representing History in Films: the Argument</td><td><strong>6</strong></td></tr><tr><td>2)Representing Politics in Films: the Message</td><td><strong>9</strong></td></tr><tr><td>3)Propaganda</td><td><strong>12</strong></td></tr><tr><td><u>II)Enduring Legacy</u></td><td><strong>15</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1)Camelot</td><td><strong>16</strong></td></tr><tr><td>2)Polls</td><td><strong>20</strong></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Part 2: Creating a hero</strong></td><td><strong>24</strong></td></tr><tr><td><u>I)Kennedy's control of his own image</u></td><td><strong>25</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1)The Kennedy Doctrine</td><td><strong>25</strong></td></tr><tr><td>2)The presidency</td><td><strong>28</strong></td></tr><tr><td>3)Creating a character</td><td><strong>34</strong></td></tr><tr><td><u>II)Characteristics of the hero</u></td><td><strong>36</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1)Overview of hero woshipping</td><td><strong>36</strong></td></tr><tr><td>2)The Kennedy Mystique</td><td><strong>39</strong></td></tr><tr><td>3)The Brave Knight of Camelot</td><td><strong>44</strong></td></tr><tr><td><u>III)The Hero overcomes Crises</u></td><td><strong>46</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1)National Security Cinema or Creating a threat</td><td><strong>47</strong></td></tr><tr><td>2)Defender of persecuted groups</td><td><strong>53</strong></td></tr><tr><td><u>IV)Impact</u></td><td><strong>58</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1)Expectations</td><td><strong>58</strong></td></tr><tr><td>2)Reception</td><td><strong>60</strong></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Part 3: Deconstruction: John Foolhardy Kennedy</strong></td><td><strong>64</strong></td></tr><tr><td><u>I)JFK as Commander in Chief: between Belligerence and Appeasement</u></td><td><strong>67</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1)"That Vietnam thing"</td><td><strong>68</strong></td></tr><tr><td>2)Cuban-American relations</td><td><strong>70</strong></td></tr><tr><td>3)Ethnicity</td><td><strong>75</strong></td></tr><tr><td><u>II)When the Hero becomes a Villain</u></td><td><strong>82</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1)Health</td><td><strong>82</strong></td></tr></table>
<table><tr><td>2)Back Channels</td><td>88</td></tr><tr><td>3)Women</td><td>89</td></tr><tr><td>Conclusion</td><td>96</td></tr><tr><td>Bibliography</td><td>100</td></tr></table>
Introduction

"If John Kennedy had not existed, Hollywood might have been hard pressed to invent him."<fnref n="1" /> Indeed, John F. Kennedy is often associated with youth, charisma, dynamism and progress. It is even said that the 35th president is a myth that America will not be able to find again with its future presidents. But this image of JFK has in fact been constructed by himself and the people around him, whether his family throughout his life, or his aides throughout his political career, and even after his death. Kennedy's exemplary portrait is such that it spread to cinema and is displayed in the numerous films and series about his life. These productions, in turn, reinforce the flawless portrait that he created in the public's imagination. Yet, although elevated to the rank of myth, it is possible to perceive an evolution in JFK's depiction in films, according to their period of production among other elements. As a consequence, this paper shall focus on the tension between the construction of JFK as a hero and more ambivalent representations in films displaying the man's life. By choosing to examine productions that deal with JFK before his death, and which therefore star actors playing the role of John F. Kennedy, this paper shall try to determine how JFK is displayed and made to act in films. The corpus selected for this analysis is composed of six productions, going chronologically as follows: *PT-109* (1963, directed by Leslie H. Martinson, starring Cliff Robertson as JFK), *Thirteen Days* (2000, directed by Roger Donaldson, starring Bruce Greenwood as JFK), *The Butler* (2013, directed by Lee Daniels, starring James Marsden as JFK), *Killing Kennedy* (2013, directed by Nelson McCormick, starring Rob Lowe as JFK), *LBJ* (2017, directed by Rob Reiner, starring Jeffrey Donovan as JFK), and episode eight from the second season of the series *The Crown* called "Dear Mrs Kennedy" (2017, directed by Stephen Daldry, starring Michael C. Hall as JFK). The gap between the 1960s, when Kennedy was still alive, and the 2000s could be explained by the revelations which have emerged since the 1980s and which produced a new interest for the Kennedys since the 2000s. On top of that, although they are not part of the corpus of this analysis, the films *JFK* (1991, directed by Oliver Stone) and *Jackie* (2016, directed by Pablo Larrain) shall be used as additional examples to further second some of the theories defended by this paper.

With these productions, this paper shall try to prove that there is an evolution in JFK's
portrayal and that the ideal depiction can in fact be deconstructed, little by little. Indeed, the
first film under study offers a biased, utterly positive image of Kennedy in *PT-109*, as it came
out when Kennedy was still alive. An ambivalent depiction is to be found in later productions,

<footnote n="1">1 Coyne, Michael. *Hollywood Goes to Washington: American Politics on Screen*. Reaktion Books, 2008: Chapter 3: Modern Presidential Parables: John Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Beyond – John F. Kennedy: America's Prince Charming, paragraph one.</footnote>
thus including ideal elements but also more realistic and critical elements, according to the
revelation of concealed documents since the 1980s. The evolution is progressive, as it starts
by introducing forgivable elements such as Kennedy's poor health. Then, although they depict
JFK using dangerous back channels, he is celebrated for his decisions and actions in films
about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Adultery is also tackled by some of these productions.
Eventually, the depiction of the president in the series *The Crown* is utterly negative, showing
the ongoing evolution of his portrayal, coinciding with a general wish to deconstruct the
image that Kennedy built himself.

Ambivalence is the coexistence of two contradictory feelings. The films under study
are thus ambivalent as they produce a perfect and heroic portrait of Kennedy, stained
simultaneously with degrading elements. Accordingly, they provoke and oppose two
contradictory sentiments towards JFK: attraction and repulsion. Idealization can be said to be
a consequence of ambivalence, or in other words, a way to cope with ambivalence. Indeed,
idealization is a “defense mechanism” which distorts reality in order to cope with the distress
produced by ambivalence, to paraphrase Kaplan and Sadock.<fnref n="2" /> In practice, idealization is
characterized by a perception or representation of someone or something as better than in
reality, it turns someone into a hero, it romanticizes events and people.

Political films are a recurrent subject among scholars. Indeed, scholars such as Haas,
Christensen and Haas<fnref n="3" /> in *Projecting Politics: Political Messages in American Films*, and
Coyne<fnref n="4" /> in *Hollywood Goes to Washington: American Politics on Screen* have analyzed the
genre's evolution since the beginning of the 20th century and the recurrent themes in political
films. Their works have been of major importance for this analysis as they allowed to
emphasize the need for a checklist when dealing with American presidents in films, checklist
which, in turn, protects presidents. Haas, Christensen and Haas also warn about the
difficulties that dealing with political films represent for scholars: they have to be analyzed
carefully as they spread political messages and thus adopt a certain point of view. Yet, Scott in
*American Politics in Hollywood Film*<fnref n="5" /> and Valantin in *Hollywood, the Pentagon and
Washington*<fnref n="6" /> point out the importance of the genre to understand the relationships between
Hollywood and the White House.

In addition, political films displaying real presidents such as George Washington,

<footnote n="2">2 Sadock, B.J., and H.I. Kaplan. *Kaplan & Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry: Behavioral Sciences/Clinical Psychiatry*. 10th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2007: 299</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3 Haas, Elizabeth, Terry Christensen, and Peter J. Haas. *Projecting Politics: Political Messages in American Films*. Routledge, 2015.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">4 Coyne, Michael. *Hollywood Goes to Washington: American Politics on Screen*. Reaktion Books, 2008</footnote>

<footnote n="5">5 Scott, Ian. *American Politics in Hollywood Film*. Edinburgh University Pres, 2011.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">6 Valantin, Jean-Michel. *Hollywood, the Pentagon and Washington*. Anthem Press, 2005</footnote>
Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, and JFK are numerous, but it is also possible to find other productions about Woodrow Wilson, Andrew Johnson, or even George W. Bush, and one president was even an actor: Ronald Reagan. They offer great possibilities of analysis of the way presidents are presented as Morgan shows<sup>7</sup>, but they are also a testimony of the evolution of the links between the White House and Hollywood as Valantin explains.<sup>8</sup> Scholars such as Coyne<sup>9</sup> also used them to analyze the depictions of important events in American history.

Films depicting John F. Kennedy in particular are abundant, and although a certain number of analyses can be found, they mainly all deal with the same few films, such as *Thirteen Days* and *JFK* as the works of White in Morgan's *Presidents in the Movies*, Valantin's *Hollywood, the Pentagon and Washington* and Burgoyne's *Memory, history and digital imagery in contemporary film* illustrate.<sup>10</sup> Analyses<sup>11</sup> have shown that Kennedy's image is burnished in films and as White remarks, this burnishing is the result of directing decisions to nearly always present Kennedy as the hero. Indeed, Kennedy has been and still is a source of interest for scholars: his life and person transformed him into a cultural icon today as Yamniuk points out<sup>12</sup>, and his legacy is widely celebrated as Brinkley demonstrates.<sup>13</sup> Yet, other scholars<sup>14</sup> such as Hersh or Reeves in their revisionist works, but also Dallek in his biography, which was well received by the critics take a more negative turn. As far as press is concerned, Parry for the Daily Mail<sup>15</sup> also addressed Kennedy's more negative traits in order to nuance his portrait.

Just like Kennedy, other renowned people's achievements have been deconstructed by scholars and revisionists (see Zinn's deconstruction of Christopher Columbus<sup>16</sup>) and the public seems to follow this trend more and more. People thus started to draw links between JFK's

<footnote n="7">7 Morgan, Iwan W., ed. *Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011</footnote>

<footnote n="8">8 Valantin, Jean-Michel. *Hollywood, the Pentagon and Washington*. Anthem Press, 2005</footnote>

<footnote n="9">9 Coyne, Michael. *Hollywood Goes to Washington: American Politics on Screen*. Reaktion Books, 2008</footnote>

<footnote n="10">10 White in Morgan, Iwan W., ed. *Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011; Valantin, Jean-Michel. *Hollywood, the Pentagon and Washington*. Anthem Press, 2005; Burgoyne, Robert. "Memory, History and Digital Imagery in Contemporary Film." In *Memory and Popular Film*, 220–36. Manchester University Press, 2018.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">11 White in Morgan, Iwan W., ed. *Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011; White, Mark. "Apparent Perfection: The Image of John F. Kennedy: Apparent Perfection." *History* 98, no. 330 (April 2013): 226–46.</footnote>

<footnote n="12">12 Yamniuk, Stephanie Melinda. "Image and Text, the Creation of JFK as a Cultural Icon," 2000; Potts, John. *A History of Charisma*. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2009</footnote>

<footnote n="13">13 Brinkley, Alan. "The Legacy of John F. Kennedy." *The Atlantic*, September 18, 2013</footnote>

<footnote n="14">14 Dallek, Robert. *An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917 - 1963*. Hachette UK, 2003; Hersh, Seymour M. *The Dark Side of Camelot*. HarperCollins, 1998; Reeves, Thomas C. *A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy*. Forum, 1997.</footnote>

<footnote n="15">15 Parry, Hannah. "The Crown Depicts JFK as a Jealous Conniver and a Drug Addict." *Mail Online*, December 7, 2017, sec. News.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">16 Zinn, Howard. "Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress." In *A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present*, 1–22. Pearson Education, 2003.</footnote>
darker behaviors and recent movements such as the #metoo movement as Kendall shows<sup>17</sup>, while others such as Greenberg<sup>18</sup> condemn the influence of the movement on History as they argue that it is dangerous to transpose social crises to different historical times as mores change. As a consequence, appreciation polls appear to be a useful tool in order to study JFK's legacy throughout time, as they allow to point out its endurance, even though it has been revised.

By taking into account all the angles of research cited earlier, this examination intends to demonstrate that JFK's image changed through time in films and series, but that even though it has been degraded, JFK's portrait did not change much in the common imagination and that, as a consequence, his legacy endures. In order to do so, the first part of this analysis shall present a theoretical and methodological framework to deal with politico-historical films, which contributed to the building and the protection of the Kennedy myth. As a consequence, an introduction to the origins of the myth, and the state of its legacy today shall also be determined in this first part. In its second part, this analysis shall concentrate on the origins of Kennedy's idealized depiction and the tools used by directors in the films under study in order to preserve this idealized portrait. In a third and last part, this paper shall deconstruct Kennedy's idealized image in films, and emphasize its ambivalence by commenting on JFK's negative traits. This paper will eventually conclude on the perpetual protection of Kennedy's legacy, no matter the revelations and the consequent evolution of his depiction in films and series.

<footnote n="17">17 Kendall, Joshua C. "Op-Ed: JFK May Have Been a Worse Philanderer than Trump. Does It Matter?" *Los Angeles Times*, March 24, 2018, sec. Opinion</footnote>

<footnote n="18">18 Greenberg, David. "Why We Shouldn't Let the #MeToo Movement Change History." *POLITICO Magazine*, December 16, 2017</footnote>
# Part 1: Theoretical Arguments
This first part will not deal directly with film analysis. Instead, it shall try to give
theoretical explanations in order to understand the relations between historical and political
films and the Kennedy legacy. Historical and political films, by respecting a checklist of
elements, have protected and continue to protect Kennedy. As a consequence, they contribute
to the construction and burnishing of the President's image, which is still very much shining
today. This first part shall expose how, by following the principles of the two genres cited
above, and by receiving money from family and friends of Kennedy, the films from this
corpus played a role in the protection of the Kennedy myth. As films contributed to the
building of the Kennedy myth, this first part shall also thus expose the origins of the myth and
its enduring legacy, in order to lay the foundations of this analysis.

I)Protection of JFK's Portrait in Films

Historical films are a complex subject as they present one version of history, and
political films have to be carefully studied as they might trigger political reactions. On top of
that, it can be said that Hollywood often adopts an American point of view in historical and
political films, which, most of the time, protects the United States and American Presidents,
as this part shall first demonstrate. In addition, some facts must be cited concerning the parties
which played a role in the release of two films from this corpus, *PT-109* and *Thirteen Days*.

1)Representing History in Films: the Argument

It can be argued that historical films are controversial and that they have to be dealt
with carefully. Indeed, a historical film is always the reflection of a person's or a group's point
of view and therefore, a meaning is adopted among others. As a consequence, no historical
film can be said to be neutral, as there are several versions of history depending on who
experiences it and who is telling it. Yet, as Burgoyne quotes from film director Bernardo
Bertolucci: "Bernardo Bertolucci once said in an interview that the cinema 'is the language
through which reality expresses itself . . . to create the language of the cinema, more than with
any other form of expression, you have first to put your camera in front of reality, because
cinema is made of reality.' "<fnref n="19" /> This quote shows that a debate is ongoing. Indeed, some, like
Bertolucci, argue that films have to represent reality, and thus in a way, history, the way it is,
objectively. Yet, as explained earlier, there are multiple realities, and what Bertolucci says can

<footnote n="19">19 Burgoyne, Robert. "Memory, History and Digital Imagery in Contemporary Film." In *Memory and Popular Film*, 220–36. Manchester University Press, 2018: 220</footnote>
be deconstructed. When Murphy asks “can popular film accurately depict/represent historical situations, events and characters?”<fnref n="20" /> this paper shall answer and argue that films cannot accurately depict historical situations, precisely because a point of view is always chosen to represent history and thus many versions of it exist. In a way, historical films are necessarily biased.

In addition, another element seems to confirm the thesis defended by this paper, as Burgoyne puts it: “The representation of history in film is a notoriously vexed subject, typically involving controversies over authenticity and accuracy versus the interpretive requirements of narrative form.”<fnref n="21" /> Indeed, films have to be romanticized for narrative and technical reasons, and as a consequence, accuracy or objectivity sometimes appear as secondary factors, once again proving that a film is not a reflection of reality, as there is no accurate reality: “A Hollywood film has to get its message across within the constraints of the conventional three-act format and the need for commercial success in a mass market. [...] Image, message, and myth are prioritized over historical accuracy and complexity.”<fnref n="22" /> It can be argued that those factors allow historical films to be profitable as, by focusing more on an attractive narrative rather than on a perfect accuracy, which may not exist, the cinema industry “allows individuals to 'experience a bodily, mimetic encounter with a collective past they never actually led.'”<fnref n="23" /> This, in a way, may explain the public's appeal for historical films.

In turn, it can be argued that the public plays a role in the notoriety that a historical film can get. Indeed, according to the effect that it has on its public, a film can push a people to influence history by confronting its government, and thus have real consequences, as Burgoyne puts it: “For films that take history as their subject undertake a dialogue with the real in a way that other films do not. Historical films have real-world reverberations: recent films such as *JFK*, *Braveheart*, *Glory*, *The Hurricane* and *Dances with Wolves* have served as a catalyst for the reevaluation of the historical past; they have provoked governments and led to the opening of secret files; they have inspired national consciousness.”<fnref n="24" />

Furthermore, the writing of history can also be influenced by historical films as their romanticized vision sometimes replaces facts in people's minds. The public therefore once again plays a role, but, while historical films can be used as educational tools, “like a

<footnote n="20">20 Murphy, Kieran L. "Representations of History in Popular Cinema: Schindler's List and JFK as Postmodern History Texts," 1999: 6</footnote>

<footnote n="21">21 Burgoyne, Robert. "Memory, History and Digital Imagery in Contemporary Film." In *Memory and Popular Film*, 220–36. Manchester University Press, 2018: 223</footnote>

<footnote n="22">22 Morgan, Iwan W., ed. *Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 1-2</footnote>

<footnote n="23">23 Burgoyne, Robert. "Memory, History and Digital Imagery in Contemporary Film." In *Memory and Popular Film*, 220–36. Manchester University Press, 2018: 225</footnote>

<footnote n="24">24 *Ibid.*: 221</footnote>
traditional history text, cinema can be [a] tool of the historian in the teaching of history.
Chambers and Culbert (1996) find that '... the value of historical films is that, through a skilful
blending of images, words, and other sounds, it helps visualise the past and evoke a feeling
for it...'²⁵ and from that moment, their use shifts to "prosthetic memory". Prosthetic memory
is "the way mass cultural technologies of memory, such as film, enable individuals to
experience, as if they were memories, events through which they themselves did not live."<fnref n="26" />
By replacing their memories with prosthetic memories, people contribute to the spreading and
reinforcing of one version of facts, and support the writing of one version of history. This is
one of the most important reasons why historical films have to be taken carefully. Indeed, as
Murphy argues: "Popular filmmakers [...] are not concerned with the arguments of
authenticity in historical discourse, yet they produce historical texts which ask for the
audience to engage their historical capital as 'fact', when often it is not."<fnref n="27" /> As a consequence,
misrepresentations found in films spread and replace accuracy, and history becomes biased. If
this growing tendency endures, the risk is to let fiction elevate itself to fact and this can
appear dangerous: "As Thomas Elsaesser writes, 'Future generations, looking at the history of
the 20th century, will never be able to tell fact from fiction, having the media as material
evidence. But then, will this distinction still matter to them?'"<fnref n="28" />

What this paper shall thus argue is that the same phenomenon is happening with John
F. Kennedy's image. Indeed, the few elements that create ambivalence in the films from this
corpus can be turned to Kennedy's advantage, and the missing elements allow to burnish his
already idealized portrait as this analysis shall demonstrate. In addition to that, some
innaccurate elements in films contribute to the spreading of one portrait of the man, and thus
contribute to the building of the biased version of history, through narrative, technique, and
the public. As White explains:

> In its laudatory view of JFK, and in its depiction of him as a moralistic, progressive leader, *Thirteen Days* is emblematic of the general postassassination thrust in American popular culture to remember Kennedy by idealizing him. It is representative of the way in which film and television have sustained the myth of Kennedy's presidential brilliance—a myth in which the nuances and contradictions of his life and political career are obscured.<fnref n="29" />

<footnote>25Murphy, Kieran L. "Representations of History in Popular Cinema: Schindler's List and JFK as Postmodern History Texts," 1999: 7</footnote>

<footnote n="26">26 Burgoyne, Robert. "Memory, History and Digital Imagery in Contemporary Film." In *Memory and Popular Film*, 220–36. Manchester University Press, 2018: 223</footnote>

<footnote n="27">27 Murphy, Kieran L. "Representations of History in Popular Cinema: Schindler's List and JFK as Postmodern History Texts," 1999: 7-8</footnote>

<footnote n="28">28 Burgoyne, Robert. "Memory, History and Digital Imagery in Contemporary Film." In *Memory and Popular Film*, 220–36. Manchester University Press, 2018: 233-234</footnote>

<footnote n="29">29 White in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 147</footnote>
## 2) Representing Politics in Films: the Message

Just like history in films, representing politics in films can be interpreted as another factor preserving presidents' portraits. Indeed, although political film is not the most appreciated genre, it nonetheless has been an important genre in the history of US cinema because of its main themes, as Coyne puts it:

> American political films have featured as part of Hollywood's output since the early 1930s. The political film has never been a high-volume, mass market staple, but its qualitative contribution to movie history and twentieth-century US popular and political culture has been considerable. Despite the trite assertion that political film means the kiss of death at the box office, the genre has proved both protean and durable, reflecting and addressing major issues and tensions at the heart of American life. [...] The political film has kept pace with, chronicled and even helped configure the ever-changing American political landscape.<fnref n="30" />

The main aim of political films is to share ideological messages about the American presidency and political system. The genre has to show that the United States is politically superior to any other country, and that it thus is a model of democracy, freedom and diversity. Indeed, as quoted in Coyne: "Violence is an essential condiment of Hollywood, but the triumph of order over violence is arguably *the* archetypical American cinema narrative,"<fnref n="31" /> and "Conflict between conformity and diversity in American political films is habitually resolved in favour of diversity, albeit within a consensual framework."<fnref n="32" /> What appears as the positive outcome of the proliferation of the genre, and thus of the spreading of its messages is the fact that it raises political awareness and pushes people to get involved in politics: "Films that are loaded with intentional political messages explicitely challenge the values of the audience and may even incite it to political action."<fnref n="33" /> Yet on the other hand, what appears as the negative outcome is that, as there is a check-list of themes to respect in political films, the message nearly always has to be positive: "Conventional wisdom presupposes that when the life of a presidential figure—real or imagined—is portrayed on screen, there is automatically an agenda being followed by the filmmaker in conceiving the central character in a certain way because it conveys traits and attributes sympathetic to his or her own ideology or vision."<fnref n="34" /> In a way, this can be interpreted as bias and political films thus contribute to protect the image of presidents.

Indeed, in terms of narrative, because they are “symbols of the nation's spirit, values,

<footnote n="30">30 Coyne, Michael. *Hollywood Goes to Washington: American Politics on Screen*. Reaktion Books, 2008: Introduction</footnote>

<footnote n="31">31 *Idem*.</footnote>

<footnote n="32">32 *Idem*.</footnote>

<footnote n="33">33 Haas, Elizabeth, Terry Christensen, and Peter J. Haas. *Projecting Politics: Political Messages in American Films*. Routledge, 2015: 10</footnote>

<footnote n="34">34 Scott in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 29</footnote>
and historical destiny,”<fnref n="35" /> directors thus have to show great, trustful, benevolent and wise presidents. As Coyne argues and as Morgan puts it: “For the most part, presidents are celebrated as idealistic, wise, and dependable guardians of the national interest, rather than ambitious, self-interested, and materialistic, thereby promoting the view that there is nothing wrong with American democracy so long as power is in the hands of intelligent and farsighted visionaries.”<fnref n="36" />

In addition, quite often, as this demonstration shall prove with Kennedy, some elements are missing in presidential portraits, once again to protect their image. Morgan argues that this mostly concerns the race issue and that it is called the “American dilemma, namely, the inconsistency between the nation’s ideals and the reality of racial inequality.”<fnref n="37" /> This American dilemma appears to be a recurrent pattern as Morgan signals that Lincoln is often portrayed “as the restorer of the union rather than the emancipator of the slaves,”<fnref n="38" /> and that “*Tennessee Johnson* (1942), [...] treats Reconstruction solely as a political struggle for post–Civil War reunion rather than to ensure the civil rights of former slaves in the states of the ex-Confederacy.”<fnref n="39" /> In addition:

> Curiously, the most heroic movie representation of a president in regard to race and slavery does not feature someone conventionally lionized by historians or Hollywood. John Quincy Adams (1825–1829), at best only an average president, is depicted as a moral titan in a postpresidential real life episode as the attorney defending African slave-ship mutineers before the Supreme Court in Steven Spielberg’s *Amistad* (1997). The film distorts the historical reality that the case revolved around the issue of the slave trade to make it a commentary on the domestic existence of slavery in the United States.<fnref n="40" />

Finally, most importantly, Morgan argues that, although biopics about Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson exist but do not mention the fact that they owned slaves, complete biopics about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson do not exist as it would be too difficult to portray them as heroes and fathers of the nation while at the same time showing that they were slave owners.<fnref n="41" /> By choosing to represent only one version of history and of political figures, political films thus follow a pattern which nearly always protects presidents so as not to represent the wrongs of the nation on screen and confront people with their history. The contrary would produce ambivalence, trouble American viewers and unsettle

<footnote n="35">35 Morgan in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: Page 1 of the Introduction</footnote>

<footnote n="36">36 *Ibid.*: Page 2 of the Introduction</footnote>

<footnote n="37">37 *Ibid.*: Page 11 of the Introduction</footnote>

<footnote n="38">38 Morgan in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: Page 11 of the Introduction</footnote>

<footnote n="39">39 *Idem*.</footnote>

<footnote n="40">40 *Ibid.*: Page 12 of the Introduction</footnote>

<footnote n="41">41 *Ibid.*: Page 11-12 of the Introduction, paraphrasing Morgan</footnote>
American pride, and all these reactions would bring negative criticism to films.

In order to counter this type of reaction and attract the public, political films thus focus
on presidents' personalities rather than on accuracy. As Scott explains:

Despite some admirable traits in the Wilson and FDR biopics, cinematic
representations of real presidents work best when they are not rewrites of history
or reassembled artifacts of a president's life and times. Instead, films that have
tried to move away from the strictures of historical authenticity have found
resonance in projecting presidents as the embodiment of national hope and
mission and, in some instances, of divine guidance.<fnref n="42" />

This is why, as a consequence, “The focus tends to be on the president rather than the presidency as an institution, thereby putting the emphasis on individual character instead of organizational structures and the broader aspects of the American polity.”<fnref n="43" /> Furthermore, according to Morgan, one way to avoid the American dilemma is to focus on personal character.<fnref n="44" /> This tendency to focus on personality in political films could also be an explanation for the lack of biopics dealing with less known, or even undistinguished, presidents.<fnref n="45" />

A direct consequence of this producion of captivating narratives focusing on
presidents' characters seems to be the response of the public. Indeed, all these elements appear
to incite the public to appreciate and to understand politics better and thus political films push
people to take political action. Indeed, as “political content usually helps to describe and
explain how politics work,”<fnref n="46" /> films thus represent “independent variable, cultural stimuli that
potentially address and modify the political attitudes and behaviors of audiences and
society.”<fnref n="47" /> One film seems to encompass this thesis and thus represents the perfect example
for this analysis: *JFK*. Indeed, even though the film has been criticized for its historical
inaccuracy and for the narrative liberties it took, the focus nonetheless is on one character,
here not a president but a great defender of Kennedy, and the film was at the origin so many
controversies that it created political awareness. In other words: “[JFK] undeniably generated
great debate and interest in galvanizing so many people— hitherto little engaged with cinema,
let alone politics—into some realization of their nation’s political culture and the
machinations of governmental agencies.”<fnref n="48" />

Eventually, thanks to this analysis, it can be argued that political films were and still

<footnote n="42">42 Scott in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 33</footnote>

<footnote n="43">43 *Morgan* in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 2</footnote>

<footnote n="44">44 *Ibid.*: Page 13 of the Introduction</footnote>

<footnote n="45">45 *Ibid.*: Pages 8-11 of the Introduction</footnote>

<footnote n="46">46 Haas, Elizabeth, Terry Christensen, and Peter J. Haas. *Projecting Politics: Political Messages in American Films*. Routledge, 2015: 10</footnote>

<footnote n="47">47 *Ibid.*: 4</footnote>

<footnote n="48">48 Scott in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 34</footnote>
are a source of interest for the public contrary to what is commonly thought. Indeed, the
elements cited earlier contribute to their appeal, and the interest demonstrated by the public
generates an enduring production of political films and series. These productions, in turn,
allow scholars to analyze the evolution of presidents' portraits in popular culture, as it is the
case for Kennedy. In addition, the striking resemblance between Jimmy Santos and Barack
Obama in *The West Wing*, which aired from 1999 to 2006 show that the ties between
Washington and Hollywood are still strong: "The fact that one drew direct and acknowledged
inspiration from the other, however, shows the reality of the
Hollywood/entertainment/Washington nexus within American political culture in the early
twenty-first century."<fnref n="49" /> Scott goes even further by arguing that the connection between Santos
and Obama is only the start of a new era for political films that will continue to flourish in the
future:

> With cinematic and televisual examination and reenactment a certainty, the
> presidency has become not only a political office but also reality TV. The
> Obama/Santos connection that struck such a chord in 2008 is not the natural
> conclusion of ninety years of respective posturing and mutual courting on the part
> of the White House and Hollywood. It is only the start of symbiotic storylines and
> fantastic fables that will continue to trace the movements of incumbents and their
> personalities from the Oval Office to TV series and films for the foreseeable
> future and beyond.⁵⁰

The importance given to image during the Kennedy era is what generated the "fantastic fables" that Scott cites, and which are now to be found in films and series.

To conclude, even though political films can be criticized for their lack of accuracy,
for their focus on personalities and for their message, whose aim is to glorify the United
States, they nonetheless manage to engage people in politics and their future seems bright.
Yet, the elements cited earlier and necessary to produce political films also contribute to the
spreading of one version of history and thus to the defense of presidents, such as John F.
Kennedy. On top of that, the funds received for certain historical and political films forbid
their narratives to openly criticize presidents, as two films from this corpus shall demonstrate
next.

### 3) Propaganda

To a certain extent, the word propaganda could be used when talking about films
dealing with John F. Kennedy. Indeed, the production of two films from this corpus are
exemplary of the elements pushing directors to present John F. Kennedy as they do, that is to

<footnote n="49">49 Scott in Morgan, Iwan W., ed. *Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 27
50 *Ibid.*: 42</footnote>
say in an idealized way rather than a nuanced one. The first film is *PT-109*.

Indeed, the film follows Kennedy's epic in the Pacific, yet before the film, Kennedy's experience in the Pacific became well known to the public thanks to an article by published by journalist John Hersey as Yamniuk puts it: "This media creation of Kennedy began in 1944 when writer John Hersey wrote an account of his PT 109 experience in the South Pacific that was published in *The New Yorker* as 'Survival,' and shortly after appeared in a condensed version in *The Reader's Digest*."<fnref n="51" /> What seems important to note is that, from the beginning, the story was used as a publicity for Kennedy as "On hearing Kennedy's account of his adventure in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, Hersey saw it as a magazine feature."<fnref n="52" /> Yet, in order to sell an even more heroic image of himself, the whole story had to take another turn:

> In the account of the PT-109 that JFK gave to *New Yorker* writer John Hersey, he repeatedly tried to establish the fact that he was on the attack when his boat was sunk, a point that is repeated on the jacket cover of *Profiles*. Later, when his father arranged for *The Reader's digest* to print a piece from the *New Yorker* article, JFK took special care that the phrase "turn for an attack" was retained while other sections were cut (Wills 132). Although interviews with others on the boat make it clear that there was no attempted attack, for JFK it was important that he be seen on the defense, rather than on the offense, to justify his actions. [...] In 1944, when John Hersey tried to find out how a destroyer could run down a PT boat, he was blocked by the military and was not able to obtain the information he needed to confirm the feat.<fnref n="53" />

In fact, witnesses have said that “Lieutenant Kennedy begged and scrounged for his adored Oh Henry! candy bars, real eggs, powdered ice cream, and bread and cheese for his favorite cheese sandwiches. He promised lobster dinners in Boston in exchange for a case of fresh New Zealand mutton.”<fnref n="54" /> Once the story was published, Kennedy benefited from the publicity he had wished for and he once remarked: “'My story about the collision is getting better all the time. Now I've got a Jew and a n****r in the story and with me being a Catholic, that's great.'”<fnref n="55" />

Yet, as the story was published in 1944, JFK's father knew he could get more use out of it and so, just as his son ran for office in Congress in 1946, “Joe Kennedy, Sr. ordered 100,000 offprints of the story for distribution in his congressional district.”<fnref n="56" /> In addition, in order to have his son become president one day: “In pursuit of his 18-year quest to have a son

<footnote n="51">51 Yamniuk, Stephanie Melinda. "Image and Text, the Creation of JFK as a Cultural Icon," 2000: 49-50</footnote>

<footnote n="52">52 Howe, Caroline. "How Father of JFK Hyped PT 109 Incident to Get Son Elected." *Daily Mail Online*, October 6, 2015, sec. News</footnote>

<footnote n="53">53 Yamniuk, Stephanie Melinda. "Image and Text, the Creation of JFK as a Cultural Icon," 2000: 16</footnote>

<footnote n="54">54 Howe, Caroline. "How Father of JFK Hyped PT 109 Incident to Get Son Elected." *Daily Mail Online*, October 6, 2015, sec. News</footnote>

<footnote n="55">55 *Idem*.</footnote>

<footnote n="56">56 Yamniuk, Stephanie Melinda. "Image and Text, the Creation of JFK as a Cultural Icon," 2000: 50</footnote>
in the White House that began in '42 by getting John into PT boat service, Joseph P. doggedly went after buying his son that big chair in the oval office. [...] Joseph P. pulled strings, wrote the checks and gave advice."<fnref n="57" /> As a consequence, he managed to sell more copies of the story by having it published in *The Reader's Digest*:

> Joe Kennedy, clearly dissatisfied with the limited publication that appealed to the American socially elite, wanted to find an outlet that would speak 'to the voting masses capable of propelling a Kennedy into political office, as the elder Kennedy foresaw. 'Then Joe Kennedy had an idea that proved to be a masterstroke' – an unprecedented condensation of the piece in the mass audience monthly, *Reader's Digest*. 'After a sustained pressure-and-charm offensive by Joe Kennedy...a deal was struck in June 1944 that would make John Kennedy a national hero', writes author William Doyle. [...] Joe Kennedy printed up thousands of copies and flooded key election neighborhoods with the account that overshadowed his son's lack of political experience.<fnref n="58" />

This shows how Joe Kennedy sold his son to the White House, and this is why, as a consequence, the story can be perceived as a tool of propaganda. The last element to confirm this thesis and which is the object of this analysis is *PT-109*, the film. *PT-109* can be said to be quite loyal to the “Survival” story as it idealizes Kennedy as the first chapter of this analysis shall demonstrate. However, once again, Joe Kennedy played a role in Kennedy's depiction, this time, through the film, as he was one of the negociators and investors in the production, as Howe mentions: “Joe Kennedy personally negotiated that book option contract with Warner Brothers and stayed involved in the movie's development until a stroke incapacitated him in 1961.”<fnref n="59" />

The second film from this corpus which can be perceived as a tool of propaganda is *Thirteen Days*. Indeed, there is an ongoing debate about O'Donnell's role in the Kennedy administration, and thus in the film: “The film perplexed historians by elevating O'Donnell, hitherto seen as no more than a backroom White House fixer, to the status of key player- 'it's like making Rosencrantz or Guildenstern the lead in Hamlet', one joked.”<fnref n="60" /> Yet, Gibbons suggests that the only ones who could potentially tell if this depiction of O'Donnell as this close to Kennedy is accurate or not are McNamara and Sorensen, but as the “chief keepers of the Camelot flame”<fnref n="61" /> to quote Gibbons, they that said they were satisfied with the film and its inaccuracies.

<footnote n="57">57 Howe, Caroline. "How Father of JFK Hyped PT 109 Incident to Get Son Elected." *Daily Mail Online*, October 6, 2015, sec. News</footnote>

<footnote n="58">58 *Idem*.</footnote>

<footnote n="59">59 *Idem*.</footnote>

<footnote n="60">60 Gibbons, Fiachra. "From Ordinary Joe to hero of Cuban crisis." *The Guardian*, March 3, 2001, sec. World news.</footnote>

<footnote n="61">61 *Idem*.</footnote>
Even though, Roger Donaldon, the director denies that O'Donnell's son played a role
in the making of the movie: " 'Kenny's son is a friend of our producer Armyan Bernstein, but
he only got involved in Beacon long after work on the film had begun and he did not call the
shots.' "<sup>62</sup>, the contrary could be argued. Indeed, the propaganda factor which could explain
the place given to O'Donnell in the narrative is actually the fact that O'Donnell's son himself
invested in the production of the film, as both Gibbons and White point out: "The furore has
also raised awkward questions about the role O'Donnell's family played behind the scenes.
His son Kevin, an internet tycoon, helped bankroll a buyout of Beacon Entertainment, which
made the movie, and appears to have been the partial inspiration for promoting his father -
played by Kevin Costner - to the role of the "ordinary Joe" hero audiences identify with."<sup>63</sup>

The thesis thus defended by this paper is that, by receiving funds from O'Donnell's son and thus by placing O'Donnell as a close and idolatrous aide of Kennedy, but also by choosing Kevin Costner to star as O'Donnell, when he had already played a fervent Kennedy supporter in *JFK*,<sup>64</sup> the film in turn reinforces Kennedy's idealization. Gibbons even argues that "Costner, who co-produced the film and fought for several years through six directors to have it made, makes no bones about his admiration for Camelot and is convinced the film will claw back a little of the dirt the Kennedys have been caked in,"<sup>65</sup> and "Thirteen Days does not present JFK as a two-dimensional, comic book hero. To be sure, the film veers toward idolatry in places. At one point O'Donnell tells his wife things will turn out well because of the intelligence of the Kennedy brothers. 'You're smart too,' she responds. 'Not like them,' O'Donnell states reverentially."<sup>66</sup> The "idolatry" mentioned by White in the second quote is also a phenomenon that is seen in the public, as this paper shall point out next through a study of the Kennedy myth and its enduring legacy.

## II)Enduring Legacy

In part because it is protected by films, Kennedy's legacy did not cease to shine, even
after revisions started to correct his portrait following the revelations and gradual availability
of his personal papers since the 1980s. As a consequence, in order to understand how JFK's
legacy is able to resist the passing of time and criticism, the different trends studied by

<footnote n="62">62 Gibbons, Fiachra. "From Ordinary Joe to hero of Cuban crisis." *The Guardian*, March 3, 2001, sec. World news.</footnote>

<footnote n="63">63 *Idem*.</footnote>

<footnote n="64">64 White in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 137</footnote>

<footnote n="65">65 Gibbons, Fiachra. "From Ordinary Joe to hero of Cuban crisis." *The Guardian*, March 3, 2001, sec. World news.</footnote>

<footnote n="66">66 White in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 138</footnote>
scholars, but also circulated among the public, these past decades, must be addressed.

## 1)Camelot

According to the positive portrait of JFK built by himself and those surrounding him, and thus presented to the public in films, it seems that in the end, Kennedy remains an ideal man in people's minds, no matter the criticism that has emerged through the years and the attempts to stain his portrait both in life and on films. As this part shall prove, the Camelot legend lives on.

In fact, in the same way that Zinn<fnref n="67" /> deconstructed the worshipping of Columbus by pointing out his attitude towards natives when he arrived in America, the revisionist movement that revolves around Kennedy, and which counts scholars, journalists and witnesses, deconstructed the perfect image that JFK had built and allowed to nuance his portrait in life and in productions. Indeed, scholars like Hersh, Reeves and Dallek<fnref n="68" /> addressed several subjects such as Kennedy's health, Vietnam, Cuba, the Civil Rights movement, or even the mafia among Kennedy's wrong doings in whole books or biographies which pushed the public to reevaluate the man. Among these subjects, women have recently become the object of a larger attention because of the #MeToo movement.

The #MeToo movement emerged in 2017 when several women used the MeToo hashtag on Twitter first to testify and share that they had been the victims of sexual harassment and assault from film producer Harvey Weinstein. It soon became viral and global as it became the symbol of sexual harassment and assault in general, and as the movement is still growing. With its emergence, some people linked Kennedy to the movement as JFK's treatment of women can be seen as sexual harassment as the last chapter of this analysis shall demonstrate. Following the #MeToo and the idea to speak up, break the silence and share, Patricia Lawford Stewart, who was married to former Kennedy in-law Peter Lawford (who was Patricia Kennedy – JFK's younger sister – 's husband from 1954 to 1966) decided to express her feelings towards the Kennedys in an article entitled “My (twisted) life with the Kennedys”: “Stewart, too, found herself like many a Kennedy wife — alone at home, husband off partying, expected to accept heavy boozing and rampant infidelity as the trade-off for becoming a member of America’s royal family. [...] 'They’re bullies,’ she says. 'Just plain bullies. They treat their women like crap. [...] 'They were open about the philandering,' [...]

<footnote n="67">67 Zinn, Howard. "Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress." In *A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present*, 1-22.</footnote>

<footnote n="68">68 Dallek, Robert. *An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917 - 1963*. Hachette UK, 2003; Hersh, Seymour M. *The Dark Side of Camelot*. HarperCollins, 1998; Reeves, Thomas C. *A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy*. Forum, 1997.</footnote>
'They thought they had a regular pass to do it.' "<fnref n="69" /> Lawford's testimony encompasses the pressure the Kennedys exerted on women and their treatment of women and it can be said that episode 8 of the second season of *The Crown* tackled this issue as well, as Michael C. Hall, who stars as Kennedy in the episode, explains: "it was interesting to examine JFK's relationship with women in the wake of the recent Harvey Weinstein scandal and #MeToo campaign. 'His relationship with women was certainly a well-kept secret back then but at this particular moment is an interesting thing to examine and reveal.' "<fnref n="70" />

Nonetheless, it seems that Kennedy defenders always manage to counterbalance the idea that he used women as objects and thus always forgive his attitude and his extra-marital affairs, as Kendall demonstrated in his article entitled "Op-Ed: JFK may have been a worse philanderer than Trump. Does it matter?" Indeed, by comparing the public's reaction after the testimonies of two performers: the testimony of Stormy Daniels, a porn star, saying that she had an affair with President Donald Trump, and the testimony of Tempest Storm, a burlesque actress and stripper of the 1960s, saying she had an affair with President Kennedy, Kendall noticed differences. Each time a woman claimed that she had an affair with Kennedy, she was muted: "when Campbell wrote her well-documented 1977 memoir about the multi-year affair, Kennedy loyalists did their best to discredit and degrade her. Tempest Storm's 1987 memoir got similar dismissive treatment. The mainstream press ignored it as undignified gossip. The tide turned only when several academic Kennedy biographers acknowledged that her story meshed with their research."<fnref n="71" /> On the contrary, when Stormy Daniels' affair was revealed in 2018, it made headlines and the story became known around the world. Kendall argues that this difference in reactions is because the public feels a nostalgia for the 1960s:

> Sometimes a porn star is just a porn star. But for JFK, as for Trump, his inability to resist her allure indicates a much deeper character issue. And yet a romanticized image of Kennedy still survives intact. Even as Americans debate what to make of Trump's reported lover with the weather-themed name, our nostalgia endures for the "Mad Men" era, when lecherous behavior was viewed not as a potential violation of the civil rights of women, but as the right of powerful men.<fnref n="72" />

And the nostalgia felt for the "Mad Men era" is what pushes the Kennedy supporters to excuse him and to minimize Kennedy's behavior: "Kennedy's track record as a playboy and philanderer may well have been even worse than Trump's is. Remarkably, this information

<footnote n="69">69 Callahan, Maureen. "My (Twisted) Life with the Kennedys." *New York Post*, May 27, 2012</footnote>

<footnote n="70">70 Parry, Hannah. "The Crown Depicts JFK as a Jealous Conniver and a Drug Addict." *Mail Online*, December 7, 2017, sec. News.</footnote>

<footnote n="71">71 Kendall, Joshua C. "Op-Ed: JFK May Have Been a Worse Philanderer than Trump. Does It Matter?" *Los Angeles Times*, March 24, 2018, sec. Opinion.</footnote>

<footnote n="72">72 *Idem*.</footnote>
still remains largely buried by the work of countless apologists over the decades — including journalists and biographers who continue to minimize Kennedy's extramarital sexual adventures.”<fnref n="73" />

Another scholar, Greenberg, on the contrary, argues against this comparison between Kennedy and Trump, or, in the case of his article, Clinton:

> If we're not attentive to the history implicit in the 'Me Too Moment' phrase—the reality that people and the press viewed aberrant sexual behavior differently in other eras—we risk misinterpreting the past. If we expect historical actors to have abided by codes of behavior we set out in 2017, we betray the historical project of understanding why people acted as they did. [...] History requires reconstructing the thought processes of historical actors, which are invariably different from our own. The way people acted in the past was shaped by assumptions, conditions and norms, some deeply embedded in their culture. Those norms shift over time, and it can be surprising to see how differently people in other ages thought about any number of problems, including the intersection of sex and politics.<fnref n="74" />

Greenberg explains that popular opinion on sex scandals changed in the 1980s and that the subject became a source of interest for journalists as the taboo faded. As a consequence, Kennedy's acts were not considered condemnable at the time as they were off limits to the press and thus none of the journalists' business: “People today sometimes say that the press 'covered up' for Kennedy, or these other politicians, but that wording misconstrues how norms work. Kennedy's womanizing wasn't reported because it wasn't news, according to what people thought at the time. Tales of behavior by these men that today might be called harassment, or at least lecherous, emerged only after their deaths.”<fnref n="75" /> On the other hand however, other subjects such as divorce or position on civil rights could hurt a politician's image as Greenberg explains. Greensberg's point appears to be quite relevant, however, his thesis also defends Kennedy and other presidents in a way. Indeed, once again, an excuse is found in order not to let presidents be accountable for their acts. The fault is on the evolving mores and the changing role of the press through the decades, but not on presidents.

It thus appears that neither criticism nor links drawn between Kennedy and recent movements such as the #MeToo movement have any impact: the thesis that this paper shall defend is that Kennedy's image remains untouched in people's minds. Indeed, “While the academic view of Kennedy shifted decisively [in the 1980s and 1990s], the popular perception of him remained one of admiration.”<fnref n="76" /> This adoration can be explained by his death

<footnote n="73">73 Kendall, Joshua C. “Op-Ed: JFK May Have Been a Worse Philanderer than Trump. Does It Matter?” *Los Angeles Times*, March 24, 2018, sec. Opinion.</footnote>

<footnote n="74">74 Greenberg, David. “Why We Shouldn’t Let the #MeToo Movement Change History.” *POLITICO Magazine*, December 16, 2017.</footnote>

<footnote n="75">75 *Idem*.</footnote>

<footnote n="76">76 White in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 135</footnote>
according to White as “the tragedy of his assassination that left many Americans with the desire to remember him well. The image of him as a man of principle rather than a politician of expediency met this need.”<fnref n="77" /> Yet, although it acknowledges that JFK's assassination played a role in his ongoing shining legacy, this paper shall prove that this is not the sole reason for it. So many years after his death, support, worshipping and love for Kennedy are still strong. People were and still are attracted to Kennedy:

> With each new [negative] allegation [...] the vast legion of Kennedy fans are rocked backward. But only for a moment. [...] John Kennedy was the kind of guy who could get his PT boat rammed in half by a Japanese destroyer, losing two of his men, and end up not with a court-martial but with a medal. He was a winner, and we like winners. He'll get out of every scrape history can serve up. [...] And the dream will never die.<fnref n="78" />

This quote points out how people will always be unconsciously drawn to Kennedy. His charisma “won” people's hearts and established a whole army of supporters behind him, which survives the passing of time. Even though the revisionist movement and the more recent films featuring Kennedy have started to nuance his portrait and thus created ambivalence, this ambivalence seems to align with the definitions given in the introduction of this analysis: when confronted with the distress provoked by the revelations and display of unsettling elements about JFK, people tend to idealize the man in order to cope with ambivalence. The feeling that so many Kennedy supporters still hold can be summarized by Flanagan's words:

> I recently came across a Kennedy photograph I'd never seen before. The family is entering the White House for the first time, John-John wrapped in a blanket in his mother's arms. JFK's hands are in the pockets of his overcoat, his eyes glued to the precious head of his new baby boy—and I was gone. Let him have the girls, I thought; he could handle the girls and still put in an ace performance as Father of the Century.<fnref n="79" />

Although this quote proves that the controled image argument defended by this analysis played an important role in the shaping of the “Kennedy mystique”, it also proves that there is indeed an unconscious feeling of support that still lives on, and that endured questionings, revelations and scandals. This tendency seems to be constant in life but also in films with no real explanation to it, as “films and television productions continued to shape JFK’s image after his death,”<fnref n="80" /> and Camelot endures, elevating Kennedy to the rank of God year after year: “Photographs of JFK were hung in homes around the world, next to the Virgin Mary and

<footnote n="77">77 White in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 133</footnote>

<footnote n="78">78 Flanagan, Caitlin. “Jackie and the Girls.” *The Atlantic*, June 13, 2012, sec. Politics.</footnote>

<footnote n="79">79 *Idem*.</footnote>

<footnote n="80">80 White in Morgan, Iwan W., ed. *Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 136</footnote>
Jesus Christ.”<sup>81</sup> As a consequence, this unconditional support from the public is also felt in polls.

## 2) Polls

The last tool that this paper shall use to support the statement arguing that Kennedy's legacy lives on, no matter the backslashes that emerged through the years, is polls. Polls give a genuine idea of Kennedy's popularity among scholars, but also among the population. This paper shall first deal with the polling of historians and scholars, which has been a tradition since 1948, with the first poll of scholars on US presidents organized by Arthur Schlesinger, as Morgan explains: "Rating the performance of the holders of this protean office has become a significant scholarly enterprise since the first survey was conducted by Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. in 1948. While there is no universal standard for assessing them, presidents are broadly judged on the basis of: the scale of problems they faced and their success in dealing with them; their vision for the nation; their moral authority and character; and the long-term effects of their actions."<sup>82</sup> Since then, many more polls ranking presidents have been held in the United States. Below is a table of Kennedy's ranking in a selection of these polls.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1: table showing Kennedy's rank in 18 scholar polls from 1970 to 2018, Laury Vandenterghem. Due to technical issues, the references for these polls will be cited only in the bibliography.</figcaption></figure>

Out of the 18 polls available for this analysis, and thus presented in the table above, Kennedy appears between ranks 6 and 16. The fact that he is not granted higher ranks does not seem very surprising owing to the fact that historians and scholars are more critical as their role is

<footnote n="81"><sup>81</sup> Yamniuk, Stephanie Melinda. "Image and Text, the Creation of JFK as a Cultural Icon," 2000: 30</footnote>

<footnote n="82"><sup>82</sup> Morgan in Morgan, Iwan W., ed. *Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: Page 4 of the Introduction</footnote>
to research and thus are constantly confronted to facts that may not be well known by the public. However, a score situated between 6 and 16, among 44 other presidents for the last 2 polls, can be said to be rather positive.

Concerning the polling of the public, the Gallup Institution polls will be used for this analysis. The Gallup company, created by George Gallup in the 1930s, first concentrated on polls revolving around elections, but now provides consultancy for companies in various fields.<fnref n="83" /> What is interesting to note with the polls focusing on public opinion is that people do not seem to be influenced by the tarnishing and nuancing of Kennedy's image and thus, the ranks that the public attributes to JFK in polls are much higher than the ones attributed by historians and scholars. Indeed, the average percentage of JFK's job approval rating by the public during his presidency is of 70.1%.<fnref n="84" /> It is the highest rate of presidents who were in office between Harry S. Truman and Barack Obama. As Brinkley points out, "By the middle of 1963, 59 percent of Americans surveyed claimed that they had voted for him in 1960, although only 49.7 percent of voters had actually done so. After his death, his landslide grew to 65 percent."<fnref n="85" /> What this quotation highlights is that people wanted to be associated with him. It can be argued however that this high ranking is due to the fact that Kennedy controled his image during his presidency, as this analysis shall prove. In order to further defend the point demonstrated here, this paper also gathered more recent information.

Approval of President Kennedy's Presidency

From what you have heard, read, or remember about some of our past presidents, please tell me if you approve or disapprove of the way each of the following handled their job as president. How about John F. Kennedy?

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2: Graphic from the Gallup Company showing Kennedy's job approval by the public in percentage from the 1990s to the 2010s.<fnref n="86" /></figcaption></figure>

In addition, in the 2010 and 2018 Gallup company Poll, Kennedy was also ranked the highest

<footnote n="83">83 Information provided by the Gallup Company's official website Gallup.com</footnote>

<footnote n="84">84 Gallup Inc. Presidential Approval Ratings -- Gallup Historical Statistics and Trends." Gallup.com, March 12, 2008.</footnote>

<footnote n="85">85 Brinkley, Alan. "The Legacy of John F. Kennedy." *The Atlantic*, September 18, 2013.</footnote>

<footnote n="86">86 Gallup Inc. "Americans Rate JFK as Top Modern President." Gallup.com, August 1, 2016.</footnote>
each time.<fnref n="87" /> These data show that public support for Kennedy's decisions in office has surprisingly (surprising due to the fact that he sometimes struggled to face some of the crises he was confronted with, and due to the fact that he did not even finish a term as President) been ongoing for decades. Eventually, a sample of public opinion polls on popularity from 2011 to 2013 shows that the trend is recurrent. Indeed, according to the Public Policy Polling of 2011 “There is no question who the most beloved president of the last half century is: John F. Kennedy. 70% of American voters have a favorable opinion of Kennedy, and only 15% an unfavorable one.”<fnref n="88" /> The same year, the Angus Reid Public Opinion and Vision Critical poll showed that “John F. Kennedy garnered the biggest proportion of mentions as a 'Good President' with 80 per cent.”<fnref n="89" /> Finally, when polled in 2013, 74% of Americans polled considered Kennedy the most “Outstanding/Above average” president, only 19% of them considered him “Average”, and the “Below average/Poor” category only received 3% of the answers.<fnref n="90" /> As the author of the article accompanying this poll notes,

> Kennedy was killed on Nov. 22, 1963, and the 50-year anniversary of his assassination is being marked by a bevy of new books that re-examine this fateful event. The high esteem in which Americans hold Kennedy is not just a product of the current commemorative atmosphere, however. The results of this Nov. 7-10 Gallup poll are in line with previous findings; in 2004, 78% of adults said Kennedy would be seen as an outstanding or above-average president, also higher than any of his predecessors or successors whom Gallup measured. Moreover, previous Gallup research demonstrates how remarkably well-regarded Kennedy has been over the past 50 years. As recently as 2010, 85% said they approved of the way Kennedy handled his job as president, the highest retrospective job approval rating of any president measured, and his posthumous approval rating fell no lower than 76% in Gallup polls from 1990 to 2010.<fnref n="91" />

Kennedy's popularity does not seem to be impaired by the revelations of the 1980s and 1990s and from the revisionist movement that have been nuancing the ideal portrait he constructed. It can be argued that an irrational element, be it Kennedy's death, his short time in office, his family or his charisma, pushes the public to be drawn to the man and support him forever, believing in “what ifs” that shall never be answered, but which provide hope and thus defend his ideal image in life but also in films. Although in his Life Magazine Epilogue, Theodore H. White concludes with the following sentence: “For one brief shining moment there was

<footnote n="87">87 Gallup Inc. “Kennedy Still Highest-Rated Modern President, Nixon Lowest.” Gallup.com, December 6, 2010 and “Obama’s First Retrospective Job Approval Rating Is 63%.” Gallup.com, February 15, 2018.</footnote>

<footnote n="88">88 Jensen, Tom. “JFK, Reagan, Clinton Most Popular Recent Ex-Presidents.” *Public Policy Polling*, September 15, 2011, 17.</footnote>

<footnote n="89">89 Angus Reid Public Opinion. “Kennedy and Reagan Lead List of Good Presidents for Americans | Angus Reid Public Opinion,” August 22, 2012.</footnote>

<footnote n="90">90 Gallup Inc. “Americans Rate JFK as Top Modern President.” Gallup.com, August 1, 2016.</footnote>

<footnote n="91">91 *Idem*.</footnote>
Camelot,” what this thesis argues on the contrary is that the legacy lives on, now also through films, and that there *is* Camelot still, and the public will continue to unconditionally celebrate the memory of John F. Kennedy. Taking all the elements cited earlier in this first chapter into account, this analysis shall next try to prove that Kennedy is nearly always idealized in productions.
## Part 2: Creating a hero
Before the second part of this paper starts using active film analysis in order to point out how Kennedy is mostly portrayed as an ideal man and a hero in films, it shall explain how Kennedy was formatted to become a hero. Indeed, throughout his life, whether by his father or by his administration, Kennedy's image seems to have always been controled so that he would appear flawless in any situation in the eyes of the public. It can be argued that, after his assassination, he was elevated to the rank of legend by the population as a consequence. Active film analysis shall then reveal the narrative and cinematic strategies used by directors to portray and display Kennedy as the hero in productions. Finally, this second part shall examine how the public reacted to these depictions, tthrough the means of reviews.

## I)Kennedy's control of his own image

Kennedy's father played an important role in the crafting of his son's image as this part shall demonstrate. Indeed, being a Kennedy meant no flaw, and this is a principle which Kennedy kept throughout his presidency and life. He created a character which took over the man in the eyes of the public, but also in films, and which is now anchored in the Camelot legend.

### 1)The Kennedy Doctrine

The name Kennedy probably only evokes images of glory, youth, charisma, idealism, and reminiscences of a bright period in the history of America in most people's minds. To understand how the 35th president benefited from such a positive image, it seems important to examine John F. Kennedy's life, and especially the people and elements around him which contributed to forge such a remarkable portrait, which has remained nearly untouched, even a hundred years after his birth.

First and foremost, the first actor in the creation of the Kennedy image was JFK's father. Joseph Kennedy was a Catholic Bostonian of Irish origin, born in 1888, who gradually self made and became one of the richest men in the United States in the 20th century. In addition, he became politically involved throughout his life, notably under Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency, and wished for his family to stay involved in politics. Because Joseph Kennedy managed to impose himself despite common prejudices concerning his religion and his origins, he knew the cost and "the power of image and incorporated this value into his family's values."92 When his first son, Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr., on which all his political hopes for the future rested, died at war in 1944, Joseph Kennedy then turned to JFK, his

<footnote n="92">92 Yamniuk, Stephanie Melinda. "Image and Text, the Creation of JFK as a Cultural Icon," 2000: 8</footnote>
second and now eldest son, as mentioned in *Killing Kennedy* by John himself: "This was supposed to be Joe. He was the oldest. Father always thought it would be Joe. He was shot down and we were all... stunned. Cut in the way things were supposed to go. Never supposed to be me, but it is." [00:04:27] But the influence of the Kennedy patriarch on John's behavior could be felt for a considerable amount of time before politics played a role in his life. Joseph Kennedy shaped the Kennedy image and brought up his children with specific values in mind: victory, and the pride of being a Kennedy, and being a Kennedy meant no failure and no weakness. This mindset can be illustrated by the way Rosemary Kennedy, the eldest Kennedy daughter who suffered from mental disabilities was concealed from the world, as Yamniuk explains: "She did not fit into the 'Kennedy Image' that Joe had worked so hard to create. When her father decided that she should have a lobotomy, the press was told that she was being sent to a convent. Nothing was going to blemish the Kennedy name, not even another Kennedy."<fnref n="93" />

Accordingly, throughout his youth, John's image was protected by his father: despite average grades at school and numerous diseases, which kept him in poor health and thus unable to attend school for long periods of time, Joe kept sending his son to the best institutions such as Choate or Harvard. John's education is referred to in *PT-109* and even mocked, as a privileged background is not the priority in times of war: "'Seems like all he ever did was go to school, he's had no sea duty. Says here he wrote a book.' 'Sounds like he ought to be in charge of the library.'" [00:18:38] This quotation, as it is extracted from a dialogue between members of JFK's own crew who have not met him yet, suggests that his privileged status of "being a Kennedy" surpasses him, and that he will have to prove his worth. In addition, he is said to be able to leave the Pacific whenever he wants to thanks to his father in *PT-109*: "'Tell the old man to drop the word into somebody's ear.'" [00:03:04] Later on, when politics came into John's life, Joe once again took control of his son's career and life, as Yamniuk states: "just before the 1960 campaign, the Kennedy family sequestered JFK's medical records, believing that if the press found out about his back troubles and frequent sickness, it would give the impression that he was not sufficiently physically fit for the presidency.'"<fnref n="94" /> During the 1960 presidential campaign, Joe actively protected John's image again and advertised for his son. As he had spent five years working in the cinema industry in the 1920s, he knew what tools could charm people and thus, when the time came, he "virtually scripted the presentation of his son in the first congressional and senatorial

<footnote n="93">⁹³ Yamniuk, Stephanie Melinda. "Image and Text, the Creation of JFK as a Cultural Icon," 2000: 10</footnote>

<footnote n="94">⁹⁴ *Idem*.</footnote>
campaigns.”<fnref n="95" /> Later on during the campaign, Joe compared his son to a movie star, and particularly to two important movie stars of the period: Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. Indeed, he stated:

> Jack is the greatest attraction in the country today. I'll tell you how to sell more copies of a book. Put his picture on the cover. You advertise the fact that he will be at a dinner and you will break all records for attendance. He can draw more people to a fundraising dinner than Gary Grant or Jimmy Stewart. Why is that? He has more universal appeal.<fnref n="96" />

Once Kennedy was elected President, his father kept an influential part in his presidency: JFK often asked him for advice, until he suffered from a stroke in 1961, which was followed by aphasia. Joe's importance in Kennedy's decisions can be illustrated with a specific quote from *LBJ* in a dialogue between JFK and RFK on selecting Johnson as Vice-President: "'You're out of your mind, Jack! You couldn't have made a worse choice if you tried.' 'I spoke with Dad. He agreed.' 'Spoke with Dad?' 'If we wanna win, we need Johnson.'" [00:18:33] This example suggests that Joe's approbation was important for JFK, no matter whether he was the president or not.

Nevertheless, even though Kennedy liked to ask for his father's opinion when he made decisions for most of his career, it is important to note that he was unwilling to let his father make decisions for him. JFK had his own ideas and did not want to have the same political career and destiny as his father. Indeed, as Dean Acheson, Truman's secretary of state, mentions in *Thirteen Days*, "the Kennedys' father was one of the architects of Munich." [00:23:26] By saying this, Acheson acknowledges that he thinks JFK will react like his father reacted in times of crisis when he was ambassador of the United States in Great Britain. The title of "architect of Munich" thus refers to the advice Joseph Kennedy gave president Roosevelt just before the war: he told Roosevelt to accommodate with Hitler and sign the Munich Agreement in 1938. This agreement, by giving out a region of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in order to appease his threats of war can be seen as an act of collaboration with Nazi Germany. As a consequence, Joe Kennedy was considered a traitor for this advice and his statements while ambassador, and was later ousted from Roosevelt's administration. After these events, his political decisions became less influencial. Joe's sympathy for the Nazi regime is mentionned in *Thirteen Days* in a subtle statement from Kenny O'Donnell, special assistant to the president, in which he refers to Joe's past. While John and Robert decide to leak to journalist Lippmann that the government would agree on a deal in Turkey in order to

<footnote n="95">95 Hellmann, John. "JFK: The Author and the Text." *American Literary History* 2, no. 4 (1990): 743–55: 744</footnote>

<footnote n="96">96 Yamniuk, Stephanie Melinda. "Image and Text, the Creation of JFK as a Cultural Icon," 2000: 67-68, quoting Hellman, 1997</footnote>
put an end to the Cuban Crisis, Kenny states: “That's something your father would have done
right there.” [01:25:43] Kenny thinks this leak can only have negative consequences, and
links this deal with Joe Kennedy's record. However, as history and the film show, this deal
allowed to end the Cuban Crisis, and made it possible to differenciate Joe's traitor status and
John's will to make peace.

Finally, Joe's connections to major journalists and newspaper editors also played a role
in building his son's image during the 1960 campaign, and then throughout John's presidency.
Indeed, these connections allowed JFK to enjoy a positive depiction from newspapers during
the campaign, but most importantly, as he became close to journalists and writers, he provided
them only with selected elements later on to share in articles, which allowed him to enjoy a
total control of his image during his presidency. In the end, Kennedy was not compared to a
movie star anymore, he became a star, an icon in people's minds. In other words, he had a
“family-man image [that] coexisted alongside that of the handsome politico with a film star’s
sex appeal. More than any U.S. president before or since, Kennedy had an eroticized image
that received consistent public affirmation.”<fnref n="97" /> The positive relationship he developed with
journalists, but also the rise of TV, enabled John F. Kennedy to spread his ideal portrait during
his presidency, as this paper shall next demonstrate.

## 2)The Presidency

Kennedy's lasting positive depiction was only made possible thanks to the shaping of
his image by his father throughout his youth, and then by himself and his campaign team
during the presidential campaign and especially his cabinet once elected. First, JFK appealed
to the public during the 1960 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles, as illustrated in *LBJ* in
the form of archive footage that shows Kennedy supporters, and in which he is referred to by
a commentator as “the man to beat”: “Partisans of Senator Kennedy radiate the cheer and
confidence of the powerful front-runner, who is clearly the man to beat.” [00:14:12] Then he
participated in the first ever live debate on TV against Republican candidate Richard Nixon
on the 26th of September 1960, during the presidential campaign. This series of debates played
an important role in the reception of Kennedy's image on TV. Indeed, as TV was well
developed in the 1960s, more and more households could afford a TV set, and thus see the
debates, as White points out: “Ten years earlier (in 1950) of America's then 40,000,000
families only 11 per cent (or 4,400,000 enjoyed the pleasures of a television set. By 1960 the
number of American families had grown to 44,000,000, and of these *no less than 88 per cent*,

<footnote n="97">97 White in Morgan, Iwan W., ed. *Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 133</footnote>
or 40,000,000, possessed a television set.”<fnref n="98" /> As a consequence, when figures from the different television networks are assembled together, it is possible to say that more people watched the debates than the 1959 World Series, which brought around 90,000,000 spectators, according to White.⁹⁹ This shows the interest people had in politics, but also the advantages of TV in terms of visibility for the candidates. In addition, the first debate was a positive experience for Kennedy as his image was flawless and contrasted with Nixon's image. As White explains, Nixon looked sick, tense, thin, unenergetic and sweaty, he had a “lazy shave”, and the setting disadvantaged him and made him look “transparent”. Kennedy on the contrary controlled his stress and his suit contrasted with the background.¹⁰⁰ As a consequence, as mentioned by White:

> Those who heard the debates on radio, according to sample surveys, believed that the two candidates came off almost equal. Yet, every survey of those who watched the debates on television indicated that the Vice-President had come off poorly and, in the opinion of many, very poorly. It was the picture image that had done it—and in 1960 television had won the nation away from sound to images, and that was that.¹⁰¹

And in addition: “When they began, Nixon was generally viewed as being the probable winner of the election contest and Kennedy as fighting an uphill battle; when they were over, the position of the two contestants were reversed.”¹⁰² Later on, Kennedy also became the first president to have his inaugural address broadcast on TV on the 20th of January 1961, and finally he was the first president to hold live TV news conferences, starting on the 25th of January 1961. As these examples suggest, TV played an important role in the election as it turned Kennedy into an idol and brought supporters: “His crowds had been growing for a full seven days before the debates, but now, overnight, they seethed with enthusiasm and multiplied in numbers, as if the sight of him, in their homes on the video box, had given him a 'starquality' reserved only for television and movie idols.”¹⁰³ Indeed, Kennedy received the same treatment that Hollywood stars received as, to a certain extent, he had become the star of his own film. As a consequence, the films made about Kennedy later on, like the ones under study in this corpus, preserved and spread the image of Kennedy as a politician, but also and more importantly, as a star, loved by the public.

The influence of television is even reinforced in films during speech scenes. Two

<footnote n="98">98 White, Theodore H. *The Making of the President - 1960 (Reprint Edition)*. Harper Parental Political Classics., 2009: 279
99 *Ibid*.: 283
100 *Ibid*.: 288-290
101 *Ibid*.: 290
102 *Ibid*.: 290-291
103 *Ibid*.: 291</footnote>
speeches are to be noted: the Television Address to the Nation of the 22nd of October 1962 is reenacted both in *Killing Kennedy* [00:30:00] and in *Thirteen Days* [00:49:57], and the Address on Civil Rights of the 11th of June 1963 is to be found in *The Butler* [01:01:10] and *LBJ* [00:47:46]. Although the images of the speeches from *Killing Kennedy* and *LBJ* are quite similar to the original ones, it is interesting to point out the changes that appear in *Thirteen Days* and *The Butler*. Indeed, instead of medium close-ups, as in the original speeches, both films emphasize Kennedy's image by zooming in on his face, a process that heightens the importance of his words, and of the situation in both cases. By using the cinematic tools of extreme close-ups, of his face in *Thirteen Days*, and of his eyes in *The Butler*, the public feels close to Kennedy and can even grasp him through the screen. Finally, it is important to note that in *The Butler*, the extreme close-up of Kennedy's eyes and the speech are accompanied by an emotional music, followed by the sound of bullets, suggesting his death. This dramatic sequence of shots and sounds together can be interpreted as follows: it may convey a feeling of trust towards JFK, his large eyes displayed and emphasized on the black and white shots create a proximity between his eyes and the public's, as they are the only feature of his face that can be seen. [*The Butler*, 01:02:00] Although the lack of colors is made to resemble the real images of the 1963 speech, it may also suggest that there is no distraction, no other possibility than asking Congress to end violence as Kennedy suggests. In other words, the public's attention can only focus on JFK's concerned eyes, and the shot suggests that he will not dupe the African American community, nor the public.

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3: extreme close-up on Kennedy's eyes during his speech in *The Butler*. Daniels, Lee. *The Butler*. 2013.</figcaption></figure>

As far as the public is concerned, TV also appears as a way for people to be informed about the presidential family, as exemplified in *Killing Kennedy*. Indeed, a real news bulletin from August 1963 is shown, but cut in order for the public not to see the real JFK's face: the "Universal International News – Kennedy Baby President Stands Vigil After Early Birth."
[00:48:39] The date of this news bulletin is important as it coincides with Patrick Bouvier Kennedy's birth, Kennedy's third child. He is said to be "the object of worldwide attention during his dramatic fight for life" and indeed, he only lived for two days, from the 7th to the 9th of August 1963. News bulletins like this one allow to reinforce the influence of TV during Kennedy's administration, as it creates a bond between the Kennedys and the population. After Patrick Bouvier Kennedy's death, the whole nation mourned him. This melodramatic scene has its own importance in the film as one of the missions of the film is to create sadness and empathy for Kennedy. This passage, like Kennedy's death, which is featured in nearly every film about JFK, ignites strong emotions from the public, which feels close to JFK: people have the feeling that they know what he went through and felt.

In similar fashion, press agents of the JFK administration, and especially White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger represent another actor in the building of the Kennedy image. Together, the press secretary, the president, and JFK's official photographers Jacques Lowe, Stanley Tretick and Cecil Stoughton, created a universal appeal with a "narrative, with a protagonist, a setting, and a story presented within a discourse."<fnref n="104" /> They published photographs of the Kennedy family's everyday life featuring the president, accompanied by his wife and children, in magazines and newspapers, as White explains.¹⁰⁵ Even though some of the pictures taken by the White House photographers were natural, some were the result of a process of displaying Kennedy and his children. This can be illustrated notably in *Killing Kennedy* as a whole scene stages a photographer, taking pictures of JFK and JFK Jr playing together in the Oval Office. [00:33:53] It can be said to be staged as they have John Jr. sit on the chair and answer the phone while the photographer takes pictures. This scene is made to resemble archive footage as the shots are blurry, grainy and shaky. It is not a particularly important scene in terms of understanding of the story, but it has an important emotional, nearly nostalgic role, because of its vintage colors. Once again, it reinforces the drama that Kennedy's death provoked. He is pictured as a caring, loving and amusing father while the music can be called mournful, notably because of the instruments playing and the piano notes. The archive looking shots are followed by normal shots, and then by the photographs taken during the scene, in black and white. As figure four below emphasizes, the pictures are very similar to Stoughton's photographs from October 1962.

<footnote n="104">104 Hellmann, John. "JFK: The Author and the Text." *American Literary History* 2, no. 4 (1990): 743–55: 744
105 White in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 133</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4: Top: Cecil Stoughton, White House photographs, October 10, 1962. JFK Library and Museum, https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKWHP/1962/Month%2010/Day%2010/JFKWHP-1962-10-10-G.
Bottom: pictures taken in *Killing Kennedy*. McCormick, Nelson. *Killing Kennedy*. 2013</figcaption></figure>

This technique of seizing joyful family moments and publishing them in newspapers and magazines contributed to reinforce the perfect image of the presidential family, and thus increased support from the public: people identified with the Kennedys and found similarities between their family and the Kennedy family.

As far as Press Secretary Pierre Salinger is concerned, one film from this corpus in particular illustrates his role of link between the press and the government, and shows notably how information was coordinated and shared in order to create a certain image of the president. Indeed, *Thirteen Days* suggests that Salinger was not told about the military exercises that took place at the beginning of the Cuban crisis, so as not to create panic [00:32:37] and in similar fashion, journalist James Reston's remark about Operation ORTSAC is silenced by Kenny O'Donnell. [00:33:17] Furthermore, in order for the president to appear in control during the Cuban Missile Crisis, O'Donnell asks Salinger to tell the press that the president is sick during a trip to Chicago, so that he can come back to the White House and handle the situation, when cancelling the trip would have been suspicious. [00:36:54] Later on, Salinger is seen informing the press that the president will be coming back to Washington D.C. to see his doctor and rest. As a consequence, the press can be seen as careless, and ready to hide things from the public, in order to protect the president. In similar fashion, two other examples can be used to illustrate the type of relationship the government and the press maintained, the first one being the leaking of the missile trade to journalist Walter Lippman, as
mentioned in *Thirteen Days*: “We get a hold of Walter Lippmann, and we leak the idea of pulling our Jupiter missiles out of Turkey, and the Soviets pull their missiles out of Cuba.” [01:22:32] But in fact, what this example really suggest is that Kennedy and his press secretary were able to manipulate the press in order to make people believe they were the real saviors. In similar fashion, the concealement of JFK's extramarital relationship with Judith Campbells as suggested by Robert Kennedy in *Killing Kennedys* has been kept secret by journalists, even though they knew about it: “The press has been very good about looking the other way when it comes to...” [00:22:13] What is interesting to note thanks to these scenes is that lying to the press allows to protect the president from a negative image, yet, it is even more important to note that lies do not appear as the only way to deal with the press and that threats occurred too. Indeed, O'Donnell can be seen threatening journalist Reston by pushing him on a wall and cornering him as Reston mentions a possibility to invade Cuba in public: “If you print something like that, all you're going to do is inflame the situation. Nobody talks to assholes who inflame situations. Assholes like that can find themselves cut out of the loop.” [...] 'All right. I won't print anything until I have another source, but I promise you, I'll get one.'” [*Thirteen Days*, 00:37:54] As a consequence and as the films suggest, in times of crisis, agents controlled the image of the president in the press and on TV during press conferences or speeches, and displayed “a president who was calm, thoughtful, assertive, and in control. It was necessary to 'create' the image of a president that would give the world confidence of his success”<fnref n="106" /> according to Yamniuk. As a result, JFK's image remained one of a rational and wise commander in chief who controlled the situation during important times of crisis. All in all, JFK's relationship with journalists can be summarized in one scene from *Killing Kennedy*, in which he seems at ease with them and makes them laugh while telling a joke. [00:03:53] On the one hand, this scene suggests a trustful relationship between Kennedy and the press, but it also suggests Kennedy's charisma and magnetism as he attracts important journalists in his circle, as this paper shall later develop. On the other hand, to a certain extent, it can be seen as a negative control of the press by Kennedy, who thus has a power over the press and who blinds journalists with a joke. As they have the impression that they are friends with the president, they might not want to disappoint him nor risk their careers doing so.

As noted also by Hellmann<fnref n="107" />, many events of Kennedy's life also contributed to make his metamorphosis from an average man to a well-known politician possible: his experience at war, his role in the House of Representatives and later on in the Senate, his position, or lack of position concerning Joseph McCarthy's politics against communism, his “Bachelor” status,

<footnote n="106">106 Yamniuk, Stephanie Melinda. "Image and Text, the Creation of JFK as a Cultural Icon," 2000: 69</footnote>

<footnote n="107">107 Hellmann, John. "JFK: The Author and the Text." *American Literary History* 2, no. 4 (1990): 743–55</footnote>
and, because this status could impair his political career, his marriage to Jacqueline Bouvier, from another rich and political Bostonian family. Indeed, JFK's marriage to Jacqueline Bouvier can also be considered a tool bringing popularity. Jackie attracted journalists and the couple was a source of interest for the media, as suggested in episode eight from season two of *The Crown* for example. As the scene from the Kennedys' trip to France implies, Jackie had more success than JFK in France, hence his famous remark from 1961, also used in *The Crown*: "I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris." [00:45:52] Together, the couple became famously loved by Americans, but also by the world, like actors, as Yamniuk quotes from Mailer:

> 'He would be not only the youngest president ever to be chosen by vote, he would be the most conventionally attractive young man ever to sit in the White House, and his wife – some would claim it – might be the most beautiful first lady in Our history' going on to add somewhat sarcastically, 'America's politics would now be also America's favorite movie, America's first soap opera, America's best-seller.'<fnref n="108" />

Finally, the hordes of photographers following Kennedy, as illustrated in films when he leaves Air Force One in Connecticut [00:25:56] and in Chicago [00:36:35] in *Thirteen Days*, but also in France [00:03:18] and when he arrives to Buckingham Palace [00:11:19] in *The Crown* show that Kennedy's image is an image made for the media. Indeed, people gawk when they see the couple, scream, the public wants to touch JFK's hand, and even notable people such as Prince Philip are impatient to meet the Kennedys, as suggested by episode eight from season two of *The Crown*. The controlled and flawless image presented the public with a "politician as a movie star"<fnref n="109" />, and he was thus endowed with crafted qualities and became a public icon, representing a hero, and even the country, or "democracy itself."<fnref n="110" />

### 3) Creating a character

JFK thus created his character, and his portrayal can be summarized into one word, as his wife Jacqueline Kennedy put it after his death in her interview for *Life Magazine* with journalist Theodore White: "Camelot." *Camelot* was a 1960 Broadway musical which revolved around the Arthurian legend, but it was also a favorite of Kennedy, and as Jackie explains in her interview, he used to listen to the records of the musical on numerous occasions:

> 'At night, before we'd go to sleep, Jack liked to play some records; and the song he loved most came at the very end of this record. The lines he loved to hear were:

<footnote n="108">108 Yamniuk, Stephanie Melinda. "Image and Text, the Creation of JFK as a Cultural Icon," 2000: 78, quoting Mailer, 1963</footnote>

<footnote n="109">109 Hellmann, John. "JFK: The Author and the Text." *American Literary History* 2, no. 4 (1990): 743–55: 748</footnote>

<footnote n="110">110 Yamniuk, Stephanie Melinda. "Image and Text, the Creation of JFK as a Cultural Icon," 2000: 2</footnote>
Don't let it be forgot/that once there was a spot/for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.'<fnref n="111" />

"Camelot" encompasses ideas of an "American court," a new generation of Americans, governed by JFK, who were educated and prepared to lead the United States into the modern world with dynamism, or in other words: "He remains a powerful symbol of a lost moment, of a soaring idealism and hopefulness that subsequent generations still try to recover. His allure – the romantic, almost mystic, associations his name evokes – not only survives but flourishes."<fnref n="112" /> In Camelot, JFK is a character, and "the once-ordinary citizen is now a moviestar superhero – and vice versa – because of what the public thinks they know about him."<fnref n="113" /> The "one brief shining moment" from the musical lyrics that Jackie mentions in White's article thus summarizes particularly well what Kennedy now seems to represent. After she mentions Kennedy's youth spent reading in bed because of illnesses, Jackie links Kennedy to the heroes of History he read about: "For Jack, history was full of heroes. [...] Jack had this hero idea of history, the idealistic view."<fnref n="114" /> It can be said that he was turned into a hero thanks to his control of his image, but also because of his death. Indeed, his brutal death meant that there would never be another "Camelot" again, in other words, America has lost its royal family and its "one brief shining moment" when Kennedy died, as the lyrics put it and as White recalls: "But she came back to the idea that transfixed her: Don't let it be forgot/that once there was a spot/for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot and it will never be that way again."<fnref n="115" /> The final words of this quote are also to be found in *Killing Kennedy*, when Jackie is seen giving White the interview [01:26:26] that led to the publication of his famous article. In the end, it is possible to say that JFK became the hero of his own Camelot, but that the curtain of his musical fell when he died.

Failures, if ever revealed in the press or on TV were presented as part of "'the archetypal myth of the hero who acquires spiritual insight through suffering and experience' (Brown 20), just as his untimely assassination meant that he could be eulogized as a leader who had not been able to realize his full potential."<fnref n="116" /> Indeed, because his control of his image produced a certain vision of the man in people's minds, JFK appears to be recognized as a hero in the common imagination, and it seems rather natural that he then was depicted as such in movies made about his life, even though archives, slowly made available, revealed negative

<footnote n="111">111 White, Theodore H. "For President Kennedy: An Epilogue." *Life Magazine*, December 6, 1963</footnote>

<footnote n="112">112 Brinkley, Alan. "The Legacy of John F. Kennedy." *The Atlantic*, September 18, 2013</footnote>

<footnote n="113">113 Yamniuk, Stephanie Melinda. "Image and Text, the Creation of JFK as a Cultural Icon," 2000: 70</footnote>

<footnote n="114">114 White, Theodore H. "For President Kennedy: An Epilogue." *Life Magazine*, December 6, 1963</footnote>

<footnote n="115">115 *Idem*.</footnote>

<footnote n="116">116 Yamniuk, Stephanie Melinda. "Image and Text, the Creation of JFK as a Cultural Icon," 2000: 31-32, quoting Brown, 1988</footnote>
aspects of JFK's life. Because they “have been fascinated by and contributed to the canon of Kennedy history,”<fnref n="117" /> directors and producers are thus the last actor in the forging of the Kennedy image, as they contributed to fuel his mythical portrait.

## II) Characteristics of the hero

The main character of a film, often the “hero” of a film, has to follow certain characteristics. In other words, heroes have to follow benevolent principles and act out of selflessness in order to help others, as *PT-109* perfectly exemplifies. Thanks to an overview of heroism, this part will allow to see how Kennedy fits into the role of the hero in films about him, but also in other films, such as in *The Butler* and *LBJ*, thanks to his personality, his charisma and his courage.

### 1) Overview of hero worshipping

This paper has previously shown that JFK, and the people surrounding him, controlled his image in order to build a positive and flawless portrait of the president. As a consequence, elements provided to the population and to directors and screenwriters, despite archives being progressively available to the public, produced a heroic image of the man in the common imagination and in films, that in turn pushes people to worship and idealize him. In order to analyze Kennedy's heroic depiction in the films of this corpus, it seems useful to determine first the origins of heroes and what are their characteristics. The aim of this more theoretical overview of heroism is to allow this analysis to focus on the traits that link Kennedy with heroism, in the interest of pointing out the way in which he is idealized. Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle explains that everyone has a hero to worship.<fnref n="118" /> This shows the importance and influence of heroes and worshipping in society. As a consequence, the term “hero” seems to encompass a variety of individuals who share, to a certain extent, the same values: be a model for society by enhancing, helping and protecting others courageously despite risks, or in other words, by having an “exceptional behavior”<fnref n="119" /> which pushes people to worship, or at least appreciate them. Yet, even though every individual is capable of heroic behavior, heroes have been qualified as such according to features commonly considered close to Gods' and masculine since antiquity: “Heroes in antiquity were revered for their strength, courage,

<footnote n="117">117 White in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 132</footnote>

<footnote n="118">118 Praphrasing Allison, Scott T., George R. Goethals, and Roderick M. Kramer, eds. *Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Leadership*. Taylor & Francis, 2017: 1, quoting Carlyle, 1841</footnote>

<footnote n="119">119 Kinsella, Ritchie, and Igou, in *Allison, Scott T., George R. Goethals, and Roderick M. Kramer, eds. Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Leadership*. Taylor & Francis, 2017: 20</footnote>
resourcefulness, and ability to slay enemies.”<fnref n="120" />

In order to classify heroes, three categories have been established by Kinsella, Ritchie, and Igou. The first one, which includes everyday heroes such as policemen, firemen and paramedics, is referred to as the martial one. JFK belongs in a sense to this first category thanks to his experience as a soldier during the Second World War. As a soldier, he contributed to the war effort, risked his life, and helped his country to win the war as this paper shall later develop thanks to the analysis of JFK's character in *PT-109*. In addition, there are civil heroes, who risk their lives for others without belonging to an institution providing them with a code of conduct. Eventually, the last category of heroes is composed of social heroes. Social heroes take risks, but not necessarily physically. Among the examples provided by Kinsella, Ritchie, and Igou for this category are “whistleblowers, scientific heroes, martyrs, Good Samaritans, underdogs, political figures, religious figures, adventurers, politico-religious figures, and bureaucratic heroes.”<fnref n="121" /> Accordingly, this category is the one in which JFK could mostly be classified as a president, as he took certain risky decisions for the greater good of the country.

According to Campbell, a typical hero goes on a journey into an unfamiliar world and meets obstacles and villains on the way. In order to overcome obstacles and defeat villains, the hero needs the help of important figures such as his friends and his mentor. Throughout his journey, the hero learns truths about himself, grows and changes. He acquires an important quality that he lacked at the beginning of his journey and brings back a benefit to his world.<fnref n="122" /> Indeed, “the universal hero myth, for example, always refers to a powerful man or god-man who vanquishes evil in the form of dragons, serpents, monsters, demons, and so on, who liberates his people from destruction and death. [...] The hero prototype is, at its most rudimentary level, the framework of an individual who combats the forces of evil.”<fnref n="123" /> Accordingly, JFK could be considered a hero once again, thanks to his battle as the United States president against the Soviets, who would represent the “dragons, serpents, monsters, demons and so on.” Americans, or followers, would thus identify with their hero who defeated evil forces, and celebrate him. In other words, the aim of a hero is to improve the lives of others, and to do so, the hero has to defeat what is commonly feared, under the form of a villain as a person or a threat. Indeed, heroism is the “willingness to sacrifice or take risks on

<footnote n="120">120 Allison, Scott T., George R. Goethals, and Roderick M. Kramer, eds. *Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Leadership*. Taylor & Francis, 2017: 2, quoting Schein, 1984</footnote>

<footnote n="121">121 Kinsella, Ritchie, and Igou, *in* Allison, Scott T., George R. Goethals, and Roderick M. Kramer, eds. *Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Leadership*. Taylor & Francis, 2017: 24, quoting Zimbardo, 2007</footnote>

<footnote n="122">122 Paraphrasing Allison, Scott T., George R. Goethals, and Roderick M. Kramer, eds. *Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Leadership*. Taylor & Francis, 2017: 3, quoting Campbell, 1949</footnote>

<footnote n="123">123 Davie, Gavin. "The Hero Soldier: Portrayals of Soldiers in War Films," 2011: 4-5, quoting Jung, 1968</footnote>
behalf of others or in defense of a moral cause.”<sup>124</sup> In that sense, it can be said that JFK was a hero, as he was at the time the leader and the protector of the nation against threats such as a nuclear war for example, as illustrated in *Thirteen Days* and *Killing Kennedy*.

Finally, as Bergstrand and Jasper suggest, “scholars also tend to agree to say that a hero's purpose is also to serve as a “rallying point, increase agreement among members, and boost commitment to a cause.”<sup>125</sup> Heroes are thus an important factor in terms of group and culture dynamics as they create a sense of belonging to a community and manage to create a certain unity of actions towards a more positive future:

> On a group level, Klapp suggests that heroes organize and simplify collective responses by enlisting interest in causes and creating mass followings, heightening a sense of 'we', and strengthening morale by focusing collecting efforts and complexities on one individual. Groups of people may draw together to praise and support a hero, which reaffirms group values. Heroes may also perpetuate collective values and socially necessary virtues (such as courage, self-sacrifice, hatred of evil) across generations.<sup>126</sup>

Unity appears to be an important point for this analysis when dealing with Kennedy, as the president has to be able to create cohesion in the country in order to be appreciated and followed, and as a consequence, in order to take concrete steps to move the country forward. To a certain extent, as a Roman Catholic, he knew the importance of unity as he received criticism about his religion, notably during the primaries of the campaign, and later on during his presidency, even though he won the election as this analysis will develop in its last chapter. As a matter of fact, his religion played an important role in the election as he was nearly discredited because of it: “Kennedy won the presidency in one of the closest elections in American history—by a margin of 118,000 votes out of 69 million. There is solid evidence that religion helped Kennedy in several urban and industrial states but was, at the same time, a significant factor in his loss of Ohio, Kentucky, Florida, and Tennessee—and in his very close win in Texas.”<sup>127</sup> As a consequence, considering the fact that he was a minority himself, it is possible to say that JFK's choice to constitute an inclusive government was oriented toward the population, in order to represent it as completely as possible, and in order for people to feel included into the government. Indeed, as a Roman Catholic and a Liberal Democrat of Irish origins, he needed a Southern and Conservative counterpart, which he found by naming

<footnote n="124">124 Allison, Scott T., George R. Goethals, and Roderick M. Kramer, eds. *Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Leadership*. Taylor & Francis, 2017: 4, quoting Franco et al., 2001</footnote>

<footnote n="125">125 Bergstrand, Kelly, and James M. Jasper. “Villains, Victims, and Heroes in Character Theory and Affect Control Theory.” *Social Psychology Quarterly* 81, no. 3 (September 2018): 228–47: 229</footnote>

<footnote n="126">126 Kinsella, Ritchie, and Igou, *in* Allison, Scott T., George R. Goethals, and Roderick M. Kramer, eds. *Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Leadership*. Taylor & Francis, 2017: 25</footnote>

<footnote n="127">127 JFK Library and Museum. “John F. Kennedy and Religion | JFK Library.” JFK Library and Museum website.</footnote>
Johnson his vice-president, as illustrated in *LBJ*. In addition, by naming Arthur J. Goldberg, who had Russian-Jewish origins, his Secretary of Labor, Abraham Ribicoff, who had Polish-Jewish origins, and then Anthony Joseph Celebrezze, who was born in Italy, his Secretaries of Health, Education and Welfare, C. Douglas Dillon, who was born in Switzerland, his Secretary of the Treasury, and finally Dean Rusk, who was a Presbyterian who grew up in poverty, as his Secretary of State, he broadened the ethics of his government. Furthermore, in the first year of his presidency, Kennedy established the President's Commission on the Status of Women, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, and which aimed at analyzing and reducing inequalities for women in the workplace. In addition, although her work is the subject of controversy, JFK also appointed the first female presidential physician, Janet Travell. Finally, although Gates Jr. points out in his article from the Roots website entitled "How black was JFK's Camelot?"<fnref n="128" /> that JFK's political decisions on segregation and racism were part of a crafted political strategy, JFK nonetheless appointed African Americans to important positions. Among them, he notably named Andrew T. Hatcher Associate White House Press Secretary. Hatcher's mission was to "help Kennedy navigate the icy relationship between whites and Blacks in America at the time."<fnref n="129" /> In addition, he also named Robert Weaver Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency. Finally, in 1961, he designated Abraham Bolden White House Secret Service Agent, making him the first African American to hold a position in the Presidential Protective Division. Moreover, even though the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity's work is diminished in *LBJ*, JFK nonetheless created it to insure equality of employment without discrimination based on race, origin or religion. All in all, JFK can be seen as the unifier of the country, as he created a balance and managed to have a great variety of people joining his administration in the battles of the period against soviet threats and inequality. Yet, on top of his legislative actions, it can be said that Kennedy's personality matched with the typical traits attributed to heroes and played a role in his idealization.

## 2) The Kennedy mystique.

In addition to actions or decisions facilitating his idealization as this paper showed, Kennedy's personality, or the Kennedy mystique, also attracted supporters. As a consequence, some important character traits usually related to hero worshipping appear to be essential to mention as they particularly apply to what is commonly believed about JFK, and thus also

<footnote n="128">128 Gates Jr., Henry Louis. "How Black Was JFK's Camelot?," November 18, 2013</footnote>

<footnote n="129">129 Chandler, D.L. "Little Known Black History Fact: Andrew Hatcher." *Black America Web*, November 10, 2016</footnote>
contribute to the fueling of his idealized representation.

The first and most obvious one is charisma, which applies so remarkably well to Kennedy that a Kennedyesque version of charisma is said to exist. In order to define charisma and apply it to JFK, this analysis will focus on Potts' *A History of Charisma*, which offers a broad and complete vision of the uses of the term charisma through time, starting with the origin of charisma: religion. Charisma used to suggest a connection to God, or a spiritual gift of God's grace offered to a group. Although it emerged in the early Christian church of the first century, the term was forgotten after the third century and its revival occured when Weber, a German social theorist offered a new definition for it, at the beginning of the 20th century, in his 1922 *Wirtschaft und Gesselschaft*.<fnref n="130" /> Weber's definition of charisma is broader than religion and goes as follows: “The term 'charisma' will be applied to a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities.”<fnref n="131" /> As this quotation points out, Weber emphasizes the charisma of single individuals who are endowed with certain exceptional qualities, and in that sense, he parts with the Christian definition of the term. One scene from *PT-109* may suggest that JFK is extraordinary compared to other soldiers. Indeed, when he arrives on his base in the Pacific, he has to cross the camp to join Lieutenant Cluster. A long shot allows the audience to see most of the camp and the men inhabiting it, and JFK, in the middle of it, appears as a source of light. Indeed, he is the only one wearing beige in a background of darker colors, such as blue, brown, black and green. [00:08:02]

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>Figure 5: screenshot from *PT-109*. Martinson, Leslie H. *PT 109*. 1963.</figcaption></figure>

In addition, a medium shot allows to see him from the side, walking past a portal saying

<footnote n="130">130 Potts, John. *A History of Charisma*. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2009: 109</footnote>

<footnote n="131">131 *Ibid.*: 117, quoting Weber, 1922</footnote>
"THRU THESE PORTALS PASS THE BEST MTB MEN IN THE WORLD." [00:08:10]
This shot gives the impression that Kennedy, smiling, does not need to walk through this portal to be one of the best, he already is extraordinary because of his outfit and attitude. Finally, this scene ends in Lieutenant Cluster's office. When Kennedy enters the room, he has to wake up Cluster. The low angle shot of this moment in particular may suggest that Kennedy is superior to Cluster, who is also in his underwear while JFK is well-dressed. [00:09:08]

In addition to exceptional qualities, what connects charisma to heroism can also be found in the role that Weber attributed to charismatic leaders. Indeed, for him, charismatic leaders, like heroes, serve as a rallying point, as people create excitement around them, and are devoted "to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him."<fnref n="132" /> In other words, people's attraction to charismatic leaders is thus in a sense natural, and although Weber uses the term "domination", this "domination" relationship is, according to Potts<fnref n="133" />, contrary to "bureaucracy," or hierarchy. Indeed, people react to charismatic leaders with their emotions, not because they have to submit. Accordingly, people's devotion to Kennedy is illustrated in the films of this corpus in the form of crowds, waiting for him on airport fields or in the streets, screaming, waving or holding banners notably at the Dallas Love Field airport or in the streets of the city [Killing Kennedy, 01:04:10 and 01:05:05; LBJ, 00:01:48 and 00:07:53], on the day of his death, but also in France or in London as shown in season two episode eight of The Crown. [00:03:18 and 00:11:08] In addition, JFK is pictured as a crowd man in LBJ, as the commentator can be heard saying: "The crowd is jockeying for a better look at the president. Wait, no. The president has walked past the motorcade... ...and he's making his way towards the crowd" [00:02:25] and as he takes time to meet the crowd and shake hands with people. Another important moment suggesting the support of people is represented in certain films: JFK's funerals. Indeed, Kennedy's funeral took place in Washington D.C. on the 25th of November 1963, and as pictured in Killing Kennedy [01:25:35] and LBJ [01:09:03], people gathered in the streets to see the procession of his casket. Eventually, one last scene seems important to understand the relation that JFK shared with the crowd. Indeed, as pictured in season two episode eight of The Crown, JFK can be perceived as an extraordinary orator, who was able to captivate the crowd when delivering a speech. During a dinner scene, as the wide shot shows, he is at the center of the frame, but also at the center of the room and of the tables. Moreover, he is standing, while others are sitting, which may suggest a superiority, but also a sense that his voice will reach people. The

<footnote n="132">132 Potts, John. *A History of Charisma*. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2009: 117, quoting Weber, 1922</footnote>

<footnote n="133">133 *Ibid.*: 120</footnote>
wide shot also allows to see people's faces, turned attentively towards him, as the silence suggests. [00:35:14] Finally, the few shots on people, especially women, as this paper shall later develop, listening to him, captivated and nodding [35:44, 35:49, 35:54 and 36:19] prove his extraordinary magnetism.

Finally, as charismatic leaders also include American politics as Potts puts it: “ranging from ancient religion to contemporary (1913) American politics<fnref n="134" />”, a new link can be created between charisma and Kennedy. Indeed, as an American politician and as the President of the United States, he had to respond to situations of crisis with extraordinary qualities, as this paper shall later develop.<fnref n="135" />

Weber's definition of charisma adopted a new meaning in the 1950s, and this meaning remained the same until today. Indeed, the contemporary meaning of charisma is provided by Potts: “Charisma is broadly understood as a special innate quality that sets certain individuals apart and draws others to them.”<fnref n="136" /> In that sense, as Potts explains, the definition still retains elements from Weber's definition in terms of charisma being an irrational force, yet it is at the same time adjusted to its contemporary meaning, which is more broadly and commonly used in the media for example, and which now includes celebrities, and takes into account the role of settings and followers. Furthermore, since the 1950s and 1960s, the increasing frequency of the use of the term came to play a role in politics as since that period, “politicians are frequently assessed on their charisma factor.”<fnref n="137" /> In addition, charisma can play an important role in elections too, as

> despite the controlling power of bureaucratic party machines, charisma retains a role in the democratic political process: Weber nominates the ‘charisma of rhetoric’ evident in electioneering ‘stump speeches’. The ‘purely emotional’ effect of charismatic rhetoric may occasionally build into a case of ‘charismatic hero worship’, where a political candidate or leader generates so much emotional appeal that even the party machine must fall into service of this charisma.<fnref n="138" />

This quotation suggests that charismatic leaders, like TV celebrities, could and can be so intensely appealing to the audience that they produce an excitement that overcomes reason, as the description of the TV broadcast presidential debates described earlier in this analysis illustrate. A link between charisma and Kennedy can be drawn once again, as JFK is one of the important figures people think about when they think about politics and charisma, thanks to his magnetism, his appeal, his sense of humor, his good looks and the excitement he

<footnote n="134">134 Potts, John. *A History of Charisma*. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2009: 122</footnote>

<footnote n="135">135 *Idem*, quoting Weber, 1922</footnote>

<footnote n="136">136 *Ibid.*: 188</footnote>

<footnote n="137">137 *Ibid.*: 4</footnote>

<footnote n="138">138 *Ibid.*: 125</footnote>
created in people, in other words, "exceptional qualities" also called the "Kennedy Mystique".

The Kennedy Mystique is translated by Kennedy's unfading smile in *PT-109*, but also by his sense of humor notably and accordingly by his easiness with people in all films. As a consequence, it is possible to hear JFK tell fine jokes even though the situation seems inappropriate such as in *PT-109*, when he is only given a few days to rebuild his patrol boat with no crew: "'How long did they give you to put it in shape ?' 'Well, we've used about half the time just talking right here.' 'What about the crew ?' 'So far I got uh... one land crab.'" [00:17:27] In similar fashion, even though the crew's cook can only make sandwiches, he manages to turn a desperate situation into a funny one: "'Any of you men know how to cook?' 'Cook? Yeah, yeah, I used to fix some stuff for my kid brother, sir.' 'Good, you're our new cook. What kind of stuff?' 'Peanut butter sandwiches, sir.' 'Nothing else?' 'Oh, sometimes I'd stick some jelly on them, sir.' 'Well, ah.. maybe you could cook up a third speciality, huh?'" [00:21:07] Finally, whereas he and his men are stranded on an island after their patrol boat was torn down by the Japanese, he stays positive: "'The odds are on our side.' 'Boy you kill me, you really do! Here we are, beat and burned and given up for dead, living on green coconuts and no water in the middle of 1500 Japanese soldiers and you decide the odds are with us!' 'It's a flaw in my character.'" [01:55:04] In similar fashion, just as the Cuban Missile Crisis ends in *Killing Kennedy*, he states: "Maybe tonight's the night I should go to the theater." [00:33:44] Furthermore, some jokes in the other films also suggest that he is not pretentious about his life nor his position, such as in *Killing Kennedy* for example: "The reporter... A young woman, very attractive, asked me uh... 'Senator Kennedy, how did you do to become a war hero?' when I told her that it was completely involuntary, they sank my boat" [00:03:50], "I would say that being president is a fine job... It's a fine job. I get to walk to work and the pay is nice;" [00:16:36] and in similar fashion, as he meets the White House staff in *The Butler*: "'Hello everyone.' 'Mr President.' 'Uh... I am thrilled to be working with all of you over the next four years.' 'Eight years Jack.' 'Well you see who wears the pants around here!'" [00:48:05] Eventually, some of his jokes suggest that he is not scared to tease people, and the fact that they laugh and do not get hurt proves his easiness and ability to make people confortable, such as in *Thirteen Days* when he exits Air Force One and asks the crowd: "Doesn't anybody in Connecticut have to work today ?" [00:26:08] or in *LBJ*, as JFK explains to Johnson that he won the democratic nomination for other reasons than because he was better than him: "'Better men won.' 'I'm not better. Better looking maybe.'" [00:18:01]

In fact, according to Potts, Kennedy changed the definition of charisma: "The significant factor in this shift is the advent of John F. Kennedy to the American presidency,
understanding of the risks involved, and the acceptance of those risks and the presence of
danger, risk, or potential injury.”<fnref n="144" />

Even though physical strength is not the most obvious heroic trait concerning
Kennedy, he showed evidence of it throughout his life, despite his illnesses, notably at war,
and it can be argued that “Wars provide the opportunities for soldiers to prove themselves
heroes through deed,”<fnref n="145" /> as Davie puts it. Indeed, on the night of August 1st 1943, during the
second World War, the patrol torpedo boat 109, or PT-109, on which JFK was the skipper, was
sunk by a Japanese destroyer. The shipwreck caused Kennedy to hurt his already painful back
(JFK had suffered from many operations for back problems throughout his life as this analysis
shall later explain) and the men under Kennedy's command were also more or less injured.
When they reached the decision to leave the remains of the patrol torpedo boat and swim to
one of the nearby islands of the Salomons, Kennedy nonetheless showed great physical
strength as “He cut loose one end of a long strap on McMahon’s Mae West and took the end
in his teeth. He swam breast stroke, pulling the helpless McMahon along on his back. It took
over five hours to reach the island. Water lapped into Kennedy’s mouth through his clenched
teeth, and he swallowed a lot.”<fnref n="146" /> This particular moment is depicted in *PT-109* and the
emphasis is put on Kennedy's character. Indeed, many medium close-ups show Kennedy by
himself, pulling McMahon, the strap of his life-vest clenched in Kennedy's teeth. [1:33:25,
1:34:22 and 1:35:05] On the other hand, the rest of the crew is shown as a group thanks to
long shots. Furthermore, except for ensign Leonard J. Thom, starred by Ty Hardin and thus
recognizable thanks to his blonde hair, the others are nearly indistinguishable.

After they arrived on one of the islands, Kennedy departed to swim again from this
island to another in order to find other PT boats near Ferguson Passage. The full shot
picturing his departure also accentuates the special status Kennedy receives throughout the
film. Indeed, as he enters the water, he seems to stand alone confronting the ocean [01:42:44],
while the others are behind him, grouped on the island. Moreover, the notes playing in the
exact four seconds it takes him to enter the water [from 01:42:44 to 01:42:48] recall notes
from the American anthem, the Star Spangled Banner, suggesting the bravery he demonstrates
for his country. Finally, the warm tones of the scene, which are due to the setting sun, may
also suggest optimism.

<footnote n="144">144 Jayawickreme, Eranda, and Paul Di Stefano. “How Can We Study Heroism? Integrating Persons, Situations and Communities.” *Political Psychology* 33, no. 1 (2012): 165–78: 169</footnote>

<footnote n="145">145 Davie, Gavin. “The Hero Soldier: Portrayals of Soldiers in War Films,” 2011: 8</footnote>

<footnote n="146">146 JFK Library and Museum “John F. Kennedy and PT 109.” JFK Library and Museum website.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>Figure 6: screenshot from *PT-109*. Martinson, Leslie H. *PT 109*. 1963.</figcaption></figure>

Although Kennedy nearly died returning from Ferguson Passage because of the currents, he nonetheless spent the next days swimming again from one island to the other, looking for food and fresh water. As a consequence of his trips, JFK encountered two natives who happened to be American allies. He wrote a message on the back of a coconut that said "NAURO ISL COMMANDER . . . NATIVE KNOWS POS'IT . . . HE CAN PILOT . . . 11 ALIVE NEED SMALL BOAT . . . KENNEDY<sup>147</sup>," hoping that the islanders would bring it to American troops. Kennedy received a positive response and the natives brought him to the nearby American base. There, he organized the rescue of his crew. For his deeds in the Pacific, JFK received the Navy and Marine Corps medal and the Purple Heart medal. Thanks to the courage Kennedy demonstrated by risking to encounter enemy troops while swimming at sea to find resources and help, and thanks to the strength he deployed to pull one of his crew members for miles in the Pacific, it can be said that in a way, JFK saved his crew. War thus revealed Kennedy's physical strength, courage and leadership, depiste his health and special condition as a Kennedy. His traits and actions while at war facilitated his idealized depiction and made it easier for people to worship him. His status as a war hero added to the already constructed Kennedy mystique and contributed to the forging of his ideal political image, which helped him to overcome crises once president.

### III)The Hero overcomes Crises

Since the beginning of his life, John F. Kennedy has been a source of fascination and inspiration for creation because of his heroic traits and actions, which are transcribed and used in the movies and series made about him as previously seen. These films and series, in which

<footnote n="147">147 JFK Library and Museum "John F. Kennedy and PT 109." JFK Library and Museum website.</footnote>
JFK's character is either central or a considerable figure, find their starting point in the 1960s (*PT 109*, 1963) and continued to be produced until very recently (*LBJ*, 2017; *The Crown*, Season 2 Episode 8, 2017), showing the evergoing fascination for the man, even decades after his death. Yet, heroization in productions is made easier by some narrative tools such as National Security Cinema, which will be dealt with thanks to three films from this corpus: *PT-109, Thirteen Days* and *Killing Kennedy*, and the depiction of moral crisis such as in *The Butler* and *LBJ*. In other words, cinematic productions and directors allow to reinforce the Kennedy myth as this part shall demonstrate.

## 1) National Security Cinema or Creating a Threat

Productions display crisis, mostly in order to call for heroism and to praise the president who brings peace back to the country and the world thanks to the traits that make him a hero, compared to the rest of the population. In other words, as Franco puts it:

> When faced with a crisis, it is the hero's ability to act differently than many of her companions [...] that in part defines her actions as heroic. One of the simplest definitions of a 'crisis' [...] can be summarized as follows: A crisis is an event or occasion in which things that are widely valued by human social systems are deeply threatened in an unanticipated manner, and the demand for resources to address the catastrophic even outstrips available capacity.<fnref n="148" />

Because they are historical films, many productions featuring JFK as a character focus on the management of the Cuban crisis, the USSR and more generally, relations with the enemy: an important theme of JFK's presidency. In productions, this particular theme can be identified as “National Security Cinema”<fnref n="149" /> and it derives from the “Production of Strategy”<fnref n="150" /> according to scholar Jean-Michel Valantin.

In National Security Cinema, the country is seen as a Utopia, a “city upon a hill” in Valantin's words, confronted to danger, threatened by enemy forces that do not match with the American model and thus produce fear. The threat can take many forms such as another country (in American productions: the USSR and Middle-East particularly, or Germany, Japan, and Vietnam in American war films), terrorists, supernatural forces or even extra terrestrial individuals. In that respect, threats to the United States can be perceived as villains according to Character Theory (CT). CT defines characters such as heroes, villains and victims based on their traditional features. It uses two basic dimensions to differenciate

<footnote n="148">148 Franco paraphrasing Quarantelly, 1985 in Allison, Scott T., George R. Goethals, and Roderick M. Kramer, eds. *Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Leadership*. Taylor & Francis, 2017: 187-188</footnote>

<footnote n="149">149 Valantin, Jean-Michel. *Hollywood, the Pentagon and Washington*. Anthem Press, 2005: ix</footnote>

<footnote n="150">150 *Idem*</footnote>
characters: “moral quality as shown through good or bad intentions and actions”<fnref n="151" /> and “power, separating those who are relatively weak or ineffectual from those who can get things done.”<fnref n="152" /> Heroes are defined, of course, as powerful and well-intentioned, and they perform righteous actions. On the other hand, anti-heroes, or villains, are powerful as well, but lack the goodness of heroes. Indeed, National Security Cinema strategically deploys villains characterized as “malevolent and strong enough to menace others, lending some urgency to stopping them. [...] To present villains as both powerful and secretive is to heighten the urgency. We construct villains for the powerful emotions they inspire in audiences who fear and hate them.”<fnref n="153" /> The presence of evil villains, and the contrast revealed by the interactions between heroes and villains allow to reinforce the qualities of the hero, and the innocence and distress of the victims (citizens of the US and the world in the cases studied for this analysis.) In National Security Cinema films, Kennedy is thus pictured as a hero thanks to his actions and his moral integrity in opposition to the villains'.

The most recurrent villain portrayed in films about JFK is embodied by the Soviets. Because of the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, the term “Soviets” in American productions is often associated with nuclear weapons and fear. In *Thirteen Days*, which entirely deals with the Cuban Crisis, the sense of fear and threat is created as soon as the first shot of the film appears: a nuclear missile exploding into a mushroom cloud, and indeed: “The opening of the film itself, which shows a series of nuclear explosions, dramatizes the stakes in the missile crisis. The intent is to show what could occur if Kennedy (and, by implication, Khrushchev) got it wrong.”<fnref n="154" /> As American films follow the 13 days of the Cuban Crisis from the point of view of the American side, the Soviets are obviously portrayed as aggressive and unreliable: “'How could Khrushchev do that?' 'Last night he sent you a cable saying he'd pull those missiles out.' 'And now this... public announcement demanding we pull our missiles out of Turkey.'” [*Killing Kennedy*, 00:32:16] Henceforth, the Soviets' acts are described as the “subject of the highest national urgency” [00:45:25] in *Thirteen Days*: they have no sense of goodness or rationality as they illegally introduced missiles on Cuba that, if launched, could kill millions of Americans up to Seattle, as stated in the film. The idea that the Soviets are the villains is reinforced by expressions employed to refer to the USSR: “those red bastards,” [*Thirteen Days*, 00:28:39] “the big red dog,” [*Thirteen Days*, 00:31:52] “The Soviet understands only one language: action. It respects only one word: force.” [*Thirteen*

<footnote n="151">151 Bergstrand, Kelly, and James M. Jasper. “Villains, Victims, and Heroes in Character Theory and Affect Control Theory.” *Social Psychology Quarterly* 81, no. 3 (September 2018): 228–47: 230</footnote>

<footnote n="152">152 *Idem*.</footnote>

<footnote n="153">153 *Ibid.*: 231</footnote>

<footnote n="154">154 White in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 141</footnote>
Furthermore, in *Killing Kennedy*, the sense of fear is emphasized by the fact that no Soviet really appears on screen, only the weapons they install on Cuba are presented thanks to archive footage of TV news and pictures of the launching pads and missiles on the island. Even though the same technique is used in most of *Thirteen Days*, two important Soviet figures appear towards the end of the film: Alexander Feklisov, who is part of a private talk and a back channel between the USSR and the American Government, and Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin, who discusses a secret deal with Robert Kennedy. The narrative role that both play is of great importance as they transmit information to Khrushchev that allows to resolve the conflict, yet, both are portrayed as repulsive, cold and strongminded individuals. Indeed, Feklisov's black turtleneck makes him mysterious and his smirks provoke distrust, and Dobrynin's Russian accent and closed face make him the embodiment of the Soviet Union.

Finally, elements such as the presence of archive footage of people and pupils rehearsing and protecting themselves in case of nuclear attack intensifies the sense of emergency, and thus push the public to fear the unknown and threatening Soviets, as White suggests.<fnref n="155" />

Another people is recognized as a threat in *PT-109*: the Japanese. Indeed, as a war production, the film deals with JFK's experience in the Pacific during the second World War. Indeed, JFK and his crew are not in a position of power: they have lost their boat and as a consequence, they have to swim from one island to the other to look for food, fresh water and rescue. On the other hand, the Japanese are the threat as they are portrayed in positions of power, patrolling their boats or bombarding the islands with their planes. Finally, they often appear at night, in dark colors so that their faces are barely visible, and their appearances are often accompanied by a menacing Japanese music.

Threat can also come from a single individual, as illustrated in *Killing Kennedy* by Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald is pictured as a dangerous man in *Killing Kennedy* as he tried to abandon his American nationality in order to become a citizen of the Soviet Union. Because of this and even though he did not abandon his American citizenship in the end, he is being followed by FBI agents who suspect him of being a communist. The questions they ask him reinforce Oswald's identification with the communist regime and are part of the questions asked by the government during the Red Scare that took place in the 1950s. In similar fashion, Oswald is also perceived as a traitor as he blackmails Ambassador Snyder at the American

<footnote n="155">155 White in Morgan, Iwan W., ed. *Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 140</footnote>
embassy office in Moscow: "I've told the Soviets that I know things. I had a very high-security clearance. I was a radar technician for the United States government. I am valuable.' 'You'd be a traitor.' 'I believe that what I'm doing is right. And now the Soviets will see that I'm serious. This will show them.'" [00:03:09] His traitor status is also reinforced by details such as his newspaper clipping stating "U.S. Marine Defects to Soviet Union," [00:07:23] his participation to a Trade Union Dance in Minsk, and his being clearly referred to as a spy. Finally, because of alarming elements such as his leaving his pro-American mother, his pride for his gun (with which he wants to be photographed), his beating his wife, his fierce opposition to the invasion of Cuba, his attempt to assassinate General Edwin Walker, and finally his fascination for Kennedy, Oswald is gradually portrayed as an evil man who will predicably attempt to kill the president.

The last source of threat that can be identified in the National Security Cinema films under study, although it does not appear as such at first sight, is the Army. Indeed, threat can also come from within the country if opinions are not shared, as power is divided between the White House, Congress and the Pentagon. Though it depends on the perspective, conflicts, when coming from the inside, often originate from the military as Valantin argues, and the military is often pictured as "dangerous anti-Soviet fanatics who require very close control"<fnref n="156" /> in films dealing with American-Soviet relationships. Indeed, this can be illustrated by the statements they make in *Killing Kennedy*, and by their obsession for strikes against the Soviets and Cuba in the film: "It is imperative that the United States provide air support," [00:11:18] "I say we launch a full-scale attack and invasion. B-52s out of Barksdale.' 'What, and start a war with Russia? You really want to risk an all-out nuclear war?' 'In a matter of days, those missiles will be operational. We have to act.'" [00:27:07] or "We need to act, and we need to act now." [00:11:43]

Moreover, the army also displays an active resentment against Kennedy in *Thirteen Days*, as Valantin suggests as well.<fnref n="157" /> Because they think "Let's hope appeasement doesn't run in the family. I feel weakness does,"[00:23:31] the Joint Chiefs decide to launch operations without consulting the president and thus disobey the executive orders and follow their own rules. Because they want action rather than a deal, they are putting the country in danger, and signal that the United States wants to escalate by firing fake bombs near one of the Soviet ships during the Cuban blockade. Kennedy thus has to reassert his authority over the army: "I must suffer from amnesia. I am the authority, I am the commander in chief of the US and I say when we go to war." [01:20:49] In similar fashion, the army is pictured as having tricked

<footnote n="156">156 Valantin, Jean-Michel. *Hollywood, the Pentagon and Washington*. Anthem Press, 2005: 4</footnote>

<footnote n="157">157 *Idem*.</footnote>
JFK into invading Cuba during the events of the Bay of Pigs in *Killing Kennedy*: "You people are so anxious to cover your own asses, all you want to do is dump this on the President," [00:13:44] causing the president to think that he was "stupid" [00:12:46] to believe them, and "too young, too soft. [...] I'm supposed to be the most powerful man in the world and I... I'm omnipotent." [00:12:52]

As a consequence of these different and numerous "hero against villain" oppositions, Kennedy's heroic depiction is made easier in these films thanks to the devices of National Security Cinema. In films dealing with American-Soviet relationships, whereas the Soviets are sneaky, quarrel-picking and bullying, on the contrary, Kennedy embodies the millions of Americans that could lose their lives and their beloved ones in the conflict. His worrying for his family can be illustrated by the shots in which he is pictured disturbed by news of the Bay of Pigs while playing with his family in *Killing Kennedy*. [00:10:12] Indeed, the shaky, grainy and vintage shots, which are supposed to resemble archive footage, include close-up shots in JFK and Jackie's faces, displaying their large smiles on screen while playing with their children in a garden. Yet, as soon as O'Donnell arrives to announce that there is a "major problem in Cuba," [00:10:37] the shots are not grainy anymore and the happy faces disappear. The scene ends on a full shot of Kennedy leaving in the background, whereas Jackie and the children are left on the ground, puzzled, in the foreground. In similar fashion, other scenes suggest his concerned feelings: Kennedy can be seen looking worryingly at his family playing outside the White House through the window of the Oval Office in *Thirteen days*. This scene appears to be particularly important as the black and white medium shot of Kennedy looking through the window recalls first a picture of the president and his brother in the Oval office, (although on this picture by Arthur B. Rickerby, the one standing by the window is Bobby Kennedy) but also a more famous picture of the president entitled "The Loneliest Job" which was taken in 1961 by George Tames.
<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>Figure 7: Top left: Arthur B. Rickeby's shot, Top right: George Tames' shot, Bottom: screenshot from *Thirteen Days*. Donaldson, Roger. *Thirteen Days*. 2000.</figcaption></figure>

Finally, JFK's conversation on the phone with Jackie in *Killing Kennedy*, during which he states that he “just wanted to hear [her] voice” [00:26:18] and that he wants “[her] to come back to the White House” [00:26:28] proves his deep feelings. As a family man, JFK worries for his family and wants them close to him, and at the same time, he also worries for the whole country, as he is the father of the nation: “The implication is that concern about his family and the families of others is what will be uppermost in his mind during the missile crisis, not any sort of macho need to triumph at all costs over his Russian adversaries.”<fnref n="158" />

As far as Oswald is concerned, because *Killing Kennedy* nearly only focuses on Oswald's negative traits and actions, the public is made to perceive Oswald as an utterly negative man, contrary to Kennedy who gradually becomes a better president, as he learned a lesson after the Bay of Pigs events, and a better husband, as he is less adulterous and gets closer to Jackie throughout the film, while Oswald is beating and distancing himself from his wife.

As for the army, after being tricked, Kennedy assumes his role of leader in *Killing Kennedy* and takes responsibility for the Bay of Pigs events and states that “there's an old saying that victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. The responsibility's mine. I am the president.” [00:14:06] As a consequence of the lesson that he learned after the Bay of

<footnote n="158">158 White in Morgan, Iwan W., ed. *Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 141</footnote>
Pigs, the president appears as more strongminded during the Cuban crisis in *Thirteen Days* and *Killing Kennedy*. Indeed, instead of listening to the Joint Chiefs and the Army and escalate the Cuban crisis into a "third world war," he wisely chooses to respect international rules through the United Nations and avoid invasion or conflict, as illustrated in *Thirteen Days*. By doing so, he appears as a rational man who protects the nation by opposing military actions, as he thinks about the consequences first. According to White in Morgan: "In this way JFK is seen as both strong in character (for being able to stand up to the generals) and progressive in outlook (his opposition to the military implies ethical concerns about the use of force)."<fnref n="159" /> Just when the public is pictured demonstrating in front of the White House for a deal, Kennedy introduces the same idea to resolve the conflict in *Thirteen Days*. Although it is through back channels, the form of non-violent pressure through communication appears in adequacy with the public opinion, reinforcing once again the relation between the hero and the victims, and at the same time here, his followers. On the other hand, the villain, here the army, is constrained to abandon its original purpose. The threat was made even greater as the conflict was international, making the villains more evil and the hero more worthy as he did not follow the easy path but the right one: "While a hero could make an excellent villain, he does not become that villain. His commitment to doing the right thing is always a motivating factor behind his actions."¹⁶⁰ This representation in films thus coincides with the image that JFK and his government shared with the public in the 1960s: a pragmatic, moral and rational man in times of conflict. Yet, conflict was not only present on the international scene in the 1960s, as legislative battles were taking place at home as well; and the depiction of the fight for Civil Rights in the films selected for this corpus also contribute to the idealization of JFK, as this paper shall next demonstrate.

## 2) Defender of persecuted groups

Another type of crisis enables directors to display Kennedy's heroic traits: the moral crisis. Indeed, JFK became president in 1961, that is to say, in the middle of a violent fight for Civil rights for African Americans, and his legislative actions are depicted in productions, thus enhancing his character, as this paper shall examine.

After decades of slavery and segregation afterwards, events such as the *Brown v. Board of Education* Supreme Court decision of 1954, Rosa Parks' refusal to give her seat to a white man in a Montgomery bus in December 1955, and the Montgomery bus boycott that followed until December 1956, manifested the first signs of change for African Americans of

<footnote n="159">159 White in Morgan, Iwan W., ed. *Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 141
160 Davie, Gavin. "The Hero Soldier: Portrayals of Soldiers in War Films," 2011: 9</footnote>
the 20th century, who were supposed to be free and able to fully enjoy their rights since the end of the civil war through the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. Indeed, because of his decisions in the process of equality (represented most importantly by his June 11th 1963 speech, asking Congress to put an end to segregation and violence. Yet, it also seems important to mention a few other elements such as the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs among others and the support he offered to Martin Luther King Jr. after his arrest.) Kennedy was perceived as a champion of Civil rights in the 1960s and he embodied change. He can thus be considered as a “Stand-off” hero as he confronted a controversial crisis for the time:

> While good leaders typically try to resolve conflict and allow for 'smoothness' in social relationships, heroic leaders also know when to dig their heels in to address an underlying, often under-recognized, or deliberately hidden crisis. Some issues need to come to a head in order to be resolved clearly and decisively, and sometimes stand-offs can also be used to create important compromise that ultimately move groups and even nations forward in ways that might not be achievable without putting a spotlight on the unspoken crisis.<fnref n="161" />

Accordingly, as he vindicated African Americans' rights, Kennedy made his own decisions no matter what his cabinet and part of the population thought at the time, but he also risked his 1964 reelection by defending equality. By doing so, he proved his heroism through morality and integrity and became a rallying point for African Americans:

> According to Schlenker, Weigold and Schlenker (2008), heroes [...] point out that 'doing the right thing is a basis for acts of heroism' and, like other researchers, underscore the prevalent risk theme because heroism 'often involves personal sacrifice' (Schlenker et al. 2008, p. 323). Furthermore, they indicate that the moral aspect of heroism often involves making not only the right decision but also a tough decision.<fnref n="162" />

JFK thus moved the nation forward through Johnson, his successor after his death, who completed Kennedy's projects mainly with the 1964 Civil rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1968 Housing and Urban Development Act. JFK's death created a bond with African Americans as illustrated by the main character Cecil Gaines crying after receiving the news of Kennedy's death in *The Butler*. As he was recognized as a real champion of Civil Rights, films about Kennedy's presidency depicting the moral crisis mostly picture him as a moral and altruistic man, who did what was right, rather than what was good for his image.

*The Butler* manages to emphasize the longevity of the fight for Civil rights for African Americans, as it starts in 1926 in a cotton plantation in Georgia and ends with Barack

<footnote n="161">161 Franco in Allison, Scott T., George R. Goethals, and Roderick M. Kramer, eds. *Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Leadership*. Taylor & Francis, 2017: 194</footnote>

<footnote n="162">162 Davie, Gavin. "The Hero Soldier: Portrayals of Soldiers in War Films," 2011: 6-7, quoting Schlenker, Weigold and Schlenker, 2008</footnote>
Obama's presidential election in 2008. Elements such as bodies hanging in the streets after being lynched in *The Butler* contribute to reinforce racial tensions, but they also emphasize the violence of racial inequality. The use of archive footage throughout both films under study point to their veracity. They stress the importance and urgency of action in a context of violence: "In another current trouble spot: Plaquemine, Louisiana. Mounted state troopers and police used tear gas and high-pressure water hoses in Plaquemine last night to break up a Civil rights demonstration that almost erupted into a race riot," [LBJ, 00:42:31] "The cause of integration is a national issue." [LBJ, 00:31:40]

As demonstrated earlier on in this analysis, heroes need villains, and their different behaviors allow to differenciate them. Yet, although Vice-President Nixon obviously appears as a villain in *The Butler* because of his utterly negative behavior and statements: referring to Kennedy as "that Kennedy boy" [00:34:55] and "that spoiled son of a bitch fuck," [00:34:58] and putting pressure on the White House staff, Kennedy does not obviously appear as an entirely good hero at the beginning of the film, as he is not dedicated to Civil rights. Indeed, this position showed in the film transcribes Kennedy's ideology at the beginning of his presidency, and which is indeed put into words in the film: "Bobby told the President that they shouldn't be worried about the Negro sit-ins. Polls showed the US does not support Civil rights." [00:50:44] Yet, this more realistic depiction will be dealt with in the last chapter of this paper. In *LBJ* however, although Lyndon B. Johnson is the main character, Kennedy is presented as the one who built the basis of Johnson's actions on Civil rights. Indeed, the first half of the movie suggests a gap between Kennedy and Johnson: Kennedy has the behavior of a charismatic and moral hero, whereas Johnson is quite different. Kennedy is relatively appreciated by people, as illustrated by his easy relationship with the public as seen earlier on. He is depicted as respectable, calm and even smooth, as Johnson mentions: "I've never seen a politician look that good on TV." [00:11:33] In opposition, LBJ is brusque and abrupt when he makes a racist joke while an African American waiter takes his dishes away: "'What did Abe Lincoln say after he woke up from a three-day drunk?' 'I don't know.' 'I freed the what?'"" [00:28:24] Furthermore, Johnson is perceived as a liar in *LBJ*, notably by Bobby Kennedy, as he lies about his intention of running for president, saying: "I have zero intention of running for president" [00:08:50] yet running for presidency no matter what. Eventually, he is once again compared to Kennedy during the campaign: while Kennedy is said to campaign from one state to another, and to win, Johnson on the contrary wants the presidency "hand[ed] to him." [00:10:39] To a certain extent, Johnson can be identified as a caricature of the lazy and racist South, whereas Kennedy represents the distinguished and equal North. In other words,
the portraits of both men at the beginning of the film are made to depict Kennedy as a hero,
and Johnson as a villain, making the audience side with Kennedy. Notwithstanding, Johnson
is in fact a hero in the making, as he will do his best to have Kennedy's decisions and projects
respected and implemented.

Kennedy's strength of mind is also emphasized in *LBJ*. Indeed, he is pictured making
his own decision when it comes to choosing his vice-president and even though the choice is
part of a strategy: "If we wanna win, we need Johnson," [00:18:35] Kennedy defends Johnson
when Bobby and Kenny O'Donnell mock him: "Last month, Johnson was the most powerful
Democrat in all of Washington. Now he answers to my kid brother and his Harvard
roommate. Nobody's gonna do anything to embarrass my vice-president." [00:23:54] Yet, he
does not hesitate to face his vice-president either when it comes to the tackling of the issue of
the Civil rights bill, in which Johnson does not believe: "The president doesn't have a Civil
rights law. He has a Civil rights bill." [00:22:14] Yet, after a surge of violence in the streets in
June 1963, and after the issue has been blocked in Congress, Kennedy suggests that he needs
to act, no matter if his demand takes the form of a bill or a law: "'Kenny... can we get this bill
passed?' 'I don't know, sir. It's not gonna be easy.' 'Well, we don't do these things because
they're easy. We do them because they're hard.'" [00:44:36] Just after this scene, JFK bypasses
Johnson, who suggested that it was not the right time to ask Congress for action, based on his
knowledge of Congress, as he is pictured delivering his June 11<sup>th</sup> 1963 speech on Civil rights:
"Next week, I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act to make a commitment it has
not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or
law." [00:48:08]

Nonetheless, the depiction of the president as reluctant to act in *The Butler* allows to
draw attention to the crisis. Indeed, Kennedy's first appearance is soft and calm and therefore
not in harmony with the state that the country is in. In similar fashion, the scene in which
Cecil is pictured reading a children's book to Caroline, Kennedy's daughter, is interspersed by
images of the freedom riders being harassed and violently persecuted by the Klu Klux Klan.
Yet, this can be interpreted as a sign of hope for the future: the new president shall bring
peace. Indeed, Kennedy appears as an equal to the staff within the White House. This can be
illustrated by the scene in which the Kennedy family arrives to the White House to meet the
staff. [00:47:52] In this scene, whereas the new president is shaking hands with each member
of the staff, most of the medium shots are on the faces of the staff members, except for two
exceptions showing the president's face in over-the-shoulder shots of the staff. In similar
fashion, the special links he shares with Cecil support the image of a moral, altruistic and
equal man. Their relationship can be illustrated by the scene in which Cecil helps the president to get up from the ground, on which he is lying, to take his back pills. [00:59:43] This brief moment, transcribed through a rare but significant top shot, allows to see both men holding tight to one another's hand. As it allows to see the president lying flat on the ground, the shot may also suggests Cecil's superior health, as he is the one standing, pointing to the futility of social status regarding health.

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>Figure 8: screenshot from *The Butler*. Daniels, Lee. *The Butler*. 2013.</figcaption></figure>

Gradually, Kennedy is pictured worrying for African Americans, stating: “I don't know what country I'm looking at” [00:57:03] and “My brother says these kids have changed his heart... they've changed mine too.” [01:00:51]

In *LBJ* on the other hand, Kennedy's link to African Americans and to the cause of equality is suggested from the very beginning and throughout the film. He is said to appeal to African Americans: “But the Kennedy did get elected by appealing to the colored man,” [00:30:05] and while driving through Dallas on November 22nd 1963, part of the crowd behind him is composed of African Americans, cheering. Furthermore, as *LBJ* depicts important moments of JFK's legislative fight for equality, the film features dialogues and scenes that suggest Kennedy's involvement. Among them, the creation of the President's Committee on Equal Employement Opportunity, or Executive Order 10925, created on March 6th 1961. Although this committee is said to be created to give Johnson missions that would keep him distant from the government and its decisions in the film, it nonetheless serves “to ensure all government agencies and contractors exercise fair hiring practices with regards to race. It's his first major initiative in Civil rights,” [00:24:54] as Kennedy states, and its actions must be visible: “I need this committee to show a strong record right from the start. Something that demonstrates concrete changes on Civil rights. We can't do that if we're giving a huge contract to a discriminatory plant.” [00:37:05]
Eventually, in both films, Kennedy appears to be the champion of Civil rights, who builds the basis for change, that will be conducted into actions – by LBJ after his death, as put into words by Johnson himself in the film *LBJ*, "John Kennedy gave people hope. Now we are gonna give them results." [01:31:16] JFK's depiction and positions in the struggle for Civil rights in the films under study meet with the heroic traits he showed in life, and that this analysis described earlier. His integrity can be said to have paved the way for a more hopeful future – that is embodied by Barack Obama, as *The Butler* suggests. It seems important for this analysis to study the impact that those positive depictions had on viewers, in order to close the cycle of the thesis defended by this second part, which is that films mostly protect JFK by idealizing him.

## IV)Impact

This part shall point out how, as a consequence of his ideal and heroic depiction, films impact viewers and Kennedy's image is distorted in people's minds. Indeed, people expect to see John F. Kennedy as a hero, and films comfort them in their views. Yet reviews, which acknowledge how hard it is to render on screen an interpretation of JFK that lives up to the extraordinary man he was in life, also represent the first ambivalent elements. Indeed, they put the emphasis on the missing elements in films, notably in *Thirteen Days*, which lacks background on the origins of the Cuban Crisis. As a consequence, they highlight the first ambivalent elements which more or less stain Kennedy's portrait.

### 1)Expectations

The fact that Kennedy's heroic traits are emphasized in films about him have an impact on the viewer, and certain feelings are expected from the public. The films mostly support his policy of control of his own image, and the mythical hero merges with the real life hero, and provoking feelings of admiration and idealization in people, but also strong emotions, as his death illustrated.

These emotions are triggered by certain elements in JFK's portraits in films that connect Kennedy to the public:

Emotional involvement is given by the different forms of perspectival appraisal of characters and their situations. It is also given by the huge number of emotion-triggering properties, among them especially bodily, mental, or social capabilities and disorders; beauty, disease and death; group membership, positions of power and status; egoistic or altruistic motives; prosocial or anti-social actions as well as
the emotional expressions of the characters themselves.<fnref n="163" />

This strategy can be identified in the films of this corpus as films made about Kennedy are first addressed to an American audience. They display an American president, very much liked by the American public, against Soviet or Japanese villains as seen in the National Security Cinema part of this analysis. Accordingly, American flags and landmarks can be found throughout the films, reinforcing the American pride of these productions. Furthermore, the shots showing the president either worried for his family, or playing with his children and cuddling with his wife reinforce the link between Kennedy and the public: he is a president, but also family man. In addition, Kennedy's personality also plays a role in the connection that these films create. Indeed, his modesty and calm temper during periods of crisis convey the image of a man who can be trusted. His smoothness with people put the ones surrouding him and the public at ease. Moreover, the music intensifies important moments in films, and the black and white shots, which are supposed to represent well-known photographs of moments of his presidency or famous speeches, connect the public with events and images that it already knows, which in turn creates a sense of comfort and confidence, as the public thus also already knows the outcome of the story. Eventually, films manage to use Kennedy's death to prove his connection with people. Indeed, after his death, grief is shared both by his relatives and cabinet, but also by the public as the films illustrate.

In turn, the impact of films on the public reinforces Kennedy's heroic portrait, according to Affect Control Theory (ACT). As this demonstration showed earlier on, characters such as heroes or villains are defined according to their traits, yet, “Affect control theory explains why characters resonate with audiences. ACT describes the processes through which cultural perceptions of identities, behaviors, settings, and other concepts affect people's thoughts, emotions, and actions.”<fnref n="164" /> The elements described above, connecting Kennedy to the public, illustrate how ACT is at work in the films under study. In that sense, the vision that people have of Kennedy in films is distorted by directing and setting tools in order to produce an emotional response from the public: “CT may have insight into which elements of appearance audiences react to most strongly, complementing ACT research on how emotional displays influence evaluations.”<fnref n="165" /> As a consequence, Kennedy first appears as utterly good, and the vision that the films spread may be Manichean: “Characters are caricatures, oversimplifications that exaggerate certain features of a player and ignore many of its

<footnote n="163">163 Eder, Jens. "Understanding Characters." *Projections* 4, no. 1 (June 1, 2010): 16–40: 36</footnote>

<footnote n="164">164 Bergstrand, Kelly, and James M. Jasper. "Villains, Victims, and Heroes in Character Theory and Affect Control Theory." *Social Psychology Quarterly* 81, no. 3 (September 2018): 228–47: 233, paraphrasing Heise 1979, 2007; MacKinnon and Heise 2010; Smith-Lovin 1979</footnote>

<footnote n="165">165 *Ibid.*: 235, quoting Tsoudis and Smith-Lovin 1998</footnote>
complexities. They essentialize. Character workers exaggerate their heroes' goodness and their opponents' viciousness."<fnref n="166" />

Accordingly, it seems impossible at first to perceive a hero as a villain, an element which, once again, contributes to the building of Kennedy's heroic portrait: "When there is a mismatch between what we expect and what we see, this produces 'deflection': people are motivated to maintain meanings in their world, and when such meanings are disconfirmed, this produces uncomfortable tension or stress that motivates action to restore the meanings."<fnref n="167" /> 'Deflection' could be replaced by the term 'ambivalence' in this quote, as reactions to ambivalence correspond to reactions to deflection, as seen in the introduction of this paper. Deflection is even more relevant in films displaying presidents, as they represent the nation, but also order and pride. As ACT illustrates, it seems possible to say that films produce change: they change the way people see history and here, Kennedy, and they thus contribute to the writing of history and this is the principle of prosthetic memory, as seen earlier on. Yet, as perception and messages in films are complex, Kennedy's depictions, although mostly heroic might have played a role in the triggering of the current revisionist movement that seeks to balance the image of the 35th president and challenge beliefs. Indeed, what this analysis shall demonstrate is that, even though Kennedy was the embodiment of the hero in the films under study and in life, his thus idealized image can be deconstructed. All in all, Kennedy's portrait is less Manichean than it appears, and ACT is subverted. JFK's depiction in films displays both traits attributed to heroes and traits attributed to villains, and as it produces deflection and admiration at the same time, it is thus ambivalent.

## 2)Reception

A final element contributes to the building of JFK's heroic portrait: reviews. Indeed, most reviews of the films under study point out the incapacity of actors to embody the real Kennedy (except for *The Butler*, but Kennedy only appears for a short time in the film, and *Thirteen Days*), strengthening his unique and unattainable portrait.

Reviews mention the tradition of "unconvincing" actors "missing" characteristics of the real Kennedy: "Yet, and despite a vague resemblance, Kennedy escapes him — making Lowe just the latest in a long line of actors similarly denied. [...] But for now the Kennedy charisma remains inimitable and non-transferable,"<fnref n="168" /> "the quicksilver core of Kennedy's

<footnote n="166">166 Bergstrand, Kelly, and James M. Jasper. "Villains, Victims, and Heroes in Character Theory and Affect Control Theory." *Social Psychology Quarterly* 81, no. 3 (September 2018): 228–47: 232</footnote>

<footnote n="167">167 *Ibid.*: 233</footnote>

<footnote n="168">168 Lloyd, Robert. "Review: 'Killing Kennedy' Is Not the Stuff of Legend." *Los Angeles Times*, November 8, 2013, sec. Television</footnote>
character stay stubbornly elusive,”<fnref n="169" /> “Buttressed by a sly, low-key performance by Jeffrey Donovan as JFK,”<fnref n="170" /> “PT 109 might have advanced the cult of personality if Robertson seemed at all like Kennedy; since he does not, it is no worse than boring.”<fnref n="171" /> On the other hand, other critics praised James Marsden's and Bruce Greenwood's interpretations of Kennedy, in *The Butler* and *Thirteen Days* respectively: “James Marsden is a high-minded and uxious Kennedy,”<fnref n="172" /> “Bruce Greenwood delivers a compelling and movingly human performance as President Kennedy,”<fnref n="173" /> and finally “The praise was particularly pronounced for the performances of Greenwood and Culp, especially the former. Mick LaSalle, for example, said that his portrayal of JFK was 'the best thing in the movie.'”<fnref n="174" />

The same impression is conveyed by the comments on the quality of these films in reviews. Indeed, the reception is mixed, pointing out the “checklist drama” character of *Killing Kennedy*, which promotes the legend after all. *LBJ* is said to be entertaining but conventional. In similar fashion, *PT-109* is referred to as the usual war movie, promoting JFK in all ways, and “lacking romantic interest.”<fnref n="175" /> Eventually, *Thirteen Days* was relatively well received, although its promotion of JFK is *cliché*, relying on well-worn cinematic devices distracting the viewer according to most critics.

Yet, what is interesting to note in reviews is the fact that critics also put an emphasis on elements that are not heroic in films such as JFK's extramarital affairs: “There's a scene where JFK is skinny dipping in the White House pool with other women and the Secret Service tells Jackie the pool is closed, though she can hear the squeals of trollops with her husband,”<fnref n="176" /> “we get a good gander at him splashing around in the White House pool with a couple of naked secretaries,”<fnref n="177" /> and “Knowing what we now know about JFK's affection for extramarital pleasures, O'Donnell's family is a necessary substitute for a film that wants desperately to restore calm by restoring the protecting father amidst his innocent children and grateful wife.”<fnref n="178" />

Eventually, some critics also underline the fact that some events of history are missing

<footnote n="169">169 Carson, Tom. "The GQ Review: Killing Kennedy Is Way More Fun Than the Zillion Other JFK Biopics." *GQ*, November 8, 2013</footnote>

<footnote n="170">170 Wloszczyna, Susan. "'LBJ': Woody Harrelson Delivers an Outsize Performance in a Film That Somehow Feels Small." *Washington Post*, November 2, 2017</footnote>

<footnote n="171">171 Hodgens, R. M. "Review of PT 109. Lt. (j. g.) J. F. K." *Film Quarterly* 17, no. 1 (1963): 56–56: 56</footnote>

<footnote n="172">172 Bradshaw, Peter. "The Butler – Review." *The Guardian*, November 14, 2013, sec. Film</footnote>

<footnote n="173">173 Cull, Nicholas J. "Review of Thirteen Days." *The American Historical Review* 106, no. 4 (2001): 1511–12: 1511</footnote>

<footnote n="174">174 White in *Morgan, Iwan W., ed. Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 138</footnote>

<footnote n="175">175 Hodgens, R. M. "Review of PT 109. Lt. (j. g.) J. F. K." *Film Quarterly* 17, no. 1 (1963): 56–56: 56</footnote>

<footnote n="176">176 Johnson, Adrienne. "'Killing Kennedy' Makes You Feel Nothing." *The News&Observer*, November 10, 2013</footnote>

<footnote n="177">177 Carson, Tom. "The GQ Review: Killing Kennedy Is Way More Fun Than the Zillion Other JFK Biopics." *GQ*, November 8, 2013</footnote>

<footnote n="178">178 Simon, Art. "Review of Thirteen Days." *Cinéaste* 26, no. 2 (2001): 43–44: 44</footnote>
in the films under study, as they would stain the heroic and coherent portrait of JFK. Indeed, the 1961 Vienna summit, during which JFK met with Nikita Khruschev is not shown in any of the films under study: "There's something endearing about a Kennedy docudrama that can't make room for his fateful 1961 summit meeting with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna—having sized up JFK as a weakling, the Soviet premier concluded he could place missiles in Cuba with impunity [...],"<fnref n="179" /> or "Unmentionned in the backstory is the meeting between JFK and Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961, when the Soviet leader, wrongly, sized up the new president as a pampered rich boy who might be easily rolled in Berlin and the Caribbean."<fnref n="180" /> In addition, the war against Castro that the Kennedy administration had started as soon as its first year in office is not mentioned either, nor are the missiles that the United States placed in Turkey, in order not to present the US as responsible for anything:

> The Bay of Pigs invasion represents a blunder to overcome rather than a possible explanation for Cuban actions. Likewise, the depth of RFK's efforts to remove Castro, [...] gets elided, further eclipsing the context in which the missile crisis took place. As Gary Wills has pointed out, to an American public uninformed about their government's secret war on Castro, the location of Russian missiles on Cuban soil appeared sudden and unprovoked [...] A fuller context for the missile crisis is just not available to the chosen form of Thirteen Days.<fnref n="181" />

The Vietnam war, although an important aspect of Kennedy's presidency as well, as he started to send troops to Vietnam, and which later cost Johnson his political career, is not pictured either. This is pointed out by critics such as Wloszczyna: "Given the recent sharpening of racial tensions and violence, it's easy to imagine why a Hollywood liberal like Reiner would focus on that part of Johnson's legacy — rather than, say, Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam War, which would prove to be LBJ's downfall."<fnref n="182" />

Moreover, JFK's commitment to Civil rights is presented as concrete and even flatters him in *The Butler*: "So Gaines has to bear an eye-catching fictionalised burden of very real historical issues, a burden that his animatronic employers cannot fail to notice, allowing them tacitly to claim a personal interest in Civil rights, which is extremely flattering, especially to John F Kennedy,"<fnref n="183" /> when in fact, JFK only engaged late in his presidency on the fight for equality, and for calculated reasons, as this analysis shall later demonstrate.

<footnote n="179">179 Carson, Tom. "The GQ Review: Killing Kennedy Is Way More Fun Than the Zillion Other JFK Biopics." *GQ*, November 8, 2013</footnote>

<footnote n="180">180 Doherty, Thomas. "Review of Thirteen Days." *The Journal of American History* 88, no. 3 (2001): 1211–13: 1212</footnote>

<footnote n="181">181 Simon, Art. "Review of Thirteen Days." *Cinéaste* 26, no. 2 (2001): 43–44. Accessed March 22, 2020: 44</footnote>

<footnote n="182">182 Wloszczyna, Susan. "‘LBJ’: Woody Harrelson Delivers an Outsize Performance in a Film That Somehow Feels Small." *Washington Post*, November 2, 2017</footnote>

<footnote n="183">183 Bradshaw, Peter. "The Butler – Review." *The Guardian*, November 14, 2013, sec. Film</footnote>
Eventually, one last element that reviews point out as missing from films, and indispensable for a fuller understanding of the context is Curtis LeMay's engagement in the air strikes during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Indeed: "There is no evidence that [General Curtis LeMay] attempted to trick Kennedy into war during the Cuban missile crisis. LeMay and the other hawks certainly recommended air strikes, but the picture of their maneuvering at climactic moments of Thirteen Days owes more to the world of contemporaneous fictions."<fnref n="184" /> All these elements which, if featured in films would have blemished Kennedy's image, will be dealt with in the third part of this analysis, addressing the deconstruction of JFK's ideal portrait.

All in all, as the second part of this paper demonstrated, JFK managed to control his image throughout his life, in order to keep it clean and convey the idea of himself as a great president and a perfect father and family man. With the portrait that he created himself, he inspired directors to produce films that align themselves with and even reinforce the ideal image he produced. These films, in turn, contributed to his idealization. It can be further argued that the techniques directors used in films allowed them to display the president in specific situations, such as crises, that reinforce his immaculate portrait, as he always manages to control the situation and save people. Moreover, directors also used other more personal narrative situations displaying his family, thus creating a bond between the president on screen and the public watching him, making the public identify with and feel intimate with the presidential family. As a consequence, films thus close the cycle by relying on the public, which will in turn perpetuate the spreading of Kennedy's heroic portrait, based on what it saw in films. Nonetheless, a first element distances itself from the heroic portrait of JFK, and allows to see through the cinematic devices used in films and reveal new characteristics of JFK: the reviews. Even though reviews acknowledge that it is nearly impossible for actors to render an interpretation of JFK that lives up to the charismatic being that he was in life, they also emphasize the negative elements of his depictions in films, and the missing elements that would produce an even more negative image. Those negative and missing elements, which started to emerge around the 1980s were brought to the public's attention by scholars, as Kennedy's papers gradually became available. As a consequence, these revisions started to be featured in films dealing with the president's life. Although JFK first appears as an ideal man and a hero, new productions gradually tackle his misbehaviors. Indeed, whereas some controversies are only alluded to in films, others have become recurrent themes in productions, as the last part of this analysis shall demonstrate.

<footnote n="184">184 Cull, Nicholas J. "Review of Thirteen Days." *The American Historical Review* 106, no. 4 (2001): 1511–12: 1511</footnote>
Part 3: Deconstruction:
John Foolhardy Kennedy
After his death, Kennedy's image did not cease to shine. Indeed, a few weeks after Kennedy's assassination, *Life* magazine journalist Theodore H. White visited Jackie Kennedy in Hyannis Port in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where the Kennedy family owned several mansions, in order to share Jackie's feelings with the country and the world in an epilogue for the December 6th 1963 edition of *Life* Magazine. This epilogue contributed to forge the Camelot myth surrounding Kennedy and his family as it was edited by Jackie.

Indeed, as mentioned earlier in this analysis, after JFK's death, Jackie told Theodore H. White that Kennedy loved to listen to a record from the musical Camelot before he went to bed, and that the lyrics “Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot” encompassed the Kennedy administration in a way. Jackie wanted to make sure that history would not forget her husband, and to do so, as Mark White explains:

> At the end of the interview White quickly wrote the article, Jackie Kennedy edited it, and he phoned it in to his editors at Life magazine. When one of those editors suggested that the article made too much of the Camelot theme, Jackie Kennedy, who was in the room with White, shook her head to indicate that she wanted the Camelot theme to remain salient. 'I was her instrument in labeling the [Kennedy] myth', White ruefully acknowledged in later years.<fnref n="185" />

Although this particular moment only appears briefly at the end of *Killing Kennedy* [01:26:00] as far as the films from this corpus are concerned, the 2016 biopic about the first lady called *Jackie* features it in detail. [01:28:49] In fact, the film is a great example of Jackie's management of Kennedy's image after his death. By associating her husband with the Camelot legend, Jackie Kennedy consciously promoted an association between Kennedy and King Arthur. As a consequence, the Kennedy family was perceived as an American monarchy in the years following the president's death and this legacy still endures. JFK, who saved the world from a nuclear war, became a double of King Arthur. Both went on a quest for a better world in a shining armour, and JFK did it during a period of international but also domestic trouble and change. By doing so, as Mark White puts it:

> Jackie Kennedy had ensured that future attempts (particularly by the American people) to interpret the Kennedy historical record dispassionately would be thwarted by the powerful mythology that now adorned JFK's reputation. With the collective sense of grief felt by millions of Americans in the wake of the assassination, it was inevitable that Kennedy would come to be viewed as a martyr, a fallen hero. But the infusing of that sense of tragedy with the Camelot mythology meant that it was even more the case than it would have otherwise been that millions of Americans simply accepted that Kennedy and his advisers, like King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable, had provided a remarkable,

<footnote n="185">185 White, Mark. "Apparent Perfection: The Image of John F. Kennedy: Apparent Perfection." *History* 98, no. 330 (April 2013): 226–46: 239</footnote>
inspiring brand of leadership.<fnref n="186" />

As a consequence, in films, it seems that a checklist needs to be respected in order to star as Kennedy. All actors playing Kennedy in this corpus thus try to render the same physical and moral traits such as good looks and hair, large charming smiles, politeness, charisma, a great sense of humor, youth and dynamism, and the narratives also point to JFK's ability to take responsibilities, to lead a group, and to learn from his potential mistakes.

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>Figure 9: screenshots of the actors in the films of this corpus, showing the checklist of physical aspects that need to be respected in order to star as Kennedy. Daldry, Stephen. *The Crown, Season 2 Episode 8*. 2017. Daniels, Lee. *The Butler*. 2013. Donaldson, Roger. *Thirteen Days*. 2000. Martinson, Leslie H. *PT 109*. 1963. McCormick, Nelson. *Killing Kennedy*. 2013. Reiner, Rob. *LBJ*. 2017.</figcaption></figure>

In addition to that, 29 years after Kennedy's assassination, the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 stated that all five million documents concerning the president's death, including the Warren commission's documents, already made public at the time, should be kept in a single collection held by the National Archives and Records Administration and made available to the public 25 years later. Today, most of the collection is accessible, yet, some documents remain secret and the president's death still arouses curiosity. Moreover, Jackie Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy also managed to burnish Kennedy's image thanks to the concealment of archives after JFK's death. They concealed Kennedy's personal misconducts, which could blemish the president's image, from the government<fnref n="187" /> and the public, before Johnson came back from Texas after Kennedy's assassination, Robert Kennedy made sure that his brother's personal papers were kept safe. Indeed,

two weeks after the funeral, in his capacity as attorney general, [Bobby Kennedy] ruled that 'all correspondence [in JFK's papers] which deals with a personal medical matter should be regarded as a privileged communication, and should

<footnote n="186">186 White, Mark. "Apparent Perfection: The Image of John F. Kennedy: Apparent Perfection." *History* 98, no. 330 (April 2013): 226-46: 239</footnote>

<footnote n="187">187 Paraphrasing Yuhas, Alan. "JFK: Declassified Documents Reveal a Cunning and Cagey President." *The Guardian*, October 7, 2015, sec. US news.</footnote>
not go to Central Files. Later, when arranging the deed of gift of JFK's papers to the United States, Kennedy insisted on retaining control over papers pertaining to the 'personal, family and business affairs of the President.'<fnref n="188" />

Nonetheless, JFK's personal papers slowly became available after a few decades. Indeed, as the JFK Library and Museum website indicates, the John F. Kennedy Personal Papers Collection opened in 1969, yet some portions only opened in January 1977 and the medical records became available in December 2002. As a consequence, revisionist authors started to publish more nuanced biographies of Kennedy, beginning in the 1980s, and a new image emerged and encouraged the deconstruction of the hitherto crafted and burnished image of Kennedy. As Mark White points out: "By the 1980s and 1990s various writers were beginning to attack the rose-tinted view of John F. Kennedy that had prevailed since his assassination in 1963."<fnref n="189" />

This new wave of writers influenced the production of films dealing with JFK as films progressively began to deal with taboo elements, as the corpus chosen for this analysis illustrates. Indeed, *PT-109*, which came out in 1963, when Kennedy was still alive, offers an utterly positive portrait of the president. Released in 2000, *Thirteen Days* allows the public to see how JFK used back channels in order to resolve the Cuban Crisis. In 2013, *The Butler* revealed a first hint of JFK's poor health, and his lack of involvement in the fight for Civil Rights at the beginning of his presidency. That same year, *Killing Kennedy* also explicitly dealt with Kennedy's health, and his extra-marital affairs were added to the narrative. Finally, episode 8 from the second season of the series *The Crown*, which came out in 2017, presents the most negative depiction of the man. It nonetheless seems important to note that this choice may have also been influenced by the fact that the show is produced in the United Kingdom, and that it celebrates the royal family of England, which is humiliated by the Kennedys for most of this particular episode. Part three of this analysis shall thus analyze the negative elements, sometimes only alluded to but which create ambivalence, in order to deconstruct Kennedy's ideal image in films.

## I) JFK as Commander in Chief: between Belligerence and Appeasement

It can be argued that JFK's tactic as president can be considered a source of

<footnote n="188">188 Hilty, James. *Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector*. Temple University Press, 2000.</footnote>

<footnote n="189">189 White, Mark. "Apparent Perfection: The Image of John F. Kennedy: Apparent Perfection." *History* 98, no. 330 (April 2013): 226–46: 226</footnote>
ambivalence. Indeed, in both foreign and domestic policies, he demonstrated a wish to appease some situations, but he was also eager to take actions and use force in others, sometimes changing his mind between the two options in short periods of time. As a consequence, some of the challenges he had to deal with while commander in chief are obscured or only alluded to in productions, as this part shall demonstrate thanks to four productions from this corpus: *Thirteen Days*, *Killing Kennedy, The Butler* and *LBJ*. These elements represent the first steps in the deconstruction of Kennedy's ideal portrait.

### 1) "That Vietnam thing"

When it comes to the elements in films about the 35th president that help to nuance his portrait, Vietnam appears as a major theme to mention. Indeed, most people were and still are not familiar with JFK's military involvement in the country during his presidency. In fact, Johnson was held accountable for the quagmire that Vietnam represents in US history, yet, even though around the end of his presidency, JFK planned to withdraw troops from Vietnam, his involvement in South East Asia started quite early. Inheriting a delicate situation from the Eisenhower administration in Vietnam in 1961, Kennedy authorized the sending of thousands of troops to Vietnam in the first year of his presidency in order to help Diem's government.<fnref n="190" />

By 1962, Kennedy's tactic was to impress North Vietnam by refusing any coalition government and by extension, to show that America would be strong in the conflict in order to have North Vietnam ask for a settlement so that American forces could leave the country. To do so, troops were needed and US involvement became greater than ever. As a consequence, as Dallek explains, the truth was hidden to the press, but by the end of the year, reports leaked to the press, revealing the situation in Vietnam. The leaks and thus US involvement are only mentioned in *Thirteen Days* as Kennedy discusses with O'Donnell two American planes that crashed in Vietnam, and which will only appear in the press on the next day: " 'Look into that, uh...' 'That Vietnam thing.' 'What, the planes that went down?' 'Yeah.' 'It didn't make it before press time.' 'I haven't taken a look at the West Coast papers yet, but I doubt we'll see anything till tomorrow.' " [00:09:20] The phrase "That Vietnam thing" seems to suggest to the audience that Kennedy is taking a certain distance with what is happening in Vietnam, which he was in a way as he did not want to get involved, yet, he continually sent troops to Vietnam at the time.

The following year, Kennedy remained on his skeptical position. Indeed, on the one hand, US military aid was needed in order for Vietnam to survive,<fnref n="191" /> but on the other hand, he

<footnote n="190">190 Dallek, Robert. *An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917 - 1963*. Hachette UK, 2003: 354 and 445</footnote>

<footnote n="191">191 *Ibid.*: 667</footnote>
wished to withdraw American forces from the country<fnref n="192" />, but did not want to do so until he was sure to be reelected president in 1964. By the summer of 1963, Diem's reluctance to collaborate was conveyed by his persecutions on the Buddhist minority in the country, and it appeared that Diem and his brother were leading the country to its doom. As a consequence, a few months later, because he thought Diem incapable of winning the war and because he did not want to be involved in an unwinnable and foreign war, the National Security Action Memorandum No. 263 that Kennedy signed in October 1963 to withdraw a thousand U.S. military personnel from South Vietnam demonstrated the first sign of his withdrawal policy. But on November 1st 1963, army generals organized a coup which ousted Diem and his brother from the government before killing them. As Dallek explains, Kennedy wanted to make sure that everyone knew the United States was not involved, and at the same time, he thus hoped that the new government would help Vietnam to resolve the war, as the US would have to help otherwise. The coup nonetheless acted as a turning point in Kennedy's mind as it pushed him away from engagement in the country, and encouraged him to remove even more troops.

Yet, even though Kennedy wished to remove more troops from Vietnam around the end of his term, it seems important to note that “whatever he would have done in Vietnam, what Kennedy in fact did was to increase the number of US military officials there from around 800 to more than 16,000.”<fnref n="193" /> Vietnam, as a consequence, is not a recurrent theme in films dealing with Kennedy's life or with Kennedy's presidency. Still, although it is only briefly mentioned in *Thirteen Days*, it would be wrong to argue that it is not dealt with in other films about JFK, as it is in fact alluded to in *JFK* and *Jackie*. Yet, in both films, Vietnam is, like many other subjects as previously seen, transformed into a positive aspect of Kennedy's presidency. Indeed, as White suggests, the president is celebrated in *JFK* because he planned to withdraw troops from Vietnam, yet, as he was thus perceived as too liberal and progressive, the government had him killed. No mention of his escalation in Vietnam appears in the film.<fnref n="194" /> Furthermore, as White also suggests, “many cinemagoers came away from Oliver Stone's film with not only the suspicion that the American government had been complicit in Kennedy's murder but also the belief that the consequence of that act was a disastrous war that JFK would have avoided.”<fnref n="195" /> This can be recognized as the direct

<footnote n="192">192 *Ibid.*: 668</footnote>

<footnote n="193">193 White, Mark. "Apparent Perfection: The Image of John F. Kennedy: Apparent Perfection." *History* 98, no.</footnote>

<footnote n="330">330 (April 2013): 226–46: 243</footnote>

<footnote n="194">194 Paraphrasing White in Morgan, Iwan W., ed. *Presidents in the Movies*. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011: 136</footnote>

<footnote n="195">195 White, Mark. "Apparent Perfection: The Image of John F. Kennedy: Apparent Perfection." *History* 98, no.</footnote>

<footnote n="330">330 (April 2013): 226–46: 243</footnote>