Thursday, August 12, 2010

... as an audience member. I rented the 1983 THE KENNEDYS, starring Martin Sheen. It starts with Jack's assassination, the various family members tediously getting the news. Bobby finally finds out, and the next thing you know, he's weeping into his wife's arms, saying, "Why is there so much hate?'

That's when I bailed. Because having recently read up a bit on the Kennedys, my guess would have been that the first thing Bobby said was something like, "That rat bastard Giancana's behind this, I'm gonna destroy him." And then, having dismissed his wife, calls to his people in Washington to secure the presidential papers so LBJ wouldn't see what Jack had been up to.

Kennedy boys were not brought up to weep in front of women.

I knew I couldn't trust anything about the show after that, Martin Sheen or no Martin Sheen.

Just like trust in real life, once you violate an audience's trust, it's very hard to get it back.

Labels: watching tv

11:04 PM

3 Comments:

YES. I also rented this recently, with visions of Jed Bartlett in my head. I got through maybe 2 episodes. More like 1 and a half. Sheen is great on screen but the rest of it...

By  Harlan, at 9:01 AM  

Well men are no longer masculine because in North America, that's a sin, and women, well they're not worth fart so don't treat em like ladies...
The loss gender identity.

By  JamaicanInToronto, at 8:46 PM  

I had a similar problem with 'Bobby,' another Kennedy biopic. The Kennedys are pretty fascinating to me, but the melodrama in Bobby was took a lot away from the story - and still didn't manage to drive home the 'message' the film seems to be trying to communicate.

By  ScriptQuack, at 6:31 PM  

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