Interviews with the Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Our present assignment in English 241 is to write four letters between two famous people, whether they are historically famous or current celebrities.  In preparation to write these, we have to locate 4-6 reputable sources to help give us the background information from which to write the letters from.  Though the letters we write cannot at all be taken seriously, it is important to find the most credible of sources to make their material as factual and even believable as possible.

I will be writing my letters between former President John F. Kennedy and his wife, the former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.  The fact that the "Kennedy" name is a household name with several links, I think people would find this interesting since the president and his wife especially have been in the midst of various scandals, mostly involving President Kennedy's suspected infidelity.

To find my first source, I went to library.tamu.edu and clicked on Databases, then typed in Academic Search Complete, which led me to EBSCO.  Before searching for articles that contained both John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, I made sure to set the settings to only allow articles with full texts present as well as only ones that were peer-edited.  I found the introduction to 368 pages and 8 CDs long of interviews of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Arthur M. Schlesinger.  This set of recorded interviews is called Jacqueline Kennedy:  Historical Conversations On Her Life With John F. Kennedy, and the part that is printed online is the introduction, which gives great insight into what was found in those interviews.

As background information, it is said that Schlesinger's purpose for interviewing the late Mrs. Kennedy was not primarily for her life story, but really for her husband's- and she also agreed to do them mostly to preserve her husband's legacy. The interviews were also started when the women's movement had not begun yet and the idea of doing a scholarly study of the First Lady was not yet in peoples' minds. The interviews began four months after the assassination of her husband, and Kennedy-Onassis did feel as if she had been too candid at times, calling back some of her personal revelations from being published. When Kennedy-Onassis passed away, however, her daughter Caroline deemed it appropriate to pull it all out for publication.

The interviews Schlesinger had gotten published were not reviewed by Onassis and were in turn pretty much unedited, including background noises and the brief pauses that were present.  Schlesinger was able to get the first lady's personal insight on several of the famous people that been linked at some point to her and her husband. Most of all, he got to hear of how Kennedy's presidency affected their marriage. Kennedy Onassis revealed that the most peaceful time of their marriage was really the three  years that they lived in the White House because they were finally always living under the same roof and no longer worrying about campaigning. She talks of how she did not believe she changed from living there, but was surprised people saw her as a snob for not enjoying politics and that she knew how to speak French.

Interestingly enough, the interviewer and interviewee completely ignore all of the aspects of John Kennedy that were involved in the assertions that he had cheated on her over the years. Jacqueline expressed disapproval for the vice president that succeeded Kennedy after his assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson, and went on to say he was "crude, insecure and self-absorbed." She also expressed her protectiveness for her children's privacy and her objection to the Supreme Court case New York Times v. Sullivan, probably a large part being because she had been victimized by the press before especially with them publicizing the details of her husband's affairs.

This article's main purpose is obviously to give preview to the interviews with Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis. It begins to what kind of things she reveals and what is conveniently kept quiet, which tells a lot about the life both her and her husband lived together and separately.  The rhetorical message is just that there is so much interest in the life of the president, and at the time it was kind of unheard of for the First Lady to be analyzed, but she can be learned about so much just by reading the precise transcripts of her many interviews.  The article addresses a fairly large audience, as quite frankly many Americans appear to be interested in the Kennedy's personal lives from the tragedy of the assassination to the personal lives before Kennedy was unfairly murdered.

JACQUELINE KENNEDY: HISTORICAL CONVERSATIONS ON HER LIFE WITH JOHN F. KENNEDY. Interviews with Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., 1964. Introduction and Annotations by Michael Beschloss. New York: Hyperion, 2011.

As I usually write about how the networks we watch on TV and how they choose what is "news" to us, I realized that when it comes down to it we as viewers have put that power into their hands.  As they get their ratings from what we watch, we give them money to continue funding for owning broadcasting networks.

I bet if I asked you to list some television "news" channels I would only hear about four or five answers- ABC, FOX, NBC, CNN... that's pretty much all I can think of. And that is pretty much all that is able to get their name out there at this point.  .  These news networks don't just get to where they are.  Over several years they have been this way.  So I decided to look up "Media Corporations" on Google, and one of the first search results was a 1997 article on what corporations own the media (we actually read about this a couple of chapters ago in English).  Sadly, it is the same fifteen years ago as it is today- there are about five companies that alone own the media.  Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom, and  Rupert Murdoch's Business Corporation were the top five media corporations.

Then I looked at the current media corporations (2012) and saw that not much has changed- in the article I read it says that 6 corporations own the same amount that 50 corporations owned in 1983 (90% of the media). That is scary! That means that there are fewer executives of fewer corporations have say in what we view.

Although these companies are not necessarily to blame for what we see, they are a large part of why what we see is so limited and there isn't a lot of variety. Just a thought, and it is definitely appropriate when it comes to how I process what we take in via the media.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1406

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6

I am going to be somewhat cliche and analyze the movie Mean Girls.  It has been on about five times that I can think of in the last month or so!  The interesting thing is that I don't think I have ever seen the whole movie all at once sitting down.  I am way too ADD and just cannot sit still for that long when it comes to many movies (no matter how much I may enjoy them).

Mean Girls would definitely be a defining movie of my childhood to teenhood, and I suppose even up to my young adulthood.  The quotes from that movie never end, whether friends mention them in passing, they show up in memes on Facebook, or the plot is used in a skit that everyone can relate to.  I feel like the movie contains such an elaborate plot that is able to reach out to pretty much any viewer in some sort of way.

Whether you are in middle school, or have graduated college and have been out of school for many years, everyone (even guys) can relate to the cliquey drama that unfolds in the hallways of a high school.  We all know we have seen of or heard of an inappropriate relationship between a coach and student. We all know of that one "popular girl" who tends to stir up drama in every group, even if she isn't a part of it. We all know that the "new girl" in high school always seems to get attention because there is a question of what group she will become a part of since they have all already independently developed.  It is always hard to be smart (especially at math)and not come off as nerdy.  Girls "bitchy" claws come out when it comes to guys they are interested in,  And lastly, as Halloween is coming up, we all know that the costume goal for young girls is to be as skanky as possible while still looking like some sort of character.

Tina Fey as a producer did a wonderful job of collaborating all of these little aspects into one big hilarious plot.  The quotes from this movie seem to never die, and I think it is safe to say that it is a widespread opinion that that the movie is a defining one for our generation.

The commercial that has been fresh on my mind most recently is the Sprint Unlimited Data Plan commercial with the family sitting at the dinner table going around seeing how they are going to decide who gets to use all the data.  It stands out because the lighting is even dimmed to make the environment seem even more everyday-like for the viewer.  Each familiy member is heard making a seeminly-serious argument for how they should split up data usage availability- for example, the little boy says they should base it off of how much dental gear is in their mouths and then the dad says they should base it off of whoever has the least cartilage left in their knee. 

This is humorous to any member of an average family who has been in this kind of situation before, which is pretty simple and pretty much any group environment is bound to run into it at some point. This pretty much only appeals to families, because a college student or someone who pays his/her bills alone wouldn't be able to relate to the idea that it is very convenient for a family to share an unlimited data plan. 

I have seen this commercial many times on many channels at varying times of the day.  I think it is a basic commercial that Sprint knows is able to win over the minds of anyone who currently has a Sprint plan and is wanting to upgrade or who has a completely different carrier and wants to find a better one with a better deal.  Just a thought.  Appeals to the everyday person always seem to work!