![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Carolyn Bessette always kinda, sorta reminded me of my Tai Kwon Do instructor Erica:
Carolyn Bessette & BFF
Erica & BFF
Which is one reason why I tracked Carolyn Bessette.
The other reason, of course, is that it’s always fabulous to read about people who have everything and are still absolutely miserable. And who come to bad ends!
Especially when you're feeling pretty miserable yourself.
###
Anyway, because I was in such a bad mood yesterday, I devoted the greater part of the day to reading the new hagiography, Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.
To justify her decision to write what is essentially stan-lit, the author Elizabeth Beller—a one-time script writer for Miramax (which, of course, forces the question: Did Harvey Weinstein ever…?) frames Carolyn’s life story as a kind of feminist parable.
When she was alive, Carolyn had a reputation as a bitch on wheels.
Not true, sez Beller! Carolyn was a young woman of intelligence, humor, and empathy.
It was the misogynistic media that connived to paint her as a shrewish, manipulative sociopath!
I suspect both things can be true.
I suspect Carolyn Bessette could have been intelligent, funny, and yes, even empathetic while at the same time being shrewish, manipulative, and unhinged.
###
I have no sympathy whatsoever for celebrities who complain about being hounded by the media.
All magic comes with a price.
Did you really think that life of unimaginable privilege you enjoy was being handed to you with no strings attached?
Nuh-huh.
Celebrities are important because they’re conduits to the ancient archetypes that humans revere and worship.
But worship takes many forms, and much of it is destructive.
The Maenads tore Orpheus limb from limb in drunken religious ecstasy. And Catholics actually eat Jesus.
###
Anyway, Carolyn Bessette. Ordinary girl growing up in Westchester County and then Greenwich, Connecticut (where her family was among the less tony inhabitants.) She was Italian! Here she was with the other members of the matriarchal clan:
Carolyn’s the one on the far left. Clearly, she’d had her nose done by the time she took up with JFK Jr—although Beller doesn’t mention it. Also, she learned how to smile with her lips closed, lost 25 pounds, and began coloring her hair. Transformed herself from pretty and vivacious to soignee. Reinvented herself!
One does not go to all that trouble to reinvent oneself unless one is stalking a particular type of prey.
###
Even discounting Beller’s reverential bio, Carolyn Bessette is having a moment. Twenty-five years after her death, her style has inspired hundreds of Pinterest and Instagram sites. That number grows daily! Her style really was something—minimalist, expensive, with that signature slash of scarlet lipstick! If I had the money and was 50 years younger, I’d dress like Carolyn Bessette!
And if I had to speculate, I’d guess that Carolyn’s growing hostility toward her impossibly beautiful—but alas! not particularly bright—husband was a manifestation of something very like class consciousness. Everything in the fucking world had been handed to JFK Jr! And what had he done to merit it? What had he done to deserve the way people threw themselves at him every time he walked into a room?
I can absolutely see this enraging the shrewd working-class Italian girl in the photograph above once the excitement of snagging the gold ring on the carousel ride wore off.
###
Also yesterday, I missed a phone call from Barbara Angell. I’ve been thinking a LOT about you, said the phone message, and sometimes when I do that, I figure something’s going on, so I’m calling to check in & make sure everything’s okay—
No, everything is not okay.
But it meant so much that somebody is enough on my wavelength to sense that.
And cares enough to reach out—
Carolyn Bessette & BFF
Erica & BFF
Which is one reason why I tracked Carolyn Bessette.
The other reason, of course, is that it’s always fabulous to read about people who have everything and are still absolutely miserable. And who come to bad ends!
Especially when you're feeling pretty miserable yourself.
###
Anyway, because I was in such a bad mood yesterday, I devoted the greater part of the day to reading the new hagiography, Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.
To justify her decision to write what is essentially stan-lit, the author Elizabeth Beller—a one-time script writer for Miramax (which, of course, forces the question: Did Harvey Weinstein ever…?) frames Carolyn’s life story as a kind of feminist parable.
When she was alive, Carolyn had a reputation as a bitch on wheels.
Not true, sez Beller! Carolyn was a young woman of intelligence, humor, and empathy.
It was the misogynistic media that connived to paint her as a shrewish, manipulative sociopath!
I suspect both things can be true.
I suspect Carolyn Bessette could have been intelligent, funny, and yes, even empathetic while at the same time being shrewish, manipulative, and unhinged.
###
I have no sympathy whatsoever for celebrities who complain about being hounded by the media.
All magic comes with a price.
Did you really think that life of unimaginable privilege you enjoy was being handed to you with no strings attached?
Nuh-huh.
Celebrities are important because they’re conduits to the ancient archetypes that humans revere and worship.
But worship takes many forms, and much of it is destructive.
The Maenads tore Orpheus limb from limb in drunken religious ecstasy. And Catholics actually eat Jesus.
###
Anyway, Carolyn Bessette. Ordinary girl growing up in Westchester County and then Greenwich, Connecticut (where her family was among the less tony inhabitants.) She was Italian! Here she was with the other members of the matriarchal clan:
Carolyn’s the one on the far left. Clearly, she’d had her nose done by the time she took up with JFK Jr—although Beller doesn’t mention it. Also, she learned how to smile with her lips closed, lost 25 pounds, and began coloring her hair. Transformed herself from pretty and vivacious to soignee. Reinvented herself!
One does not go to all that trouble to reinvent oneself unless one is stalking a particular type of prey.
###
Even discounting Beller’s reverential bio, Carolyn Bessette is having a moment. Twenty-five years after her death, her style has inspired hundreds of Pinterest and Instagram sites. That number grows daily! Her style really was something—minimalist, expensive, with that signature slash of scarlet lipstick! If I had the money and was 50 years younger, I’d dress like Carolyn Bessette!
And if I had to speculate, I’d guess that Carolyn’s growing hostility toward her impossibly beautiful—but alas! not particularly bright—husband was a manifestation of something very like class consciousness. Everything in the fucking world had been handed to JFK Jr! And what had he done to merit it? What had he done to deserve the way people threw themselves at him every time he walked into a room?
I can absolutely see this enraging the shrewd working-class Italian girl in the photograph above once the excitement of snagging the gold ring on the carousel ride wore off.
###
Also yesterday, I missed a phone call from Barbara Angell. I’ve been thinking a LOT about you, said the phone message, and sometimes when I do that, I figure something’s going on, so I’m calling to check in & make sure everything’s okay—
No, everything is not okay.
But it meant so much that somebody is enough on my wavelength to sense that.
And cares enough to reach out—
