The Big man and the Little Woman - Part Four , Conclusion
In the 1980's communism started to come apart. In China communist rulers turned away from communism. Then in that same decade, Mikhail Gorbachev became head of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev called for what he called 'perestroika' and 'glasnost' or restructuring and opening up the economy. He allowed citizens of the Soviet Union to speak out about the problems they faced.
Yet as Gorbachev opened up the Soviet Union to the winds of change, it started to collapse. In 1991, on the heels of a failed coup by hardline communists, the Soviet Union just fell apart and splintered into many separate republics. Its former eastern European satellites went their own way too.
Communism by 1992 was nearly extinct and the prophesies of communists and marxists were now nearly as dead as the dodo. In light of this massive upheaval, much of Rivera's work seemed dated and completely off base. Though some of his works still retained their power.
Yet as the 1990's progressed, Kahlo's work took centre stage. "I can't think of any other woman artist," a woman historian I knew said, "who is as famous as Frida Kahlo is right now." She said this over twenty years ago but it's still true to-day in 2015.
Rivera's fame did not shrivel away. Yet by now Kahlo's light nearly outshone her onetime more famous husband. "It seems likely that Kahlo would have found this astonishing," said poet and art critic Edward Lucie-Smith. Yet it happened.
The 20th century has witnessed many famous art couples. There was Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner,, Steiglitz and Georgia O'Keefe, Wilhelm de Kooning and Elaine de Kooning, Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning, and Michael Snow and Joyce Wieland. Yet in all these cases, in life and in death, the male's fame outranked the female's. But in the case of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, this was no longer true. Now Frida Kahlo's reputation outranked that of her former husband's.
It was a massive change. The little woman finally caught up with the big male artist and may have surpassed him in the public's mind. No one could have predicted this would happen.
Saturday 27 June 2015
Friday 26 June 2015
The Big Man and the Little Woman - Part Three
Part Three of the entry 'The Big Man and the Little Woman'
In the mid to late 1960's in the United States, small groups of women met, talked and planned. These women gave birth to the second wave of feminism. Some of them had taken part in the civil rights movement in the U.S. Here men assumed the power and told women to stay in the kitchen, cook and serve meals, answer phones and do the clerical work.
"The only position for women in our movement is prone," in effect said Stokely Carmichael, one of the leading civil rights activists of the 1960's.
Educated women reacted against this belief in male superiority. They called it 'sexism'. Already Betty Friedan's 'The Feminine Mystique' had been published in 1963. It was a very moderate book that called for some equality between men and women.
Yet these younger women meeting in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago and other places, went far further. They called ther present set-up 'patriarchy' or the rule of women by men. They vowed to overthrow patriarchy and put it in its place complete equality between men and women.
They marched into the streets, demonstrated, recruited more women to their cause, grew in numbers and their cause called 'feminism' spread around the world.
In the art world men nearly always devalued women's work. "Women cannot paint," said the modern painter Hans Hoffman. "Only men," he said in effect, "can spread their wings."
Soon feminists scholars challenged this attitude. 'Why Are There No Great Women Artists' was written by art scholar Linda Nochlin. Nochlin pointed out in this article the tremendous obstacles women artists faced.
Other feminists like the writer and author Germaine Greer, and artists like Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro scoured the history of art and found many great women artists.
Soon the feminists discovered Frida Kahlo for in the early 1980's, Hayden Herrera's massive biography of Kahlo was published. Here was a woman who painted her pains, her worries and her disabilities. Also she married a man who abused her, cheated on her and had a massive ego.
"The personal is the political," feminists started to say. In other words the everyday problems women faced were caused by patriarchy and male sexism. Kahlo's work revealed a lot of this. She was a victim of male oppression with a capital V.
As women started to discover the work of Kahlo, a momentous thing happened. Communism started to unravel, first in China and then in the Soviet Union.. "It does not matter whether the cat is black or white," said china's new ruler Deng Xiao Ping, "as long as it catches the mouse." 'Little Deng' as he was called launched China on a capitalist course and scrapped nearly all the socialist rules and regulations in China.
Then came a massive change in the Soviet Union. This too affected the way art historians looked at Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
(End of Part Three. )
In the mid to late 1960's in the United States, small groups of women met, talked and planned. These women gave birth to the second wave of feminism. Some of them had taken part in the civil rights movement in the U.S. Here men assumed the power and told women to stay in the kitchen, cook and serve meals, answer phones and do the clerical work.
"The only position for women in our movement is prone," in effect said Stokely Carmichael, one of the leading civil rights activists of the 1960's.
Educated women reacted against this belief in male superiority. They called it 'sexism'. Already Betty Friedan's 'The Feminine Mystique' had been published in 1963. It was a very moderate book that called for some equality between men and women.
Yet these younger women meeting in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago and other places, went far further. They called ther present set-up 'patriarchy' or the rule of women by men. They vowed to overthrow patriarchy and put it in its place complete equality between men and women.
They marched into the streets, demonstrated, recruited more women to their cause, grew in numbers and their cause called 'feminism' spread around the world.
In the art world men nearly always devalued women's work. "Women cannot paint," said the modern painter Hans Hoffman. "Only men," he said in effect, "can spread their wings."
Soon feminists scholars challenged this attitude. 'Why Are There No Great Women Artists' was written by art scholar Linda Nochlin. Nochlin pointed out in this article the tremendous obstacles women artists faced.
Other feminists like the writer and author Germaine Greer, and artists like Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro scoured the history of art and found many great women artists.
Soon the feminists discovered Frida Kahlo for in the early 1980's, Hayden Herrera's massive biography of Kahlo was published. Here was a woman who painted her pains, her worries and her disabilities. Also she married a man who abused her, cheated on her and had a massive ego.
"The personal is the political," feminists started to say. In other words the everyday problems women faced were caused by patriarchy and male sexism. Kahlo's work revealed a lot of this. She was a victim of male oppression with a capital V.
As women started to discover the work of Kahlo, a momentous thing happened. Communism started to unravel, first in China and then in the Soviet Union.. "It does not matter whether the cat is black or white," said china's new ruler Deng Xiao Ping, "as long as it catches the mouse." 'Little Deng' as he was called launched China on a capitalist course and scrapped nearly all the socialist rules and regulations in China.
Then came a massive change in the Soviet Union. This too affected the way art historians looked at Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
(End of Part Three. )
Monday 22 June 2015
The Big Man and the Littel Woman - Part Two
The Big Man and the Little Woman - Part Two
When Diego Rivera came back to Mexico in 1920, the ferocious revolution that had ripped huge swathes of destruction through the country was over. Power was now wielded by brown-skinned Mexicans and no longer by white ones. The revolution had seen to that.
Rivera was hired by the new Mexican Minister of Education Jose Vascencelos to use his art to educate Mexicans about their past. Rivera went to work.
He painted huge murals whose elements Edward Lucie Smith points out, "were taken from the Cubists, from Gauguin, Le Douanier Rousseau and perhaps most of all from 15th century Italian fresco paintings."
By his work and his energy Rivera became Mexico's most well-known painters. He, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Siqueros became Mexico's three greatest muralists. Yet Rivera was also a communist who strangely enough did work for Americans in the U.S. itself. In doing this he made the art fof the mural well known outside Mexico.
He did a mural in Rockefeller Centre in New York City. Yet here the energetic Nelson Rockefeller, later governor of New York State, ordered the mural destroyed after Rivera refused to take out a figure that looked like V.I. Lenin, the father of the Russian Revolution.
Though a communist, Rivera clashed with the Mexican Communist party and the communist rulers of the Soviet Union, who demanded total obedience to the communist party line.
In the 1930's, Rivera urged the progressive president of Mexico, Lazaro Cardenas, to allow the exiled Leon Trotsky to come to Mexico. After this happened, communists were outraged. "My parents hated Trotskyites," a former communist told months ago. Trotsky had helped create the Russian Revolution but later clashed with the Soviet leader Josef Stalin. Stalin kicked Trotsky out of the Soviet Union.
Rivera was thrown out of the Communist Party and was only allowed to rejoin the party after many years and making many apologies. Maeanwhile Frida Kahlo was seen mainly as Rivera's consort who tagged along with Rivera as they travelled around the world. He and sometimes she had love affairs outside their marriage.
Detroit to-day is a bankrupt city, a dour symbol of the U.S.'s Rust Belt. "40 per cent of its street lights were blown out," a former resident of Detroit told me. "I saw this in a magazine ad." Yet in the 1930's the city was a booming centre of the auto industry. Here, Rivera painted a famous mural for the Detroit Institute of Art. It still exists to-day.
Meanwhile Frida struggled. When she was in her teens, she was travelling on a bus that was crushed by a train. A pipe rammed through her body. She survived but she never recovered from this terrible injury. She underwent many operations. Out of this suffering, she created art.
Kahlo turned to the Mexican 'retablos' as her models. These pictures gave thanks to God or holy figures for saving the person who had been in danger.
"Both Frida's paintings and the retablos," writes Hayden Herrera, "record the facts of physical distress in detail without squeamishness." The narrative of the retablos, Herrera says must be accurate, legible and dramatic. "The retablo is both a visual receipt, a thank you note and a hedge against furture dangers."
As Edward Lucie Smith points out, Kahlo was influenced also by the paintings and portraits of Hermenegildo Bustos, a 19th century Mexican artist.
At the time, Kahlo was seen as a minor artist who painted pictures about her disabilities, health problems and suffering. Rivera on the other hand, was classified as a great painter who dealt with big male themes, like politics, class struggle and Mexican history.
Kahlo died in 1954, Rivera in 1957. He was seen quite rightly as one of Mexico's greatest artists. Kahlo was forgotten and was banished from art history by most art chroniclers.
Yet then came two great changes.
( To be continued ).
When Diego Rivera came back to Mexico in 1920, the ferocious revolution that had ripped huge swathes of destruction through the country was over. Power was now wielded by brown-skinned Mexicans and no longer by white ones. The revolution had seen to that.
Rivera was hired by the new Mexican Minister of Education Jose Vascencelos to use his art to educate Mexicans about their past. Rivera went to work.
He painted huge murals whose elements Edward Lucie Smith points out, "were taken from the Cubists, from Gauguin, Le Douanier Rousseau and perhaps most of all from 15th century Italian fresco paintings."
By his work and his energy Rivera became Mexico's most well-known painters. He, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Siqueros became Mexico's three greatest muralists. Yet Rivera was also a communist who strangely enough did work for Americans in the U.S. itself. In doing this he made the art fof the mural well known outside Mexico.
He did a mural in Rockefeller Centre in New York City. Yet here the energetic Nelson Rockefeller, later governor of New York State, ordered the mural destroyed after Rivera refused to take out a figure that looked like V.I. Lenin, the father of the Russian Revolution.
Though a communist, Rivera clashed with the Mexican Communist party and the communist rulers of the Soviet Union, who demanded total obedience to the communist party line.
In the 1930's, Rivera urged the progressive president of Mexico, Lazaro Cardenas, to allow the exiled Leon Trotsky to come to Mexico. After this happened, communists were outraged. "My parents hated Trotskyites," a former communist told months ago. Trotsky had helped create the Russian Revolution but later clashed with the Soviet leader Josef Stalin. Stalin kicked Trotsky out of the Soviet Union.
Rivera was thrown out of the Communist Party and was only allowed to rejoin the party after many years and making many apologies. Maeanwhile Frida Kahlo was seen mainly as Rivera's consort who tagged along with Rivera as they travelled around the world. He and sometimes she had love affairs outside their marriage.
Detroit to-day is a bankrupt city, a dour symbol of the U.S.'s Rust Belt. "40 per cent of its street lights were blown out," a former resident of Detroit told me. "I saw this in a magazine ad." Yet in the 1930's the city was a booming centre of the auto industry. Here, Rivera painted a famous mural for the Detroit Institute of Art. It still exists to-day.
Meanwhile Frida struggled. When she was in her teens, she was travelling on a bus that was crushed by a train. A pipe rammed through her body. She survived but she never recovered from this terrible injury. She underwent many operations. Out of this suffering, she created art.
Kahlo turned to the Mexican 'retablos' as her models. These pictures gave thanks to God or holy figures for saving the person who had been in danger.
"Both Frida's paintings and the retablos," writes Hayden Herrera, "record the facts of physical distress in detail without squeamishness." The narrative of the retablos, Herrera says must be accurate, legible and dramatic. "The retablo is both a visual receipt, a thank you note and a hedge against furture dangers."
As Edward Lucie Smith points out, Kahlo was influenced also by the paintings and portraits of Hermenegildo Bustos, a 19th century Mexican artist.
At the time, Kahlo was seen as a minor artist who painted pictures about her disabilities, health problems and suffering. Rivera on the other hand, was classified as a great painter who dealt with big male themes, like politics, class struggle and Mexican history.
Kahlo died in 1954, Rivera in 1957. He was seen quite rightly as one of Mexico's greatest artists. Kahlo was forgotten and was banished from art history by most art chroniclers.
Yet then came two great changes.
( To be continued ).
Thursday 18 June 2015
The Big Man and the Little Woman - Part One
The Big Man and The Little Woman - Part One
He was a huge rumpled Mexican artist whose feuds, energies, appetites and art works, dwarfed most other artists. She was a small, crippled woman whose great subjects were herself - her pains and her sufferings.
They both made history and became famous but at different times. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo married each other, divorced and then married each other again.
By 1960 both had passed away. Yet Kahlo's art career or recognition in the art world had barely begun.
Rivera was older than Frida. He was born in 1886 the son of a school teacher. Rivera studied art in Mexico City and then won a scholarship to study art in Spain and to Paris.
In Paris he studied the art of the day including Impressionism, Cubism and so on. Then he went to Italy to see the great Renaissance painters like Michelangelo, Giotto and many others.
When he returned to Mexico in 1920 he started to paint giant murals that caused a sensation. A civil war and revolution had ripped through Mexico for ten years leaving many dead and large parts of the country in ruins. Now the new Mexican government launched a whole new educational system of which mural painting was a part. The murals that Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueros painted, breathed new life into art and art in Latin America.
"Mexicans are not a gay race," said another great painter Rufino Tamayo, who was at one time Rivera's student and then his rival. "Mexicans are tragic because of their long history of foreign domination."
This is true. Mexico came into the modern world by conquest . In the early 1500's, the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes invaded the Aztec empire and brutally smashed it. Now Spain ruled an empire made up of millions of First Nations people. Yet about 300 years later, Mexicans rose in revolt against their Spanish overlords. After lots of violence they won their freedom like many other Spanish colonies in South America.
Yet Mexico's problems weren't over. Mexico's growing powerful neighbour the United States of America cast envious eyes at the relatively empty lands in northern Mexico. "From the halls of Montezuma," goes one of the lines in the hymn of the United States' Marines. And in the late 1840's, U.S. troops invaded Mexico and Mexico City where once the mighty first nations emperor Montezuma had ruled.
The U.S. won the war with Mexico and siezed huge chunks of the country. Texas, California and many other now western states were once part of Mexico. After 1848 they belonged to the United States. "We never gave them to America," a Mexican government official complained in 1971 to a Canadian tourist. "The U.S. siezed them."
Soon after this, french troops invaded Mexico but were driven out. From about 1870 to 1910, Mexico lived in peace under a dictatorship. Yet in 1910 a revolution erupted as first nations and other people of colour wanted the power and privileges mostly held by white
people.
By 1920 the Mexican Revolution was over though violence sometimes broke out again.
Then Mexico went through a period of growth, peace and some prosperity. Ruled by the PRI or Party of Institutionalized Revolution, Mexico underwent an economic boom. A new middle class appeared to enjoy the fruits of prosperity. Yet the old time politicians, and their cronies still held on to the important reins of power. This period lasted from the 1940's to the 1970's.
The U.S. of course wielded great power in Mexico. Canadian nationalists like George Grant, Jim Laxer, Walter Gordon, prime minister John Diefenbaker, Mel Watkins and later David Orchard, have lamented U.S. power in Canada. Yet in the end, this led to Canadian peace, order and prosperity. In Mexico's case it often led to war and poverty.
"Poor Mexico," one Mexican official is supposed to have said. "So far from God, so close to the United States of America." Even to-day violence still plagues Mexico. At this time, the Mexican government ruled again by the PRI is at war with powerful drug dealers. This war has already killed 40,000 Mexicans.
It was against this sometimes violent backdrop that Rivera and Kahlo painted their great works.
He was a huge rumpled Mexican artist whose feuds, energies, appetites and art works, dwarfed most other artists. She was a small, crippled woman whose great subjects were herself - her pains and her sufferings.
They both made history and became famous but at different times. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo married each other, divorced and then married each other again.
By 1960 both had passed away. Yet Kahlo's art career or recognition in the art world had barely begun.
Rivera was older than Frida. He was born in 1886 the son of a school teacher. Rivera studied art in Mexico City and then won a scholarship to study art in Spain and to Paris.
In Paris he studied the art of the day including Impressionism, Cubism and so on. Then he went to Italy to see the great Renaissance painters like Michelangelo, Giotto and many others.
When he returned to Mexico in 1920 he started to paint giant murals that caused a sensation. A civil war and revolution had ripped through Mexico for ten years leaving many dead and large parts of the country in ruins. Now the new Mexican government launched a whole new educational system of which mural painting was a part. The murals that Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueros painted, breathed new life into art and art in Latin America.
"Mexicans are not a gay race," said another great painter Rufino Tamayo, who was at one time Rivera's student and then his rival. "Mexicans are tragic because of their long history of foreign domination."
This is true. Mexico came into the modern world by conquest . In the early 1500's, the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes invaded the Aztec empire and brutally smashed it. Now Spain ruled an empire made up of millions of First Nations people. Yet about 300 years later, Mexicans rose in revolt against their Spanish overlords. After lots of violence they won their freedom like many other Spanish colonies in South America.
Yet Mexico's problems weren't over. Mexico's growing powerful neighbour the United States of America cast envious eyes at the relatively empty lands in northern Mexico. "From the halls of Montezuma," goes one of the lines in the hymn of the United States' Marines. And in the late 1840's, U.S. troops invaded Mexico and Mexico City where once the mighty first nations emperor Montezuma had ruled.
The U.S. won the war with Mexico and siezed huge chunks of the country. Texas, California and many other now western states were once part of Mexico. After 1848 they belonged to the United States. "We never gave them to America," a Mexican government official complained in 1971 to a Canadian tourist. "The U.S. siezed them."
Soon after this, french troops invaded Mexico but were driven out. From about 1870 to 1910, Mexico lived in peace under a dictatorship. Yet in 1910 a revolution erupted as first nations and other people of colour wanted the power and privileges mostly held by white
people.
By 1920 the Mexican Revolution was over though violence sometimes broke out again.
Then Mexico went through a period of growth, peace and some prosperity. Ruled by the PRI or Party of Institutionalized Revolution, Mexico underwent an economic boom. A new middle class appeared to enjoy the fruits of prosperity. Yet the old time politicians, and their cronies still held on to the important reins of power. This period lasted from the 1940's to the 1970's.
The U.S. of course wielded great power in Mexico. Canadian nationalists like George Grant, Jim Laxer, Walter Gordon, prime minister John Diefenbaker, Mel Watkins and later David Orchard, have lamented U.S. power in Canada. Yet in the end, this led to Canadian peace, order and prosperity. In Mexico's case it often led to war and poverty.
"Poor Mexico," one Mexican official is supposed to have said. "So far from God, so close to the United States of America." Even to-day violence still plagues Mexico. At this time, the Mexican government ruled again by the PRI is at war with powerful drug dealers. This war has already killed 40,000 Mexicans.
It was against this sometimes violent backdrop that Rivera and Kahlo painted their great works.
Friday 12 June 2015
Life Is Unfair - Life of JFK Part Two.
John F. Kennedy, who was U.S. president from 1961 until November 1963 once said, "Life is unfair."
Years later when I remembered Kennedy's brief time in power, I once said dismissively,
"How would he know?". Yet despite his great wealth and power, Kennedy did know that life was unfair, probably even when he said this about life's unfairness.
Kennedy was undoubtedly born into great wealth and privilege. He was one of eight Catholic children of multimillionaire Joe Kennedy and his devout wife Rose Kennedy. This big clan was fortune's family. For instance Kennedy told one journalist in effect, "I knew nothing about the Great Depression." Joe Kennedy gave each of his children one million dollars when they turned twenty-one. To-day this would be worth about $15 million.
Yet by the time John Kennedy was in his early 30's life had shrunk his family. John's older brother Joe Junior, died in a World War Two plane crash in 1944. Joe Junior, like John, had enlisted in the U.S. armed forces in the second world war. A few years later, John's favourite sister Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy Cavendish died in a plane crash in France.
Unlike other Kennedy siblings, Rose Marie Kennedy, didn't show up much to be interviewed or photographed. She was the mentally challenged sister who for some reason was given a lobotomy.
John F. Kennedy was shot dead in 1963. Bad luck pursued his family after his death. His younger brother Robert Kennedy was gunned down by a Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles in 1968. Then-Senator Robert Kennedy was seeking the U.S. Democratic Presidential nomination at the time.
The last and youngest Kennedy brother Senator Edward 'Teddy' Kennedy was on the same quest in 1980. He too wanted to be the Democratic nominee for president that year. "The dream never dies," Senator Kennedy told his fellow Democrats at their 1980 convention. Yet by now the Kennedy myth was fading. The incumbent Democratic president James Earl Carter held off the Kennedy challenge and went on to face Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election. Reagan went on to beat Carter.
Edward Kennedy faced many setbacks. He was thrown out of one university for cheating. He too was in a plane that crashed in 1964 and he survived. Yet his back was badly injured. Kennedy also may or may not have killed a young woman Mary Joe Kopechne who he was partying with in Chapaquidick, Massachusetts in the summer of 1969. Kennedy at the time was a married man.
"I can't see Edward Kennedy being president after this," a journalist I knew, said at the time. And he never was.
John F. Kennedy's children didn't escape the Kennedy curse either. Once again a plane killed another Kennedy. John F. Kennedy's son, John F. Kennedy Junior died in a plane crash in the U.S. northeast in 1999. His sister Caroline Kennedy is now the U.S. ambassador to Japan. Yet Japanese ultra-nationalists often harass and heckle her when she appears in public.
More than ten years after the assassination of John Kennedy, a group of journalists including a leading writer of the time Tom Wicker met to discuss Kennedy's legacy. One man said, "Kennedy will only be remembered for being the first Catholic president in U.S. history. 50 years after his death, Kennedy is still the only Catholic who was president of the U.S. "The most overrated president in history," said the British historian E.J. Hobsbawm of Kennedy.
True or not, Kennedy was the first t.v. president of the U.S. He was on t.v. many many times, in his brief two years and 11 months in power. Kennedy was a celebrity president, handsome, rich and supposedly vigorous. He also had a beautiful wife who showed up on television many times too.
Kennedy's political achievements were few but his many t.v. appearances gave him world wide exposure. Millions of people knew him as a t.v. star. That's why his terrible death stunned the world. Yet it also proves as he said, "Life is unfair."
John F. Kennedy, who was U.S. president from 1961 until November 1963 once said, "Life is unfair."
Years later when I remembered Kennedy's brief time in power, I once said dismissively,
"How would he know?". Yet despite his great wealth and power, Kennedy did know that life was unfair, probably even when he said this about life's unfairness.
Kennedy was undoubtedly born into great wealth and privilege. He was one of eight Catholic children of multimillionaire Joe Kennedy and his devout wife Rose Kennedy. This big clan was fortune's family. For instance Kennedy told one journalist in effect, "I knew nothing about the Great Depression." Joe Kennedy gave each of his children one million dollars when they turned twenty-one. To-day this would be worth about $15 million.
Yet by the time John Kennedy was in his early 30's life had shrunk his family. John's older brother Joe Junior, died in a World War Two plane crash in 1944. Joe Junior, like John, had enlisted in the U.S. armed forces in the second world war. A few years later, John's favourite sister Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy Cavendish died in a plane crash in France.
Unlike other Kennedy siblings, Rose Marie Kennedy, didn't show up much to be interviewed or photographed. She was the mentally challenged sister who for some reason was given a lobotomy.
John F. Kennedy was shot dead in 1963. Bad luck pursued his family after his death. His younger brother Robert Kennedy was gunned down by a Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles in 1968. Then-Senator Robert Kennedy was seeking the U.S. Democratic Presidential nomination at the time.
The last and youngest Kennedy brother Senator Edward 'Teddy' Kennedy was on the same quest in 1980. He too wanted to be the Democratic nominee for president that year. "The dream never dies," Senator Kennedy told his fellow Democrats at their 1980 convention. Yet by now the Kennedy myth was fading. The incumbent Democratic president James Earl Carter held off the Kennedy challenge and went on to face Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election. Reagan went on to beat Carter.
Edward Kennedy faced many setbacks. He was thrown out of one university for cheating. He too was in a plane that crashed in 1964 and he survived. Yet his back was badly injured. Kennedy also may or may not have killed a young woman Mary Joe Kopechne who he was partying with in Chapaquidick, Massachusetts in the summer of 1969. Kennedy at the time was a married man.
"I can't see Edward Kennedy being president after this," a journalist I knew, said at the time. And he never was.
John F. Kennedy's children didn't escape the Kennedy curse either. Once again a plane killed another Kennedy. John F. Kennedy's son, John F. Kennedy Junior died in a plane crash in the U.S. northeast in 1999. His sister Caroline Kennedy is now the U.S. ambassador to Japan. Yet Japanese ultra-nationalists often harass and heckle her when she appears in public.
More than ten years after the assassination of John Kennedy, a group of journalists including a leading writer of the time Tom Wicker met to discuss Kennedy's legacy. One man said, "Kennedy will only be remembered for being the first Catholic president in U.S. history. 50 years after his death, Kennedy is still the only Catholic who was president of the U.S. "The most overrated president in history," said the British historian E.J. Hobsbawm of Kennedy.
True or not, Kennedy was the first t.v. president of the U.S. He was on t.v. many many times, in his brief two years and 11 months in power. Kennedy was a celebrity president, handsome, rich and supposedly vigorous. He also had a beautiful wife who showed up on television many times too.
Kennedy's political achievements were few but his many t.v. appearances gave him world wide exposure. Millions of people knew him as a t.v. star. That's why his terrible death stunned the world. Yet it also proves as he said, "Life is unfair."
Tuesday 9 June 2015
Life Is Unfair - The Life of JFK
Life is Unfair
On a grey November Friday in 1963 I came out of a drama class at McGill University In Montreal. Horrible news floated in the air of the gloomy second floor of the old Arts building.
"Haven't you heard?" some one asked me in effect. "President Kennedy's been shot in Dallas, Texas. He may be dead."
U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was indeed dead, killed by a sniper's bullet on November 22,1963. On that grey afternoon, many women at McGill University broke down and cried. Young men wandered around the campus in shock. All over the world, millions, maybe billions of people lamented the death of this young, telegenic president.
"How could this great man die?" a friend of mine asked. "This is a tragedy."
Yet only ten years later, public opinion changed its mind on America's 35th president. For new information on President Kennedy revealed a very different president than many had thought of, when he was alive and in power.
He and his wife Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (later Onassis) really had an open marriage. "It was a new blonde every other week," a British journalist who covered Kennedy's White House told a friend of mine about the president's sex life.
Nor was President Kennedy running a squeaky clean administration. He certainly help plan attempts to kill Cuba's president Fidel Castro. Kennedy at the time of his death may or may not have been planning to plunge his country further into the disastrous Vietnam War. And though Kennedy projected a young, vigorous image, he was in fact plagued by illnesses.
Addison's disease, a rare endocrine disorder nearly killed Kennedy at least once. He also suffered from hyperthyroidism. In his 40's, exactly when he was president, Kennedy was swallowing up to ten pills a day for his various ailments. He also suffered from terrible back pain which came from injuries he got during the Second World war.
After his death, a Kennedy book industry took wing. Authors claimed that Kennedy's supposed assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, was part of a conspiracy to murder the president. Some specialists blamed Kennedy for the Cuban Missile Crisis that in October 1962 could have incinerated the world. Canadian nationalists pointed out that JFK (as Kennedy was often referred to) helped defeat Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in the 1963 Canadian general election.
Here I don't want to discuss these issues or others like them. Really I remember John F. Kennedy for mainly one thing and that was his reflection on life. "Life," he once said, "is unfair." Perhaps Kennedy's speechwriter Ted Sorensen wrote this. Yet for me this rings true, not only for many people in the world but also for John F. Kennedy. And when he said this he didn't realize he was describing not only his own fate, but the fate of others in his big family.
(To be continued on my next blog).
On a grey November Friday in 1963 I came out of a drama class at McGill University In Montreal. Horrible news floated in the air of the gloomy second floor of the old Arts building.
"Haven't you heard?" some one asked me in effect. "President Kennedy's been shot in Dallas, Texas. He may be dead."
U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was indeed dead, killed by a sniper's bullet on November 22,1963. On that grey afternoon, many women at McGill University broke down and cried. Young men wandered around the campus in shock. All over the world, millions, maybe billions of people lamented the death of this young, telegenic president.
"How could this great man die?" a friend of mine asked. "This is a tragedy."
Yet only ten years later, public opinion changed its mind on America's 35th president. For new information on President Kennedy revealed a very different president than many had thought of, when he was alive and in power.
He and his wife Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (later Onassis) really had an open marriage. "It was a new blonde every other week," a British journalist who covered Kennedy's White House told a friend of mine about the president's sex life.
Nor was President Kennedy running a squeaky clean administration. He certainly help plan attempts to kill Cuba's president Fidel Castro. Kennedy at the time of his death may or may not have been planning to plunge his country further into the disastrous Vietnam War. And though Kennedy projected a young, vigorous image, he was in fact plagued by illnesses.
Addison's disease, a rare endocrine disorder nearly killed Kennedy at least once. He also suffered from hyperthyroidism. In his 40's, exactly when he was president, Kennedy was swallowing up to ten pills a day for his various ailments. He also suffered from terrible back pain which came from injuries he got during the Second World war.
After his death, a Kennedy book industry took wing. Authors claimed that Kennedy's supposed assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, was part of a conspiracy to murder the president. Some specialists blamed Kennedy for the Cuban Missile Crisis that in October 1962 could have incinerated the world. Canadian nationalists pointed out that JFK (as Kennedy was often referred to) helped defeat Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in the 1963 Canadian general election.
Here I don't want to discuss these issues or others like them. Really I remember John F. Kennedy for mainly one thing and that was his reflection on life. "Life," he once said, "is unfair." Perhaps Kennedy's speechwriter Ted Sorensen wrote this. Yet for me this rings true, not only for many people in the world but also for John F. Kennedy. And when he said this he didn't realize he was describing not only his own fate, but the fate of others in his big family.
(To be continued on my next blog).
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