meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Political Scene | The New Yorker

From Critics at Large: Why We Cling to the Kennedy Myth

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Washington, News, Politics, President, Wickenden, Wnyc, Barack, Obama, Lizza

4.33.9K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2026

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Washington Roundtable is off today, and will be back next week. In the meantime, enjoy an episode of The New Yorker’s Critics at Large podcast about the FX series “Love Story,” which drops audiences into the lives of one of the most talked-about couples of the nineties: J.F.K., Jr., and the style icon Carolyn Bessette. The hosts Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz, who are staff writers and critics at The New Yorker, discuss how the show re-creates the look and fashion of the era in granular detail while reducing the relationship itself to a generic fairy tale. “Love Story” ’s focus on style underscores how much the Kennedy legacy lives in aesthetics, which risks obscuring some of the darker chapters of its history. “It does seem like we have ever more efficiently stripped the Kennedys and their image, and their style, from any notions of political power,” Cunningham says. “The look of something and the sort of moral thrust of something are not always one to one working in parallel.”

New episodes of “Critics at Large” drop every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hi, political scene listeners. It's Evanos. This week, we're taking a break. And while we're off,

0:12.1

we want to share with you an episode from our friends at the New Yorkers Critics at Large podcast.

0:17.3

This is an episode about the American public's enduring fascination with the Kennedy family

0:22.5

in books, films, and most recently in a new show that many of you have probably seen about

0:28.5

the romance between JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bassett called Love Story. If you enjoy that episode,

0:35.2

please go ahead and subscribe to critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

0:40.1

And we'll see you again next week.

0:47.9

This is Critics at Large, a podcast from the New Yorker.

0:51.8

I'm Vincent Cunningham.

0:52.7

I'm Alex Schwartz.

0:53.9

And I'm Nomi Fry.

0:55.3

Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening and the culture right now and how we got here.

1:02.1

Hello.

1:02.6

Hello.

1:03.4

Hey.

1:05.6

My friends, I would like to invite you to join me on a journey.

1:10.9

Oh, gladly.

1:12.5

Picture this.

1:14.1

We're in New York City.

1:16.5

It's the 1990s.

1:18.9

You guys were actually there on the ground as two New York City natives.

1:23.3

I was very much in the New York of the 1990s.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.