JACQUELINE KENNEDY AND THE POLITICS OF POPULARITY BY COURTNEY CAUDLE TRAVERS DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor John Murphy, Chair Associate Professor Cara Finnegan Associate Professor Ned O’Gorman Associate Professor Jennifer Greenhill Associate Professor Pat Gill Abstract Although her role as first lady marked the real beginning of the American public’s fascination with her, Jacqueline Kennedy’s celebrity status endured throughout her life. Dozens of books have sought to chronicle that mystique, hail her style, and commend her contribution to the youthful persona of the Kennedy administration. She seems to be an object ripe for rhetorical study; yet, for many communication scholars, Kennedy’s cultural iconicity diminishes her legacy as First Lady, and she remains an exemplar of political passivity. Her influence on the American public’s cultural and political imagination, however, demonstrates a need for scholars to assess with greater depth her development from First Lady to American icon in the early 1960s. Thus, this dissertation focuses on three case studies that analyze Jacqueline Kennedy’s image across different media: fashion spreads in Vogue magazine and Harper’s Bazaar published immediately after the inauguration in 1961; her televised tour of the White House broadcast in February 1962; and Andy Warhol’s 1964 Jackie prints, which drew from her construction of the Camelot myth after JFK’s funeral. These case studies seek to show how “icon” becomes an inventional and conceptual resource for the role of a modern first lady and how Kennedy’s shift to public icon in her own right (after and outside of her position as first lady) was mediated in nuanced ways that both reflected early Cold War (suburban) culture and shaped the larger institutional discourses of which she was part. ii Acknowledgments Thank you, first of all, to my advisor and mentor, John Murphy. Without his keen eye for revision, his patience with having a long-distance advisee, and his unparalleled ability to respond thoughtfully and quickly to drafts, this project would look vastly different. I could not have had a better director for this dissertation—when needed, he provided criticism, encouragement, and ultimately friendship, and I forever will be grateful for that. Additional thanks go to my committee members: Cara Finnegan, Ned O’Gorman, Jennifer Greenhill, and Pat Gill. Their engagement with my chapters and ideas was helpful and nuanced, and I have appreciated their feedback along the way. Thank you to the faculty and staff at the University of Illinois, where people take what they do seriously but do not take themselves seriously, and especially to Marissa Lowe Wallace and Rohini Singh for long Skype chats, phone calls, and funny emails throughout this process. That kind of environment helps tremendously. Thanks to Ronald Carpenter, whose speechwriting class in college and belief in my abilities spurred me to pursue “Speech Communication” over English. Thank you to my mom and dad for always providing emotional and financial support and for truly believing this was what I was meant to do. And finally, thank you to my husband, Brent, whose patience and encouragement throughout graduate school has made all the difference, especially because I admire him more than anyone I know. iii Table of Contents CHAPTER 1: IMAGES OF JACQUELINE KENNEDY AND EARLY COLD WAR CULTURE: A SPACE FOR VISUAL RHETORICAL STUDIES................................................1 CHAPTER 2: AMPLIFYING THE ADMINISTRATION, AMPLIFYING THE FIRST LADY: JACQUELINE KENNEDY’S RHETORICAL INVENTION IN HARPER’S BAZAAR AND VOGUE…………………………………………………………………………………………..56 CHAPTER 3: PRESIDENTIAL TASTE AND CULTURAL GRAVITAS: JACQUELINE KENNEDY’S TELEVISED TOUR OF THE WHITE HOUSE……………………………….103 CHAPTER 4: JACKIE, OH! JOHN KENNEDY’S ASSASSINATION, JACQUELINE KENNEDY’S ICONIC CAMELOT, AND ANDY WARHOL’S JACKIES………………….152 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………198 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………217 iv 1 CHAPTER 1: IMAGES OF JACQUELINE KENNEDY AND EARLY COLD WAR CULTURE: A SPACE FOR VISUAL RHETORICAL STUDIES Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (later Onassis) was just 31 years old when President Kennedy took the oath of office in 1961. Her beauty, glamour, and elegance, coupled with her well-documented knowledge of languages and the arts, soon secured her status as the most photographed woman in the world (only to be replaced in the 1990s by Princess Diana).1 Fashion historian Kathleen Craughwell-Varda contends that after having been absent for much of Kennedy’s campaign, “[Jacqueline Kennedy’s] impact on popular culture when she arrived on the public scene in 1960 was instantaneous: the dual American ideals of the sultry blonde and the prim, starched girl next door were immediately replaced by that of a cool, sophisticated brunette.”2 For Craughwell-Varda, Kennedy’s influence on American “popular culture… redefined the role of First Lady, ensuring that every woman who followed her in the White House would have to carve out her own public image.”3 Almost immediately, Kennedy was featured in prestigious fashion magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and photographs and articles on her were ubiquitous in Life and Women’s Wear Daily. Department stores across the country featured “Jackie”-esque mannequins, and her expensive clothes were copied for ready-to-wear patterns and mass produced for middle-class consumers.4 Although her role as first lady marked the real beginning of the American public’s fascination with her, Kennedy’s celebrity status endured throughout her life. Her marriage to Aristotle Onassis shifted public recognition of her from the familiar “Jackie” to the more scandalous “Jackie O,” remaking her into a different kind of American icon: large sunglasses, silk scarves tied loosely around her (still) bouffant hair, and a persistent 2 glamour that fueled the paparazzi to hound her. Dozens of books have sought to chronicle that mystique, hail her style, and commend her contribution to the youthful persona of the Kennedy administration. As recently as 2012, “Jackie’s Secret Life” was the featured section of People magazine. She seems to be an object ripe for rhetorical study; yet, for many communication scholars, Kennedy’s cultural iconicity diminishes her legacy as First Lady, and she remains an exemplar of political passivity. Her influence on the American public’s cultural and political imagination, however, demonstrates a need for scholars to analyze with greater depth her development from First Lady to American icon in the early 1960s. In this project, I suggest that study of Jacqueline Kennedy indicates a profound moment of convergence in the early 1960s between modern celebrity culture and national politics. Analyzing the interaction between images and texts of Kennedy during the early 1960s provides one way to locate that moment. Because mediation emerges conceptually as a key discursive trope of this era—in scholarly theory, in popular forms of art, in political campaigns, and in institutional/public roles—understanding Kennedy’s legacy entails examining how she chose to be mediated visually and discursively in ways that emphasized the prismatic role of First Lady within a modern Cold War presidency. Additionally, that pursuit requires situating her performance within the political, cultural, and gendered expectations of the early Cold War period. Studying such constructions of Kennedy has the potential to contribute to important conversations about the institution of the presidency, the role of popular media in creating and sustaining political images, the social milieu of early Cold War visual culture, and Jacqueline Kennedy’s performance as first lady. More specifically, I use three key questions to structure my approach to this 3 dissertation: (1) what do the selected imagetexts of Jacqueline Kennedy do rhetorically for the Kennedy administration?; (2) what do the selected imagetexts of Jacqueline Kennedy do rhetorically for the role of first lady?; and (3) what do the selected imagetexts of Jacqueline Kennedy do for contemporaneous cultural ideals of femininity? To establish the significance of examining mediations of Jacqueline Kennedy in the early 1960s, I first review four sets of literature: (1) the modern presidency and the changing historical role of first ladies; (2) the visual culture of the Cold War; (3) biographical studies of Jacqueline Kennedy and her media presence before becoming first lady; and (4) cultural icons and rhetorical iconicity. I contend that the scholars studying first ladies typically have adhered to an oversimplified binary that defines the role either as politically passive or politically active. Examining Kennedy in the role complicates that binary because she was mediated in ways that bespoke the burgeoning intersection of national politics and celebrity culture. Second, I outline influences to my critical approach of this project. Finally, I provide a brief précis of the major case studies in this dissertation. Literature Review Examining Jacqueline Kennedy’s role in political and popular culture during her tenure as First Lady requires reviewing several sets of literature: the so-called “modern” presidency and the role of first ladies therein; the visual culture of the Cold War, with attention to the discursive