The musical opened just 25 days after John F Kennedy was elected president. In a refection of culture on politics and vice versa, the popular news media would later labeled the Kennedy White House as a Camelot.
How this happened is an interesting example of popular culture in the mirror.
Is this the making of Camelot?
Interestingly, the media did not refer to the Kennedy presidency as a Camelot until after JFK died. Jacklyn Kennedy conjured the Camelot imagery in an interview with Life Magazine in the days after Kennedy's assassination. An interesting article from the conservative National Review suggests that the Camelot reference was a deliberate effort by liberal media to mythologize Kennedy for political advantage.
To be sure, media made Kennedy's Camelot possible. The 1960s and 70s media that created the Kennedy Camelot idea has changed. Media today are more diffused and decentralized. Media forms are more broadly distributed and dynamic in terms of visual and creative expression. Does this mean that myth-making is no longer possible? Is centralization a part of myth making? The Obama administration makes for an interesting case study. Are new media enabling an Obama mythology? Here is one example of new media at least conjuring Camelot.
But, Obama's mythology would be, of course, unique. Perhaps the Obama cocktail hour is part of the myth making.
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