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The sorority girls dressing like Jackie Kennedy on the day JFK was shot

posted 11 years ago by tmitch-1
21 replies | jump to latest

Okay, so I admit Animal House is one of the funniest movies of all time. I even admit I'm guiltily grateful to the grandfather of all gross-out movies.

Still, the one scene that has always perplexed me - not only for its extremely bad taste, but also for the fact that no one has ever complained about it - is the final parade scene in which the sorority girls are all dressed like Jackie Kennedy on the day her husband, John Kennedy, president of the United States, was mortally wounded with a shot to the back of the head.

So what's up with that? Didn't anyone notice?

[–] taylorje 11 years ago

JFK's death had not yet happened in the time period of "Animal House." As for the sorority girls' dresses, they are similar but not identical to what Jackie wore that day. Her outfit was made by Chanel, while the girls' clothing probably came from J.C. Penneys. There is a difference, believe me.

Even if the outfits were identical, who would care? If you want bad taste, read up on JFK's personal life both before and after he moved to the White House.

[–] Darvidd 11 years ago

Jacqueline Kennedy was a style icon of the period, the first 'First Lady' of high fashion, much imitated by young women-she damned near wiped out the leopard population of Africa by wearing a (real) leopard skin jacket and suddenly everyone who could afford it wanted one themselves.

'What is an Oprah?'-Teal'c.

[–] cyrusdubman31 10 years ago

Just one stir fried second. A classy broad like Jacqueline Bouvier-Kennedy-Onassis Wore leopard skin? Whenever i hear of leopard skin clothing, i always picture Peg Bundy in a Leopard skin bustier.

[–] johnston.scot 10 years ago

Stylish and chic in 1963 -> dated and cluelessly striveresque in 1987. That's not quite an iron-clad rule, but it's at least a tendency.

[–] wrs6565 11 years ago

Want to see something really funny in that scene? Look at the people that Stork marches past when he steals the drum major's baton and leads them down the wrong alleyway. The kids who clear the way for him are obviously longhaired teenagers from the 70s!!!!

[–] FlyingSaucersAreReal 11 years ago

Why do you think that the parade takes place the day Kennedy died?

[–] johnston.scot 11 years ago

I'm pretty sure that, in the OP's post, he means dressing like Jackie Kennedy dressed on the day JFK was shot.

In any event, as already noted, the movie's time frame began in the fall of 1962, so the JFK assassination hadn't happened yet. So, within the movie, none of the characters would recognize the suit and pillbox hats as having any connection to an event that hadn't happened yet.

It is more than a little bit of a weird coincidence that they happened to wear that particular outfit. Not impossible, as Jackie Kennedy had worn the same suit earlier, but ... weird. Chalk it up as a dark-comedy joke on the part of the filmmakers.

Complete aside: there's some confusion and controversy about where the real-life suit actually came from. Most likely it wasn't exactly from Chanel, but from Chez Ninon in the US, though made with Chanel's acquiescence and using their design and materials.

[–] torreydeluca 10 years ago

Years ago I picked up a copy of Bob Woodward's bio on Belushi, entitled "Wired". According to Woodward, Belushi objected to certain scenes in the original shooting script as being too offensive, and he wanted them removed before he'd sign on to play Bluto.

Woodward wrote that there was a segment in the homecoming scene where a keg was hurtled through the air and, looking much like a bullet, it was to pass through the head of the representation of JFK on one of the floats. The co-eds on that float were to be dressed in the same outfit Jackie Kennedy wore on the day of her husband's murder. At Belushi's request, this scene was removed.

I would guess that Landis decided to stick with the pink suit dress and pillbox hat so the audience would know that the women were supposed to be Jackie Kennedy. Some of the actresses looked nothing like her (at least two of them even had blond hair), but if you see that outfit, you think of her.

[–] tallkennj 9 years ago

Allegedly, in the timeline of the movie, the parade scene happened literally the day before Kennedy was shot. That doesn't quite add up because a homecoming parade would almost certainly be on a Saturday, and Kennedy was shot on a Friday, but supposedly that was the specific intent that all action in this movie took place just BEFORE the Kennedy assassination (in other words, before the 1960s turned into "the 60s").

As for Jackie O, she was a pop culture phenom while first lady. For the first time in the age of the photograph, the first lady was young and beautiful instead of an old coot, and the public... especially women... adored her. They mimicked her style to a tee, wearing the same clothes, hairstyle and pill box hats that you see in Animal House... Not to mention they were all standing on a float called "Camelot" with a bust of Kennedy as a centerpiece.

Now, if you really want to be offended, allegedly they scripted a gag where, during the parade mayhem, the bust of Kennedy on the Camelot float gets "shot in the head" in the exact same way as happened in real life. Yes, that would have been in bad taste, which is, presumably, why Landis axed it.

[–] johnston.scot 9 years ago

That may have been their intention at some point, but the timeline doesn't work. The parade had to have been in 1962, rather than 1963.

- Over the first shot of the movie, there's a title that reads, "Faber College 1962." So it starts in the fall of 1962, not 1963. The homecoming parade must take place 2 months (or little more) later. There's a lot that happens in such a short period, but it wouldn't make sense if the movie spanned more than a year. All the seniors from the beginning are still seniors at the end, for one thing. Also, there's no summer break, or Christmas, or various other things.

- In the end titles, the class years of the characters are consistent. The characters who are seniors are identified as '63. If the end was in the fall of 1963, they would already have graduated the prior spring. Pinto and Flounder are identified as '66, which fits with them being freshman in the fall of 1962.

[–] johnston.scot 9 years ago

And an aside: in the National Lampoon High School Yearbook Parody, the homecoming dance of C. Estes Kefauver High School did take place on November 22, 1963.

[–] thetaylors604 9 years ago

Jackie also put the dent in pillbox hats. They weren't dented until she wore one on a windy day and made a dent trying to keep it on. Suddenly women everywhere were denting their pillbox hats.

[–] Etherdave 9 years ago

It fits. And may even be tasteless. Would that be inappropriate for this film?

[–] krypton_son 9 years ago

It fits. And may even be tasteless. Would that be inappropriate for this film?

No, it doesn't fit at all. Wrong year. That's like saying that the World Trade Center towers were destroyed in 2000, but it fits.

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dies ist meine unterschrift

[–] johnston.scot 9 years ago

It's sometimes hard to track who's responding to whom or what on the IMDB boards, so I may be off, but I think:

Etherdave said that the scene in the movie with the sorority girls wearing the same dress that Jackie Kennedy would (later) wear in Dallas on November 22, 1963 fits the movie. Among other things, the tastelessness of the filmmakers' joke is in character with the rest of the movie.

Your response seems to go a different direction, suggesting that wearing that dress didn't "fit" the historical timeline. If so, I've got to differ. The scene takes place in the fall of 1962. That specific dress was around well before then, and Jackie Kennedy had worn it on multiple occasions. Within the chronology of the movie there's nothing at all off in having college students wearing that dress on a float that's a tribute to JFK.

The characters don't know they're making a tasteless jokey reference to JFK's assassination, because it hasn't happened yet. These particularly characters wouldn't have made such a joke, and they didn't. The filmmakers did. What wouldn't "fit," chronologically, would be if the scene in the movie took place after 11/22/63.

[–] Rockhound6165 9 years ago

Still, the one scene that has always perplexed me - not only for its extremely bad taste, but also for the fact that no one has ever complained about it

Meaning you're the only overly sensitive child who is offended by it. And, no, the irony of you posting this 1 day short of the 50th anniversary of the assassination isn't lost on me.

[–] johnston.scot 9 years ago

I suspect the timing of the original post wasn't ironic, so much as a result of the fact that OP had never seen a photo of Jackie Kennedy in the iconic dress before he happened to channel-surf to a show marking the 50th anniversary.

Consider, who would ask

Didn't anyone notice?

about what was a very obvious visual joke?

[–] DanLeeD 9 years ago

I read that the Homecoming parade in "Animal House" was originally written in the script as occurring on Nov.21, 1963, & JFK was shot the next day. For some reason, the film was later set in 1962, a year earlier.

[–] johnston.scot 9 years ago

As mentioned elsewhere, that is quite possible - indeed likely, at least in some sense.

Apparently, the germ of the idea of making a National Lampoon movie began with the notion of turning the high school yearbook parody into a movie. The fictional yearbook was for the class of 1964, and the high school's homecoming dance took place on Nov. 22, 1963.

Somewhere in the course of throwing out the high school yearbook and turning to Chris Miller's anarchically tasteless Dartmouth stories, the time frame changed from high school students in the 1963-64 school year to college students in the fall of 1962 - most likely because it conformed to the new source material, as Chris Miller was in the Dartmouth class of 1963.

Note that a homecoming event on Nov. 21 would be a bit odd (though not impossible), as that was a Thursday. The parade in the movie seems to be on a Saturday, which is obviously the day actual games are played, so if it were 1963, it would have be the previous weekend (or earlier), or Nov. 23. The latter wouldn't make any sense for various reasons. Among other things, events - including college football games - scheduled for Nov. 23 were pretty nearly universally postponed or cancelled.

Another mildly interesting aside is that Pinto, Flounder and the other freshman are exact contemporaries of the main characters in American Graffiti, which takes place in the spring of 1962.