Bobby

[oenophile]

I remember walking downstairs from my bedroom one morning in early summer 1968 to hear my mom frantically exclaiming "Senator Kennedy's been shot!" As I processed the news, I thought back to sitting in my ninth grade physical science class a little over two months prior to that morning. It was sixth period. Mrs. McDonough, our teacher was out that day and we had a very personable middle aged substitute teacher who said it would be ok to talk during the last few minutes of school that day before the bell rang. Our little group in the back of class, Mary Prebula, who was my partner during table ettiquette week in seventh grade and a petite an attractive black girl and myself were laughing and having a good time. It seemed in retrospect the fault line of race was removed and we were just three goofy teenagers. Then the news hit, Martin Luther King had been shot and killed. We felt the tremor and became painfully aware of of the racial divide between us. My tongue felt heavy. I wanted to say something to our black friend but couldn't get the words out.

"Bobby" attempts to reveal such social fault lines of race, gender and class that ran through America the night that RFK was killed after giving his California presidential primary victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel. Although, I felt the movie seemed to overdo the sentimentality, seemingly venerating Kennedy to sainthood - it poignantly presented the ideals that captured the conscious of a nation - that despite our differences we are all Americans and that we cannot as a nation move forward unless we move forward together-and that we cannot move forward together unless we are willing to begin the healing process.

Edited December 6, 2006 by oenophile

[Linda Z]

My husband was working late that night, my baby was sleeping, and I was sitting up in bed alone watching TV when Bobby was shot. Our house was not far from the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. I can picture the dim blue light of the TV in our bedroom and the gut-wrenching feeling I had when I saw all the commotion and the looks of horror on the faces of the people in the hotel.

I'll have to see it to see if the sentimentality outstrips the feeling of the time. Bobby seemed like the last hope to me and my friends in 1968. He struck me as the open-faced, pure-hearted, uncorrupt Kennedy brother. Even my staunch Republican friend at work campaigned for Bobby.