The Kennedys - a miniseries in controversy

The Canadian producer of the 8-hour miniseries The Kennedys speaks about The History Channel declining to air the drama after they spent $15 million developing their first scripted historical drama.

"[Michael Prupas] says, he’s an admirer of the Kennedy family. As such, it is in a tone that conveys bafflement that Mr. Prupas describes the campaign waged against his company’s production of a television miniseries on the Kennedys. The series has been called a “politically motivated smear job.” A propaganda film. A hit piece. The attention given John F. Kennedy’s sexual indiscretions, says Hollywood filmmaker Robert Greenwald, who has relentlessly criticized the production for the past year, amounts to “a disgusting, below-the-belt attack, both figuratively and literally.”

Mr. Greenwald’s pressure campaign has accomplished its main goal: getting the History Channel to walk away from its $15-million investment in the project starring Greg Kinnear as JFK and Katie Holmes as his wife, Jacqueline.

Mr. Prupas insists that The Kennedys, which will air in Canada in April, will leave viewers impressed with the family at its centre, and he says the claims of inaccuracies are unfair and overblown. And in a year in which two of the main Oscar contenders, The Social Network and The King’s Speech, are known to have taken liberties with actual events, is it unfair to expect a historical work to be anything more than “based on a true story?”" ...

Read entire article by Scott Stinson at National Post



More information on series: The Kennedys

Photo: Muse Entertainment