Netflix has become a remarkable player in the world of documentary filmmaking in the last 5 years. The film Bobby Kennedy For President is their latest documentary production and like most of the others it is a great film. This production is split into 4 individual hour-long episodes which introduce the Kennedys, portray Bobby Kennedy’s path into government, and delve into his eventual assassination.
While I certainly paid attention in history classes back in school, none of the classes I took even scratched the surface of modern American history from the 1950s forwards. This gap in knowledge has been gradually filled in over time thanks to books, articles, essays, and podcasts. However, seeing first-hand footage from history provides a layer of historical understanding that the written medium cannot. I certainly did not have a full understanding of Robert Kennedy’s contribution to government and the impact of his assassination until finishing this documentary series.
What I take away from this documentary is just how much the assassinations of the 1960s impacted the course of the United States. The strongest voices for equality and justice were silenced at a time where the country had the potential of going through a vast transformation. Instead of facing this reckoning, the country chose to stick to the status quo of rampant corruption and classism which we still live with today.