Les Bouviers des Nouveau Yorque

The CooperToons website has oft times been accused of elitism, condescension, and just out-and-out snootery. This is absolutely false. But what else can you expect from hoi polloi peasant types who spend their days sitting in their undershirts balancing their cans of cheap beer on their ever expanding paunches while they shout at television because the referee called the play back?

No, any lack of association with the Beautiful People - as befitting all who believe in the oneness of humanity - is purely illusionary. A matter of happenstance rather than avoidance, circumstance rather than intent. And what better proof can there be of the CooperToons Official policy of embracing all humanity than the portrait displayed here?

OK. The first question everyone wants to know. Just how the heck to you pronounce, the name Bouvier. Well, members of the family have gone on record saying boo-veh-YAY. This is a bit of an Americanized rendering of the French which from a native speaker comes out more like boov-YAY. In some areas of the country there is a more extreme Americanization, BOO-vee-yer - a rendering which is more common as you move away from the American East Coast.

If you look up the various Bouvier antecedents on the Fount of All Knowledge, you'll see a common occupation is "socialite". We must emphasize, the word is "socialite" and is not to be confused with the increasingly vanishing followers of certain nineteenth century economic philosophers. A socialite, for those who can't be bothered to look it up, is defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary as "someone who is well-known in fashionable society and is often seen at parties and other social events for wealthy people".

Une fois de plus [as the Beautiful People would say], the most photographed people in the world are by no means the most caricatured people in the world. Some people are simply poor caricature subjects. In his younger days one of the most famous celebrities in the world was incredibly difficult to caricature, particularly when he first began to go boldly where no man had gone before.

Such difficulty arises when there is not one or two features that define the likeness but instead the recognizability is from a number of subtle and interacting features which are not susceptible to exaggeration. Indeed the renderings Mr. Bouvier's eldest daughter by an artist who is often cited as the greatest caricaturist of the 20th century were among among the least recognizable of all his subjects. We are, of course, referring to ...

Well, no names.

In rendering who was possibly the most photographed person in the history of the world, CooperToons is, of course, only trying to make amends to those who have argued he has neglected celebrating the ladies in his essays of (as A. E. Hotchner might have said), the greats, near greats, and ingrates throughout the world. Hopefully it will be evident that this neglect is being remedied with a quick look at the rest of the CooperToons Caricatures.

Ironically, most people who think only of 1) the First Lady of the Camelot Presidency and 2) the Super Jet Setter once she married the famous shipping magnate who would be unknown except for the marriage, don't realize she had independent employment. In later years she also began philanthropic activities, one of which got her into a rather testy conversation with the then director of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Thomas Hoving. Later, though, they got along all right.

Many people often saw the most photographed woman in history, but few remember hearing her speak. She did, though, and actively went on the campaign trail when her husband (whoever he was) decided he needed a better paying job. There were also a series of those new fangled television shows hosted by the First Lady about the history of the White House. The shows are actually quite good and informative. You can also see the depiction on First Family Album is exaggerated for comedic effect, although perhaps not excessively so.

We did mention that the jobs of the various socialites were often somewhat synthetic, but that's not true for all the Bouviers. The first job of Mr. Bouvier's eldest when she graduated from Georgetown University was as a photographer on the now defunct Washington Times-Herald. This was the old Washington Times-Herald that was bought up by the Washington Post and the Times-Herald part of the name soon dropped (the current Washington Times Herald paper and it's electronic edition is not a descendant of the earlier paper, as it originates from Washington, Indiana).

The reportorial assignments varied and ranged from covering the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II to going around Washington asking questions of people, taking their pictures, and then posting their answers next to their photos. One of her man-on-the-street interviews featured a previous acquaintance, the junior Congressman from Massachusetts. Can't remember his name.

The "man-on-the-street" interviews (as they were called even though a lot of the interviewees were women) were a common feature of newspapers when they existed and examples were sometimes featured on Jay Leno's Headlines Monday night feature. Nowadays obtaining opinions of the - quote - "man-on-the-street" - unquote - has been supplanted by the remarks at the end of whatever news article hasn't disabled the Comments section.