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LBJ (2016) - ★☆☆☆☆

I'm horrified! They should not have done this to Woody! Why did they need to make his ears so damn big? And get rid of his beautiful blue eyes?? I had a specific memory of watching an HBO movie about LBJ in 2016 and liking it, so I was expecting this to be good—little did I know, HBO made two movies about LBJ in 2016 and this is apparently the bad one! And when I say bad, I mean bad! Etc., etc.

There's a much more important issue that needs to be discussed. 

Please take a moment to think about this question:

What color hair did JFK have?

If you said dark grey, you'd be like me. I mean, look at this picture and tell me that's not what color it is!

Well, color me surprised, because apparently this is a black and white photo and that means that even though everything in it looks to be various shades of grey, that's actually due to a specific type of photographic technology which is not capable of reproducing colors. 

Okay. Fine. Whatever. If this picture is concealing actual colors, that must mean JFK's hair was brown or something, right? I mean, take a look at this picture:

Those hairs certainly look like a mousy brown to me!

So imagine my surprise when this fellow appeared on screen in HBO's LBJ. 


As you can see, this young man's hair is very clearly red. Now, I don't have any problem with red hair—I actually think it's quite nice—but I could not believe that in a movie so devoted to (admittedly somewhat flubbed) visual accuracy that they would make Woody wear an entire prosthetic helmet to look like LBJ, a guy with a not extremely distinctive look, they'd mess up the hair of one of the most famous Americans in recent history. 

It was time for some research.

First, I asked my mom, because I thought she might know. Here's how that went:



But then I realized the terrible mistake I had made—my mom was born five months after JFK's assassination—she was not a primary source at all! 

That left me with only one option: turning to an authority on the topic. Fortunately, I came across a fellow blogger's blog post on the topic of JFK's hair color. The blog is called "Red Hair Myths" which leads me to believe this keyboard warrior is an expert on the topic. The mysterious blogger, identified only as "Neil" concludes that JFK's hair must have been a sort of "chestnut," and one which maybe varied based on the amount of sun the president was getting. I would have been happy to stop there, but I just so happened to scroll down to the comments.

WARNING: what I found next may surprise you.


Well! Talk about an authoritative source! This person, at the age of five years old, actually saw JFK in person. They provide us with many authenticating details, such as the name of their kindergarten teacher, the kind of car Kennedy was driving, and the street on which it all occurred. This mysterious commenter even provides us with ANOTHER primary source to prove their point. I see no reason to doubt this anonymous commenter, nor to question their final conjecture that JFK must have used hair dye (maybe that's what got on Jackie's famous pink suit!).

Myth: busted.

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