Is Camelot finally over with the death of Ethel Kennedy?

That’s how it looked in the Daily Beast, which ran the headline: “Sex Scandals, Drugs, and Tragedy: What Happened to Ethel Kennedy’s Children?” shortly after Kennedy died last week at the age of 96. No more kneeling for “one brief, shining moment” – the line from the Broadway musical “Camelot,” evoked by Jackie Kennedy days after the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, in November 1963. Just “it good, bad and ugly’ about the descendants of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy, the presidential candidate became a martyr like his brother after he was fatally shot in June 1968, following his declaration of victory in California’s Democratic primaries.

While so much reality may seem too harsh so soon after Ethel Kennedy’s death, other media coverage also reflected the now-familiar highs and lows of the Kennedy family story. Much tribute was paid to Ethel Kennedy as a passionate supporter of the family legacy. Yet The New York Times, for example, also addressed the family’s dissatisfaction with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently left his long career as president to support Donald Trump.

If it took just over sixty years for the truth to compete with myth for space, that demonstrates the brilliance of Jackie Kennedy’s long-ago interview with Life magazine journalist Theodore H. White. The way she framed her husband’s time in the White House in the mythic terms of “Camelot” stuck for decades and still resonates with Americans of a certain age. So much so that when Ethel Kennedy died, she was remembered for the first time as “one of the last living links in the Camelot era.”

But how long are we going to look at this family in the Camelot prism of the 1960s? Considering how much time has passed, it’s time to think of the Kennedy family members the same way we think of everyone else. They are people with strengths and weaknesses – and that includes Ethel Kennedy, the family matriarch who deserves recognition for his sheer survival skills.

Her parents died in a plane crash and her brother died in a crash in 1966. In addition to these traumas, she experienced the murder of her brother-in-law and then her husband. Two of her eleven children died: David from a drug overdose and Michael in a skiing accident. Two grandchildren also died. In addition to her immediate family, she also had to deal with the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. and other more recent family complications. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was arrested for heroin possession in 1983, is also currently embroiled in a sex scandal.

Through good times and bad, Ethel Kennedy kept her husband’s legacy alive through the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation, which works for economic, social and racial justice. For that and much more, she was hailed by President Biden as “an American icon – a matriarch of optimism and moral courage, an emblem of resilience and service.” Devoted to family and country, she had a backbone of steel and a heart of gold that inspired millions of Americans, including me and Jill.

Phil Johnston, a friend of the Kennedy family whose relationship with the clan dates back to RFK’s 1968 presidential campaign, calls Ethel Kennedy “an amazing woman” with an unwavering commitment to social justice. Like others, he also remembers her sense of fun. “I said to her once, ‘Ethel, one of the problems we have in this world is that there are too many people,’” Johnston said. “She said, ‘Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?’ She had a great sense of humor. She had the best stories.”

Ethel Kennedy may be worthy of admiration for many reasons, including wit, longevity and extreme grace under pressure, but the Kennedy family show as a Camelot production has run its course. And according to Johnston, they’re fine with that. ‘The Kennedys don’t believe in it. They don’t talk like that.”

With good reason. The late Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts was probably the last person who could wield real political power through the power of his name. In fact, he and Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s daughter, may have been the last in the family to do so, when they supported Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in 2008. When Joe Kennedy III lost a primary challenge to incumbent Senator Ed Markey in 2020, the Kennedy dynasty was declared over and Camelot’s future was at stake. In 2024, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. failed. in his attempt to exploit the family name, although Trump seems to think there is still value in it.

However, what has value is not a name – or a myth. It is a commitment to certain values. It is the ability to inspire people, to make them feel that you are looking at the country in a way that has special meaning and that can help people work together to achieve common goals. Maybe another Kennedy can do it, maybe not.

Just don’t call it Camelot.

Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @joan_vennochi.