Jackie Burkhart
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| Jacqueline Beulah Burkhart | |
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| That '70s Show character | |
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| First appearance | That '70s Pilot |
| Last appearance | That '70s Finale |
| Created by | Mark Brazill |
| Portrayed by | Mila Kunis |
| Episode count | 200 |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Jackie, (Unknown nickname Hyde called her), midget |
| Gender | Female |
| Age | 14-18 (14 as of the shows start in May, 1976, and 18 at the shows ending in December, 1979) |
| Occupation | Student |
| Family | Jack (father, imprisoned) Pam (mother, estranged) |
| Address | Point Place, Wisconsin |
Jacqueline Beulah Burkhart (born August 27, 1961) is a fictional character from the Fox Network television series That '70s Show. She is portrayed by Mila Kunis.
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[edit] Personality
Jackie is introduced in the pilot episode primarily as Michael Kelso's shy girlfriend, however as the series progresses, her character became more popular. She likes to give advice which often sounds typically thoughtless and superficial, but turns out to be unnervingly correct (such as during "Battle of the Sexists" in Season 1, when she tells Donna that Eric will never be her boyfriend if she doesn't let him win at things). Though she begins as rich, spoiled, stupid, and irritating, over time she is more accepted by the rest of the gang. After her breakup with Kelso in Season 2, Jackie keeps hanging out in Eric's basement, a sign that her status has grown. These gradual changes make her character develop a defined character arc. However, she still heavily keeps part of her valley girl persona intact and she still looks at herself as the perfection of what a woman should be. Even though by the last episode she has only kissed four people on-screen including "the cheese boy" Hyde's brother in real life, she is made to sound like a slut. In the last circle Fez tells Eric, "I have kissed Jacqueline Burkhart" to which Hyde replies, "So has everybody else," although he may just have been referring to those in the circle.
[edit] Friendships
During the first season, Jackie is in her sophomore year of high school, making her approximately 15 years old. She appoints herself Donna Pinciotti's best friend. Due to her extreme haughtiness, Jackie believes Donna is unattractive compared to herself, and also boring - but as she states in numerous episodes, she believes Donna could do much better than Eric (though in the Season 7 finale, Jackie reveals that she has always cared for Eric as a friend, as Jackie calls to talk to Eric specifically for the first time ever). Despite their extremely different personalities, Donna decides to play big sister to Jackie and often tries to look out for her when she feels Jackie is making a mistake, more often than not due to her lack of common sense. Sometimes Jackie is the voice of reason for Donna, as evidenced in the Season 2 episode Kiss of Death, the same episode in which Jackie realized that Kelso was cheating on her. After her father was sent to prison in the middle of Season 5, she moved in with Donna and the two became best friends.
Jackie has a bumpy friendship with Eric. Although she is the favorite of Red's, Eric dislikes her, and makes no attempt to hide this. They became even less fond of each other when Eric blackmailed her (for kissing the cheese guy), and Eric continued to dislike her. They did have their moments, such as when Eric convinces Jackie she's right for Kelso (ironically, they break up soon after). Jackie, according to Eric, makes fun of "us (he and Donna), fat girls, or me," making her dislikable.
Jackie also has a friendship with Red. Early on, Red remarked she was the favorite of Eric's friends (even though she isn't Eric's friend) for her ability to operate on a car. Jackie has run crying to Mr. Foreman's arms no less than three times, two of which he didn't object to. Red doesn't seem to mind Jackie, often taking her side in arguments.
[edit] Relationships
When the show debuted, Jackie was dating Michael Kelso, an attractive, but dim-witted, partyboy. The two lost their virginity to each other after Kelso and his friends got out of jail for riding in a car that was mistaken for being stolen. Jackie gets on Kelso's friends' nerves on a daily basis and Kelso repeatedly said that he was going to break up with her. But Jackie beat him to it and broke up with him after catching him kissing Pam Macy. However, they got back together in the very same episode. Jackie later broke up with Kelso again after a pregnancy scare, but they got back together later at the Junior Prom.
In Season 2, Kelso began an affair with Eric's promiscuous sister, Laurie, about which Jackie eventually found out and subsequently broke up with him again. Following his subsequent breakup with Laurie, Jackie decided to test Kelso to see if they should get back together, which they did. Kelso remained loyal to Jackie after that and stayed with her throughout Season 4. However, when Kelso began to neglect Jackie as a result of his joining a modeling agency, she was caught by Eric kissing her boss. Kelso eventually found out, and went to ambush Jackie's boss. However, Jackie's boss was a blackbelt and easily beat Kelso up. This event results in a period of discovery for Jackie and Kelso; Kelso realizes he cheated because Jackie always insulted him and made him feel bad about himself. As a result, he broke up with her because he felt he couldn't be with someone who made him feel like that. It didn't last, as they got back together shortly after.
Then in the Season 4 finale, Jackie asked Kelso to marry her, but Kelso freaked out and left for California with Donna. When he returned in the beginning of Season 5 he found out that Jackie had moved onto Hyde, which made him extremely jealous, and he spent the majority of the season trying to get her back. By the beginning of Season 6 however, Kelso had claimed to be over Jackie and was fine with just being friends with her. At the end of Season 7 however, Kelso drives Jackie to Chicago after her break-up with Hyde, and they nearly have sex together, but Hyde showed up and Kelso ran off. In Season 8, he considered marrying Jackie, claiming that he did still love her, before he was offered a job in Chicago, but Fez had already told her about his proposal, which made him feel he should do so, but she eventually turned him down, much to his own pleasure.
Jackie and Steven Hyde were, from the beginning of the show, polar opposites and even enemies. While Jackie was girly, rich, and shallow, Hyde was the rebel and conspiracy theorist of the group. They strongly disliked each other during the first seasons, but Hyde began helping Jackie after her break-up with Kelso in Season 2. This eventually led to a phase in which Jackie was infatuated with Hyde, but her feelings gradually faded and it wasn't until Season 5, when Kelso was in California, that their romance really began. After watching too much of The Price is Right, the two began making out. At first they did not want to admit that they were dating, but finally gave in. They dated for the most part of Season 5, but Hyde's jealousy got him to cheat and they broke up.
Jackie's relationship with Hyde caused her to be less self-absorbed, making her more likable to the rest of the gang, and caused them to truly consider her a part of the group.
At the beginning of Season 6, Kelso and Hyde were in competition to get Jackie back, because they both still loved her. She decided she needs time to think about it, and left them both hanging, but chose Hyde in the end. Their relationship went on for two more seasons, until Jackie was offered a job in Chicago. She went to Hyde and told him that she would stay if he gave her any indication they would eventually get married. Hyde didn't have an answer, but when he did, she was already gone. Or so he thought. Jackie had no way out of Point Place, so in one last attempt to get an answer out of the man she said 'meant everything in the world to her,' she went over to the basement. Hiding his hurt and anger that she'd "left" him, Hyde told her to have a good trip.
But merely an episode later, Hyde had decided he was going to get her back. But there, he'd hit a snag. In the middle of his conversation with Jackie, Kelso walked into the hotel room with a towel around his waist and a bucket of ice in his hands. Depressed, Hyde went to Vegas and married a stripper in a moment of drunken stupor. After learning this, Jackie broke the last of their relationship off.
Throughout Season 8, Jackie remained single. Kelso proposed to her, but she eventually refused. At the end of the season, Jackie realized Fez had all the qualities she was looking for in a man and they kiss in the finale.
Jackie's feelings about each of these relationships come out in the eighth season: She thought Kelso was too inconsiderate, and she felt that she could never keep a relationship with him if she knew he didn't love her; she felt Hyde was heartless, bitter, but she immediately comments that he was rugged and a good person inside (clearly Jackie had issues with Hyde); she thought Fez had all the perfect qualities of a boyfriend (which she had stated in season four).
[edit] Trivia
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- Jackie's dream is to move to Dallas, Texas. One time, she said she wanted to become a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys, and another time, she tries to convince Donna to go to Dallas with her and become a weather girl. However, in another episode, she claims she dislikes Texans (or any part of the south).[1]
- In a season one episode Red claims that Jackie is his favorite of Eric's friends after she shows herself to be good at fixing cars, despite Eric pointing out that they aren't friends. Also, in another episode, Jackie didn't bother to help with Red's muffler shop. Rather, she would just stand around saying "Eww...grease."
- Jackie loves disco music and keeps up with the fashions of the late 70s, and presumably 80s after the main story of the show. She seems to be a fan of ABBA.
- Jackie's character is named after Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
- In the Halloween episode where her middle name is mentioned ('Beulah'), she would become very angry whenever it was said. However, at the start of a season one episode where the audience comes in midway through an argument about who could beat up the other (Bruce Lee or The Fonz), her shirt says "JSB" (Jackie "Something" Burkhart).
- In one episode, while Jackie is making a speech at the bar because a boy turned her down, the strap for her dress on her right shoulder comes off and unknowingly to her, and her right "boob" is seen by all in the room.
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