Jackie Burkhart

Jacqueline Burkhart
That '70s Show character
File:Jackie Burkhart.jpg
First appearance	"That '70s Pilot" (episode 1.01)
Last appearance	"That '70s Finale" (episode 8.22)
Created by	Mark Brazill
Portrayed by	Mila Kunis
In-universe information
Nickname	Jackie, Little Red Riding Bitch, Midget, Doll (a nickname that only Steven Hyde calls her when they're dating), Venus, Biatch, Bitch Face, Kelso Lover, Tiny, Short, Boss, The Don, Brada, Midget, Satan's child, Tiny Loser, Devil/The Devil, Loud Girl, Funny Girl, Ice Princess
Gender	Female
Occupation	High school student Cheese maiden Personal assistant Television show host
Family	Jack Burkhart (father) Pam Burkhart (mother, estranged)
Nationality	American

Jacqueline Beulah "Jackie" Burkhart (September 24, 1961) is a fictional character and one of the two female leads on the Fox Network sitcom That '70s Show, portrayed by Mila Kunis.

Personality

Jackie is introduced in the pilot episode primarily as Michael Kelso's girlfriend, who is one grade behind the rest of the group. She likes to give advice which often sounds typically thoughtless and superficial, but turns out to be correct. She is spoiled, conceited, and annoying but is often seen to have good intentions. She believes she has a place in the gang because she's dating Kelso. Jackie is popular at school, being voted Most Popular and Best Legs as well as runner-up for Snow Queen. She is also a chatterbox, and constantly ruins her chances for real friendship with the others due to her constantly belittling them. The negative in her personality begin to fade, however, as she matures throughout the seasons. By season five, Jackie begins to show a more vulnerable side as a result of her father's imprisonment and her mother's abandonment of her, as well as her failed romantic relationships. Her superficial attitude is revealed to be a defense mechanism much like Steven Hyde's "Zen".

By season two, Jackie has become a core member of the gang and hangs out in Eric's basement even when she is single. While her personality becomes less one-note, she still sees herself as the ideal woman and demands a near-constant shower of praise. In contrast to Donna and the 1970s feminist wave, Jackie is a traditionalist and makes finding a man to care for her a top priority. By season seven, however, Jackie has found a new goal and begins pursuing a career as a television hostess.

Friendships

Jackie's friendships tend to be complicated. While people might be endeared to her good heart and her triumphs over major life upheavals, her habit of condescending to others keeps them at a distance.

Although she frequently criticizes Donna Pinciotti's dress, physique, and feminism, she repeatedly calls herself Donna's best friend. Even though she thinks Donna is boring and unattractive when compared to herself, she believes Donna could do much better than Eric. Despite their extremely different personalities, Donna serves as a Jackie's de facto big sister and often tries to look out for her when she feels Jackie is making a mistake, more often than not due to lack of common sense. After her father is sent to prison in the middle of season five, Jackie moves in with the Pinciottis after the Formans learn that she has secretly been living with Hyde in his basement room.

Jackie has mostly an acquaintanceship with Eric, though she has teased a close friendship several times. She once told Eric she considered him a great friend and nice guy, and he was the first person to whom she revealed her fears that she was pregnant. She also called Eric before he left for Africa saying she was sorry she couldn't say goodbye in person and that he was always special to her. For his part, Eric teases her mercilessly and finds her a near-constant source of irritation. However, they do have moments of real friendship, such as when Eric counseled her on her relationship with Kelso and when he stands up to comfort her after her relationship with Kelso ends. Eric comes to realize how much he enjoys Jackie when Kelso dates Laurie, as the two of them both love to hate Eric's sister. During the course of the series, Jackie becomes an integral part of the gang and is considered a friend in her own right, as opposed to merely a friend's girlfriend.

Jackie also has a bizarre friendship with Red Forman. Early on, Red remarked she was the favorite of Eric's friends for her ability to hold a flashlight on a car. Jackie has run crying into Red's arms no less than three times, all of which left him baffled and uncomfortable. Red finds Jackie as annoying as everyone else, but she still loves him because he's the closest thing she has to a father.

Relationships

When the show premieres, Jackie is dating Michael Kelso, a beautiful, brainless goofball. She loses her virginity to him when he is released from jail after being mistakenly arrested for driving a stolen car. Jackie gets on Kelso's friends' nerves on a daily basis and Kelso repeatedly says that he is going to break up with her. However, in the first season it was Jackie who ended the relationship - twice. First after Kelso was caught kissing Pam Macy (they got back together in the very same episode) and again after a pregnancy scare (they got back together at the Junior Prom).

In season 2, Kelso begins an affair with Eric's promiscuous sister Laurie. Jackie eventually discovers his repeated infidelities and breaks up with him. After this breakup she is openly hostile to Kelso and often insults him in front of his friends. She does eventually warm to him, and following his breakup with Laurie, Jackie devises a series of "tests" for Kelso to see if they should reconcile. He passes her tests, and they get back together. Kelso remains loyal to Jackie after that and stays with her throughout season four. However, when Kelso begins to neglect Jackie as a result of his joining a modeling agency, she is caught kissing her boss by Eric. This event spurs a period of discovery for Jackie and Kelso. Kelso realizes he cheated because Jackie has always insulted him and made him feel bad about himself. Following this revelation, he breaks up with her (true to form, the breakup doesn't stick and they later reunite).

In the season four finale, Jackie asks Kelso to marry her and his response is to flee to California. When he returns in the beginning of season five, he (along with the others) is horrified to learn that she has begun dating Hyde. By the beginning of season six, Kelso claims that he is happy to be over Jackie and enjoying their new friendship. At the end of season seven, however, Kelso drives Jackie to Chicago after her break-up with Hyde. He is later seen entering Jackie's hotel room in only a towel and implying that he and Jackie were about to sleep together, but runs off nude into the night when he sees that Hyde has come to the hotel to get Jackie back. In season eight, he considers marrying Jackie and claims he still loves her. When Fez tells her what Kelso intends, she considers the proposal and decides that if he asks she will accept. When he asks at Red and Kitty's anniversary party, though, she turns him down and they both feel an unexpected relief.

Jackie and Steven Hyde are, from the beginning of the show, polar opposites and even enemies. She is disgusted by his poverty and crass behavior, he scorns her superficiality and materialism. They strongly dislike each other during the first season, but begin to form a bond when Hyde helps Jackie cope with her breakup with Kelso in season two. This leads to a brief period in which Jackie is infatuated with Hyde, but her feelings gradually fade. It isn't until season five, when Kelso is in California, that their romance begins. After watching The Price is Right together all summer, the two begin making out every time they have a moment alone. When their friends discover the relationship, they each insist that they are not dating and that it is purely physical, but finally give in and admit that what they have goes deeper than just sex. They date for most of season five until Hyde sees Jackie holding Kelso in her arms. Despite her pleas that she was only comforting him and that nothing untoward happens, he doesn't believe her and he takes revenge by spending the night with another woman. When he realizes that Jackie has been telling the truth, he confesses his infidelity. Although she is in love with him, Jackie immediately ends the relationship.

At the beginning of season six, Kelso and Hyde are in competition to get Jackie back because they both still love her. She decides she needs time to think about it, leaving them to wait and agonize, but chooses Hyde in the end. Their relationship goes on for two more seasons until Jackie is offered a job in Chicago. She is torn between her relationship and her professional ambition, but tells Hyde that she will stay if he can gives her the merest hope that they will eventually get married. Hyde has no immediate answer, and when he finally decides, he is crushed to realize that she has already gone (or so he thinks). Jackie has no way out of Point Place, and in a final attempt to get an answer out of Hyde, she goes to the basement. Hiding his hurt and anger that she "left" him, Hyde tells her to have a good trip.

Hyde decides he still wants her, and goes to her Chicago hotel to persuade her to take him back. During his conversation with Jackie, Kelso walks into the hotel room with a towel around his waist and a bucket of ice in his hands and implying that he and Jackie were about to have sex. Hyde goes to Las Vegas. When he comes back to Point Place, he has impulsively married a stripper, Samantha, and brought her back to Wisconsin with him. This effectively ends his and Jackie's relationship.

Throughout season eight, Jackie remains single. She and Hyde have regressed back to the way they were in the first season. Fez tells Jackie that Kelso intends to propose to her, and she decides that she will accept. After considering the matter, she realizes that the life with Kelso would mean a shiftless and unfaithful husband who makes terrible decisions, so she refuses (which they are each surprised to realize makes them happy). By the end of the season, Jackie realizes she is in love with Fez because he has all the qualities she was looking for in a man and they began dating in the final episode (That '70s Finale).

Other information

• Jackie's dream is to move to Dallas, Texas. She once claims that her life's ambition is to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. 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).

• In a season one episode Red claims that Jackie is his favorite one of Eric's friends after she demonstrates her skills at holding a flashlight and helping him work on the car.

• Jackie loves disco music and keeps up with the fashions of the late 70s. She is a fan of ABBA and The Carpenters. She also listens to Peter Frampton and Todd Rundgren.

• Jackie's character is named after Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

• Jackie and Kelso share a desire to model. At one point Jackie says to him, "It was our dream...together. But for me!" Jackie has apparently wanted to advertise her own fragrance line called "Jackie." ("You won't be pretty like Jackie is...but you'll smell like 'Jackie!'")

• Jackie is mortified by her middle name, Beulah, which is revealed in a Halloween episode. However, at the start of a season one episode, her shirt says "JSB" (Jackie "Something" Burkhart); this is perhaps an attempt to cover up her real middle name. She is seen wearing the shirt in subsequent episodes of the show in later seasons.

• Jackie has a stuffed unicorn named Fluffycakes. It was a gift from Kelso after they had sex for the first time after Kelso did not call her for a week, using the excuse that his family was "having their phones cleaned." In reality, he did not call because he was thinking about breaking up with her. Appalled after finally learning the truth in season five and exclaims that "Fluffycakes is tainted". In Season Eight, Donna refers to it as "Mr. Fluffycakes". In season eight, angry over Hyde's sudden marriage to Samantha, Jackie impulsively rips it in two.

• Jackie has been shown to have coulrophobia, an irrational fear of clowns, that stems from her seventh birthday party when she walked in on a clown making out with her mother.

• On the official "That '70s Show" website, it is stated that both Jackie and Kelso are Virgos, stating Jackie's birthday in September.

• In the episode "Class Picture" at the end credits, it says "Kelso age 8" and "Jackie age 6", stating that she is two years younger.