Comments on: Fictional leaders

By: Lawrence Krubner

Lawrence Krubner — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 03:46:24 +0000

“Our tendency to mix the Pres up with Daddy and God” I read a good history of the Presidency last year. One striking thing was the debate over America’s “Elected Monarchy”. The debate actually started in the 1790s, as soon as people saw the cast that Washington and Hamilton were putting on the Presidency. The debate ran pretty hot all through the 1800s. Lots of people from every party are on record as having raised questions about whether it was such a brilliant idea to make the head of state and the head of government the same person. Jackson’s enemies, who included everyone at one time or another, all expressed doubts about the “Elected Monarchy.” The debate only really died away after 1932, when an imperial presidency began to seem natural, for whatever reason.

By: Natalie Solent

Natalie Solent — Sat, 10 Apr 2004 19:30:05 +0000

Yes, Ian. Goldwater. Getting back to the original topic, readers might be interested by this article on the politics of fictional US presidents that Brian Micklethwait wrote for Samizdata a few days ago.

By: Ian

Ian — Sat, 10 Apr 2004 15:47:31 +0000

I may be missing something but Goldwater????

By: Nicholas Weininger

Nicholas Weininger — Sat, 10 Apr 2004 15:23:19 +0000

It is worth noting that there have been, within living memory, two major-party candidates for US president who were honest, decent, intelligent and erudite, of exemplary personal character, and had some actual principles that they cared about more than brute power. One was from the left, and one from the right. They were, respectively, Hubert Humphrey and Barry Goldwater. Think about them, and the men who defeated them, and you will realize why no one of their moral and intellectual caliber will ever get a Presidential nomination again.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 23:10:24 +0000

The only fictional portrayal of an Australian PM I can recall is in The Dish, where the PM says to aspiring candidate for office “There’s one rule in our party. Don’t f**k up …” “And ?” “That’s it.” (Can’t quite get the tonality right in print, but it’s a great line, and about as sympathetic as Australians are likely to go for in a fictional PM)

By: Another Damned Medievalist

Another Damned Medievalist — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 18:03:58 +0000

Hey—my Tory mum-in-law loves the West Wing. And I have to say I actually kinda liked the John Goodman interim president.

By: Phersu

Phersu — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 17:38:56 +0000

My favorite fictional British Prime Minister was Alan B’stard (from The New Statesman). He was far funnier than the one in Yes, Prime Minister. I think he ended as a fascist dictator, becoming “Lord Protector of the Commonwealth”. But I also liked an American version where the British Prime Minister was a madman who asked Britons to commit mass suicides to reduce unemployment.

By: apm

apm — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 15:24:15 +0000

The sad thing is Bartlet isn’t all that effectual. Despite his intelligence and idealism his administration barely treads water against the status quo and the opposition. It almost seems as if the liberal fantasy presidency is marked by bi-partisan policy tweaking and brilliant midnight bull sessions. On the other hand the conservative fantasy presidency is marked by movies such as “Independence Day” and “Air Force One”. Oh well, maybe President Seaborn will get more done.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 09:40:16 +0000

When I think of TV/film Presidents, I think of Reagan. Oh, wait. Anyway, when I think of TV/film Presidents, I think of President Tom Beck in Deep Impact, played by Morgan Freeman. I remember watching that thinking, “Damn, I’d vote for Morgan Freeman for President in a heartbeat.”

By: Nabakov

Nabakov — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 05:44:29 +0000

And there’s also Phil Hartman as a very Shrubby prez in “The Second American Civil War (HBO), complete with the late, great James Coburn as his Rovian advisor, James Earl Jones as a bemused newsroom head, Denis Leary as a gung-ho correspondent and Beau Bridges as a rebel lovesick Governor dealing with an influx of central Asian refugees after a nuclear exchange in the region.

By: Nabakov

Nabakov — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 05:38:34 +0000

Surprised no one’s mentioned Jeff Bridges in “The Contender” yet, the most Clintonesque screen president so far – especially with the running gag about his food consumption. Gary Oldman’s also brillant as a right wing senator in what is a pretty good film until they whack the standard happy-sappy ending on. And speaking of “A Very British Coup”, two good books along the same lines are “The man to held the Queen to ransom and sent Parliament packing” by Peter Van Greenaway (late 60s, leftish) and “When the kissing had to stop” by Constantine Fitzgibbon (late 50s, rightish).

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 00:53:33 +0000

I always wanted James Noble from Benson as my governor.

By: Nick B

Nick B — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 00:43:56 +0000

President Andrew Shepherd in The American President is another idealised Clinton – with no Hillary attached either. Of course, he was pretty much Sorkin’s proto-Bartlett. And Hugh Grant’s PM in Love, Actually seems like quite a nice bloke, complete with his crowd-pleasing ‘stand up to the Yanks’ speech. Are there any depictions of leaders other than US Presidents and British PMs worth mentioning and how positive/negative are they? All that springs to mind is De Gaulle in The Day Of The Jackal which doesn’t really count. Plus, there’s the question of how modern monarchs (as opposed to historical ones, who can be depicted as either heroes or bastards) are depicted on screen – I can’t think of many examples there, either, but they seem to do better than political leaders (the King in To Play The King seems like a much nicer chap than Urquhart – admittedly, that’s not hard).

By: digamma

digamma — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 00:36:34 +0000

I’d supposed the whole point of that show was to provide lefty-liberal types like me with a sort of wet-dream what-if fantasy president whom we could happily imagine trying to doing all kinds of principled Johnson-without-Vietnam stuff. It’s Atlas Shrugged for Democrats! And the best line Martin Sheen ever delivered as President was “Gentlemen, the missiles are flying. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.”

By: msg

msg — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 23:57:15 +0000

“I’m not sure what this says about our different political and televisual/cinematic cultures…” Not to split hairs and all, but you’re really talking about the different cultures of political and televisual/cinematic writers, mm? Inasmuch as they produce the planking and caulking for the two cultures there’s a mapping/overlap, but the culture itself would be more the metabolized and redisplayed stuff that the writers put out. It’s true that the writers themselves, when they’re on it, are reflecting the culture, but that reflection has a much wider field than the immediate contemporary. There isn’t much Shakespeare on TV; but there is, I’ll wager, in the lives and minds of writers like Aaron Sorkin and Paul Redford. The big illusion is the TV is dispensing a kind of group vision – but it’s not. It’s the very small very limited world-view of a highly-filtered and competitively scrambling subset of the subset which is Hollywood/TinselTown etc. That out of that sub-subset comes work like The West Wing is inspiring and, to me, more a testament to something potential than currently extant in humanity.