I just did an appearance on KCRW’s To the Point with Warren Olney, about my Hillary-and-SNL column and the larger subject of pop culture and the election. I think KCRW will have a streaming link eventually KCRW has a streaming link of the audio, and I’m pretty sure To the Point is on teh podcasts, teh iTunes, and so on. Also, there were actual interesting and more famous guests on, including screenwriter John Ridley (Undercover Brother, Three Kings). [Update: Or listen to it here:]
One interesting tangent the conversation went on: the portrayal of fictional black and female presidents in movies and TV. What do they tell us about attitudes toward their real-life counterparts? And why does someone always try to blow up Los Angeles or exterminate the Twelve Colonies of Kobol on their watch?
You all heard the Jon Stewart joke: when there’s a black or woman president, you know an asteroid is going to hit the Statue of Liberty. In other words, it’s a distancing metaphor: it shows you how far removed the story is from nonfiction reality. (Sadly, no one mentioned President Camacho from Idiocracy.)
When black people, or especially women, become president on the screen, it’s often by accident or as a Vice President who succeeds after the President’s death. (Or, as Ridley pointed out about Battlestar Galactica, after the death of a hundred-odd people in the line of succession before you.) Whereas with the odd exception like David Palmer, regular old elected fictional presidents tend to be white guys, like Jed Bartlet.
The point I didn’t get a chance to make, but will now bore you with here is: the reason for that, I think, is that you can’t cast a black man or a woman in a realistic show about politics and have it be just a story about a president. It de facto becomes a story about a black president, a woman president, etc. because in the real world, their reaching the office would be a big deal in itself. (Which of course is an interesting story too, but a different one.)
But will it be like that after 2008? One side effect of Obama or Clinton running in November–even if McCain wins–is that it will seem that much more normal for a black man or woman to aspire to the White House. Which could expand the possibilities for fictional presidents in the future: maybe the next West Wing could have a black Jed Bartlet (or a Latino like Matt Santos), or a Jessica Bartlet. (Hey, maybe in that parallel universe Abby got elected Senator from New York and is planning her run right now!)
If Barack or Hillary get elected, of course, it’ll represent a significant first in American history. But even if they lose, maybe it means that future fictional black men and women will be able to get elected president with an asteroid as their running mate.