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| Pol t cal Enterta nment: From The West Wing to South Park
questions are still very much on the table. Meanwhile, political documentary as
a popular form shows no signs of slowing down. As such, it is time to reconsider
just what role we want documentary to play in public life.
see also Al-Jazeera; Bias and Objectivity; Government Censorship and Free-
dom of Speech; Media and Citizenship; Media and Electoral Campaigns; Nation-
alism and the Media; News Satire; Paparazzi and Photographic Ethics; Political
Entertainment; Presidential Stagecraft and Militainment; Propaganda Model;
Public Opinion; Public Sphere.
Further reading: Barnouw, Erik. Documentary: A History of the Non-fiction Film. 2nd rev. ed.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1992; Bullert, B. J. Public Television: Politics and the
Battle Over Documentary Film. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997;
Combs, James E., and Sara T. Combs. Film Propaganda and American Politics: An Anal-
ysis and Filmography. New York: Garland, 1994; Ellis, Jack C., and Betsy A. McLane.
A New History of Documentary Film. New York: Continuum, 2006; McEnteer, James.
Shooting the Truth: The Rise of American Political Documentaries. Westport, CT: Prae-
ger, 2006; Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2001; Nichols, Bill. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991; Rabinowitz, Paula. They Must be Repre-
sented: The Politics of Documentary. London: Verso, 1994; Renov, Michael, ed. Theorizing
Documentary. New York: Routledge, 1993; Rosenthal, Alan, and John Corner, eds. New
Challenges for Documentary. 2nd ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005;
Ruby, Jay. Picturing Culture: Explorations of Film and Ethnography. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2000; Toplin, Robert Brent. Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11: How
One Film Divided a Nation. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2006; Winston, Brian.
Claiming the Real: The Documentary Film Revisited/The Griersonian Documentary and
Its Legitimations. London: BFI, 1995.
J. Scott Oberacker
PolitiCal entertainMent: FroM the
west winG to south parK
At its best, entertainment can draw us in emotionally, making us care about
its subjects, and its wide appeal can attract a considerably larger audience than
more sober alternatives. Both of these attributes at times make it an ideal vessel
for political information and discussion. Yet some critics see entertainment as an
entirely inappropriate site for politics, while yet others see entertainment as inca-
pable of dealing with the complexities and nuances of politics. Can entertainment
and politics mix?
Political entertainment is any program, song, book, film, or other cultural
product whose primary purpose is to entertain and amuse, frequently (though
not necessarily) for commercial purposes, yet that also offers explicit political
commentary. Entertainment is laden with other responsibilities—we look to it
for escape and emotional inspiration, and to cheer us up, make us laugh or cry,
and stimulate our imaginations—but some media products also get political,
whether through serious narrative, satiric play, critical dialogue, or imaginative
fantasy. The politics in question can be governmental (critique of the president,