Page 383 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2
P. 383

  |  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,
   378   379   380   381   382   383   384   385   386   387   388