Page 384 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Pol t cal Enterta nment: From The West Wing to South Park |

our FiCtional PolitiCians
Some of history’s most inspiring politicians exist in the cinema and television alone, as Hol-
lywood has offered us many a political drama or thriller. Certainly, Jimmy Stewart’s filibuster
in Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) remains one of American film history’s
more famous scenes, and an enduring testament to the little guy fighting rampant political
corruption. Or, 54 years later, Kevin Kline’s depiction of the impersonator-turned-president
in Dave offered a similar tale. Meanwhile, on the little screen, television has given the nation
its first female president in Commander in Chief (ABC, 2005–06), its first and second African
American presidents in 24 (FOX, 2001–), and its first Latino president in The West Wing. The
West Wing has also offered some of the most lyrically moving presidential announcements,
such as when Martin Sheen’s President Jed Bartlet declares that “if fidelity to freedom of
democracy is the code of our civic religion, then surely the code of our humanity is faithful
service to that unwritten commandment that says we shall give our children better than we
ourselves received.” Screenwriters of such stories tend to oversimplify and romanticize poli-
tics, but nevertheless, often one cannot but compare screen politicians and speeches with
their real life counterparts, a process that motivates discussion and debate, and that sets
standards to which we are asked to hold these counterparts.

for instance), social (feminist or antiracist, for example), or even media-related
(criticizing the politics behind news coverage, for instance); can range from mild
and playful to deep and biting; and can include both fiction and nonfiction.
The criticisms of political entertainment tend to stem either from a belief
that entertainers should stick to entertainment, and hence that the marriage of
politics and entertainment is inappropriate, or, alternatively, that as entertain-
ment, it is insufficiently dedicated to its politics, producing “politics lite” or even
a mockery of politics.

PoLiTiCs anD EnTErTainmEnT as an
inaPProPriaTE marriagE
Many of us divide our world into work and play, seriousness and fun, and
to some, entertainment is thus a zone that must remain separate from the seri-
ous world of work and politics in order to maintain its claim to entertainment.
A meaningful engagement with politics requires that we come face to face with
much that is ugly in the world, and hence might seem to offer little room for
laughter or joy. As such, entertainment frequently, and refreshingly, offers to
take us away from such uncomfortable realities. At the end of a long day’s work,
many people seek media entertainment as a refuge from the worries of daily
existence, turning on the television, putting on a piece of music, or engrossing
themselves in a film, for instance, in order to leave those worries far behind.
We often welcome so warmly the imaginative universes that entertainment pro-
vides because of their difference from our lived environments; therefore, some