September 11, 2008 2:17 PM
Mr. President looks at the whole “presidential factory” and probes the connections between real political life and “presidential” fiction. Have these images affected our view of who should, or could be President?
As we try to understand what it means to be President of the United States, one if the increasingly powerful influences is fiction, in particular the hundreds of hours of TV and movies who have made ‘stars’ of the men and women who work in the Oval office. The President and Vice-President have become characters who make decisions and take actions that often go beyond what a real president or vice-president can do. Mr. President combines clips from films and TV series like the West Wing, 24, and Commander-in-Chief, Air Force One, Wag the Dog, and interviews (with historians, journalists, actors, directors, speechwriters and political analysts).
