Hollywood's White House: The American Presidency in Film and History.(Book Review)

Hollywood's White House: The American Presidency in Film and History. Eds. Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003.

American history has often served as a backdrop for American films and television, especially in portrayals of the presidency. Whether focusing on political mythology or seeking to exploit the foibles of the great and the mighty, Hollywood found in American history a ready-made recipe for financial success. Since the early years of the motion picture industry, an alliance existed between politics and filmmakers. Most notably, Hollywood and the silver screen have provided a spring-board into American politics like no other, making one mediocre thespian our president and another movie actor the governor of California.

To understand the cultural dynamics of film and politics, Peter Rollins and John O'Connor have turned their considerable talents to examining the evolutionary transformation of Hollywood's perceptions of the American presidency. Twenty-three remarkable scholars illuminate the subtle nuances of the relationship between party politics and American cultural icons. Hollywood's White House is more than just another anthology linking film and television to cultural analysis; instead, the editors offer a wide range of essays on topics from D. W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln (1930) to recent Saturday Night Live (SNL) satires of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

These essays depict a gradual transformation in American perceptions of political leadership, when character was everything, as in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), to the decline of ethical mores found in Nixon (1995) and Primary Colors (1998). What accounts for this cultural divergence? The essays demonstrate the impact of the public's sensitivity as filmmakers ply their trade. From the 1930s and the New Deal, FDR was a political icon, not only for the American mainstream but also on the silver screen. Over time, the personae and message have changed. When ...