Mixed Race Studies

“Well, It Is Because He’s Black”: A Critical Analysis of the Black President in Film and Television

Bowling Green State University
August 2011
183 pages

Phillip Lamarr Cunningham

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

With the election of the United States’ first black president Barack Obama, scholars have begun to examine the myriad of ways Obama has been represented in popular culture. However, before Obama’s election, a black American president had already appeared in popular culture, especially in comedic and sci-fi/disaster films and television series. Thus far, scholars have tread lightly on fictional black presidents in popular culture; however, those who have tend to suggest that these presidents—and the apparent unimportance of their race in these films—are evidence of the post-racial nature of these texts.
 
However, this dissertation argues the contrary. This study’s contention is that, though the black president appears in films and televisions series in which his presidency is presented as evidence of a post-racial America, he actually fails to transcend race. Instead, these black cinematic presidents reaffirm race’s primacy in American culture through consistent portrayals and continued involvement in comedies and disasters. In order to support these assertions, this study first constructs a critical history of the fears of a black presidency, tracing those fears from this nation’s formative years to the present. This history is followed by textual analyses of those films and television series featuring a black president, with an emphasis on showing how the narratives and codes within these films reflect those historic fears.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• INTRODUCTION
  • Filling the Void: Situating the Black President in Film Studies
• CHAPTER I: THE THING SO GREATLY FEARED: HISTORICIZING FEARS OF A BLACK PRESIDENCY
  • Harding, Jefferson, and Lincoln: White Presidents as the First “Black” Presidents
  • Fear of a Black Republic
  • From Impossible to Improbable
  • Jesse Jackson and the Changing Face of Politics
  • Powell for President
  • Return of the Black Cinematic President
• CHAPTER II: BEING BLACK MATTERS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MAN
  • The Man and the Apparently Declining Significance of Whiteness and Racism
  • Black Militancy as Barrier to Racial Harmony
  • Douglas Dilman: “A Well-Dressed Rebuttal to the Militants”
• CHAPTER III: THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT: BLACK CINEMATIC PRESIDENTS IN CRISIS
  • Fear of a Black President: The Birth of a Nation as Precursor
  • From Deep Impact to 2012: The Black President in Crisis
  • Modern Day Ben Camerons: White Heroes in Black Presidential Films
• CHAPTER IV: THIS COUNTRY IS UPSIDE DOWN! THE ABSURD BLACK CINEMATIC PRESIDENT
  • Not Exactly Ideal Presidents: Rufus Jones for President and Idiocracy
  • “That Ain’t Right”: Black Cinematic Presidents and the Act of “Laughing Mad”
• EPILOGUE: POLITICS AS USUAL: BLACK CINEMATIC PRESIDENTS IN THE OBAMA AGE
• WORKS CITED

Read the entire dissertation here.