The American Presidency and the 25th Amendment in Contemporary TV Series: Fiction, Reality, and the Warped Mir

Abstract

This article analyzes how recent TV series (1999-2010) have staged the American Presidency in a form of “revolving door” between fiction and reality, and how all stage a crisis allowing a vice-president to become president. While highlighting the contrasts in representations staged by series as diverse as 24, The West Wing, Commander-In-Chief, Heroes or Battlestar Galactica, this study will examine whether scripts that imagine “alternative” presidents empower us, as viewers, through projection and identification, preparing the collective subconscious for long-delayed progress and change, or whether the systematic casting of a central presidential figure simply reinforces the institution of the presidency itself. It will also question viewing in time: since History continues to unfold (or to repeat itself) after the series themselves have come to an end, is it not the case that the gap between the original viewing and a later viewing creates a “time warp” of sorts? More ironically still, is it not unavoidable that an opus that represents the Oval Office as a place of noble civics and virtuous political drama like The West Wing has become outdated compared to those series that most warp time, space, and our worldview, because fiction centering on distrust and paranoia, like 24, Battlestar Galactica, and even Heroes, better translates the post-9/11 zeitgeist?