« Previous | Main | Next »

Obama's Presidential Bid: Life Imitating Art?

July 02, 2008 1:36 PM

Dennis Haysbert likes to think that his fictional portrayal of the first black president on the Fox TV drama “24” helped paved the way for Barack Obama.

"If anything, my portrayal of David Palmer, I think, may have helped open the eyes of the American people," the actor told reporters during a teleconference call promoting the upcoming American Century Celebrity Golf Championship at Lake Tahoe.

"And I mean the American people from across the board — from the poorest to the richest, every color and creed, every religious base — to prove the possibility there could be an African-American president, a female president, any type of president that puts the people first," said Haysbert, who has contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign.

One thing that’s true, in the case of a black president, art has preceded reality. In the 2003 film “Head of State,” comedian Chris Rock played a Washington DC alderman plucked from obscurity to run for president after the party’s frontrunner dies unexpectedly. Though he’s expected to lose, Rock’s Mays Gilliam surprises even his own party by winning.

In a climactic scene from the movie, whose slogan was “the only thing white is the house,” hundreds of white people run out of their homes in droves when they learn that a black man has just been elected president.

Other black on-screen presidents include Tommy Lister’s President Lindberg who battles asteroids and an enemy aptly named “The Great Evil” in the year 2263 in the 1997 French fantasy film “The Fifth Element.”

In 1998’s science fiction disaster movie “Deep Impact,” Morgan Freeman’s President Tom Beck has to contend with comets threatening to destroy the earth. Freeman’s performance prompted this now famous crack from Jon Stewart when he hosted the Academy Awards earlier this year: "Normally when you see a black man or a woman president, an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty."

The first black president on screen was likely seven-year-old Sammy Davis Jr. In the 1933 musical-comedy short “Rufus Jones,” Davis plays a black child who is elected to the nation’s top office.

But it’s Haysbert who may have been the most credible president when he took the role of Palmer on the drama series’ first season in 2001. He played a senator running for president. Sound familiar? By the second season, he was in the White House.

Even since leaving the series to star on CBS’s “The Unit,” Haysbert has had people stopping him on the street, asking him to run for president. Recently, he told reporters, he stopped for dinner in Dana Point, Calif., a town he described as "very wealthy, very white and very Republican."

"I go into this little restaurant with that demographic and a lady comes up to me and says, `You know, I want to vote for you,'" he said. "I don't know if it is a joke or that people just like to say those things.

"One thing that happens in our culture, change does not come quickly," said John Matviko, a communications professor at West Liberty State College in Cranberry Township, Penn., and author of "The American President in Popular Culture." "Pop culture gets us ready for it. Because it's been seen on TV, it legitimizes it, makes it a lot less frightening. In some ways, the pop culture laid the groundwork for the larger culture's acceptance of (a black president)."

Once the stuff of jokes and fantasy, a black president could become reality in November.

July 2, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (6)

User Comments

Posted by: Soetoro No! | Jul 2, 2008 2:30:38 PM

Posted by: Betty | Jul 2, 2008 2:35:07 PM

Posted by: Aston | Jul 2, 2008 2:40:03 PM

Posted by: Kisekwa | Jul 3, 2008 11:11:41 AM

Posted by: C. Paulette McDowell | Jul 8, 2008 9:06:04 PM

Posted by: C. Paulette McDowell | Jul 8, 2008 9:06:21 PM

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments: