Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Pop culture will shape W.'s legacy

What would the ideal American president look like? The public’s idea of what qualities the president should embody is very apparent in pop culture. The occupant of the oval office has also come to be seen as almost a superhero figure – here in Los Angeles there are dozens of posters of Barack Obama in a Superman outfit -- and we’ve seen image in pop culture in movies such as “Air Force One” and “Independence Day.”


The president has also been presented as a sage elder with supreme wisdom in TV series such as “The West Wing.” And the president has also come to be seen as an uber celebrity – JFK, Reagan, and Clinton all had star power.


But pop culture, for the most part, has not been kind to George W. Bush, as I wrote in my latest piece.