America's five best fictional black presidents
The first movie to imagine a black president of the United States at any length was Joseph Sargent's satirical drama The Man in 1972. There, Douglass Dilman, president pro tempore of the Senate, happens into the Oval Office after the president and the speaker of the House die in a ceiling collapse. Unavailable on DVD, The Man is now a rarity, and yet it clearly forecasts the screen existences of subsequent black presidents.
James Earl Jones uses his commanding, paternal, universally presentable voice in the title role—a harbinger of baritones to come. Notably, the job of adapting Irving Wallace's novel went to Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling. Black presidents have most often existed in science-fiction scenarios, lending a futuristic tint to the proceedings. Next summer, Danny Glover will play one President Wilson in 2012, Roland Emmerich's forthcoming special-effects spectacular.
What might any of this mean for Barack Obama? Beats me. But the next two weeks will see much talk and many pixels devoted to race and his candidacy, and in a nation drunk on entertainment, the legacy of his fictional forebears has to count for something. Herewith, a scan of the most prominent black presidents in American pop culture and a stab at understanding their significance....
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James Earl Jones uses his commanding, paternal, universally presentable voice in the title role—a harbinger of baritones to come. Notably, the job of adapting Irving Wallace's novel went to Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling. Black presidents have most often existed in science-fiction scenarios, lending a futuristic tint to the proceedings. Next summer, Danny Glover will play one President Wilson in 2012, Roland Emmerich's forthcoming special-effects spectacular.
What might any of this mean for Barack Obama? Beats me. But the next two weeks will see much talk and many pixels devoted to race and his candidacy, and in a nation drunk on entertainment, the legacy of his fictional forebears has to count for something. Herewith, a scan of the most prominent black presidents in American pop culture and a stab at understanding their significance....