{"id":26458,"date":"2012-11-14T01:41:19","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T01:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=26458"},"modified":"2012-11-14T01:41:19","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T01:41:19","slug":"%e2%80%9cwell-it-is-because-he%e2%80%99s-black%e2%80%9d-a-critical-analysis-of-the-black-president-in-film-and-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=26458","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWell, It Is Because He\u2019s Black\u201d: A Critical Analysis of the Black President in Film and Television"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWell, It Is Because He\u2019s Black\u201d: A Critical Analysis of the Black President in Film and Television<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Bowling Green State University
\nAugust 2011
\n183 pages<\/p>\n

Phillip Lamarr Cunningham<\/strong><\/p>\n

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY<\/em><\/p>\n

With the election of the United States\u2019 first black president Barack Obama<\/a>, scholars have begun to examine the myriad of ways Obama has been represented in popular culture. However, before Obama\u2019s 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\u2014and the apparent unimportance of their race in these films\u2014are evidence of the post-racial nature of these texts.
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\nHowever, this dissertation argues the contrary. This study\u2019s 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.<\/strong> Instead, these black cinematic presidents reaffirm race\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

TABLE OF CONTENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n