Audience reactions to Hollywood politics

Audience reactions to Hollywood politics Liesbet van Zoonen AMSTERDAM SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH

In this article I analyse people’s reactions to popular American movies and television series about politics, in order to find out whether and how they use such stories to perform a ‘political self’. This analysis is undertaken in the context of enduring questions in political communication about effects of mass media on people’s interest, knowledge, attitude and behaviour with respect to politics (understood in terms of parties, governments, candidates and leaders). By and large, the media that have been researched in this context are news media of various kinds, such as newspapers and news magazines, television news bulletins or current affairs programmes (e.g. Aarts and Semetko, 2003; Shen, 2004; see Graber [2004] for a current overview). In recent years, there has been an increased interest in the effects of popular journalism, for instance of glossy magazines (Reichert et al., 2003), radio and television talk shows (Baum, 2005; Hofstetter, 1998) and other forms of infotainment (Baum, 2002, 2003; Prior, 2003). Research about the effects of popular films or television series about politics is rare. The research presented here starts from the classic position in media studies that the question is not so much what films and series about politics do to people, but rather the other way around: what do people do with these popular accounts? In more detail, borrowing from Eliasoph (1990), the question I raise here is whether and how people use these films to present a ‘political self’. I will explore this through a qualitative analysis of people’s postings about films and series such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Primary Colors or The West Wing on the Internet Movie Database and will discuss the relevance of the results for the development and maintenance of political citizenship in the concluding section.

Media, Culture & Society © 2007 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore), Vol. 29(4): 531–547 [ISSN: 0163-4437 DOI: 10.1177/0163443707076188]

Downloaded from mcs.sagepub.com at Loughborough University on December 31, 2014

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Performing a political self Gamson (1992) has distinguished three kinds of resources that people use to make sense of politics: media discourse, experiential knowledge and popular wisdom. Film and television fiction about politics cut across these resources. Evidently they are part of media discourse about politics, especially because many of these movies and series are explicitly articulated with politics as it happens in Washington and London. Former political advisers or speech writers have often been involved in scenario development; politicians and journalists regularly make cameo appearances; politicians have referred to movies and television series to explain their style and position.1 This articulation with politics as it ‘really happens’ is further enhanced by the realistic frames of story-telling in popular movies and television, and by the visual codes that, for audiences, produce the impression of being present at the scene. As a result, popular movies and television may also be seen as producing a vicarious sense of experiential knowledge, which is the second resource that Gamson has distinguished. He identifies experiential knowledge as stories based in direct familiarity and the experiences of others – friends, families, friends of friends and people one hears on the radio or sees on television. By extension, the realistic style inherent to film and television representations of politics enables the parasocial interaction with the protagonist that allows people to ‘transcend their personal experience and to imagine how they would feel in another person’s situation’ (Gamson, 1992: 123). Gamson’s third resource, popular wisdom, finds its expression in rules of thumb, a proverb, an analogy with everyday life and references to ‘common sense’. Such popular wisdom is part and parcel of most representations of politics in popular films and television series (Fiske and Hartley, 1978). Popular television and film about politics thus produce a potential resource that is a combination of media discourse, experiential knowledge and popular wisdom. Furthermore, the personalized and linear narrative that is typical of Hollywood film and popular television in general is capable of evoking intense audience investments (see van Zoonen, 2005). The mixture of resources and the narrative appeals that popular film and television fictions about politics contain may therefore be very influential in how people make sense of politics, form their attitudes and express their opinions. While there are some treatments of how Hollywood films (Neve, 1992), and television series (e.g. Jones, 2005) represent politics, there is hardly any research that investigates their effects. Holbert et al.’s (2003) study of the priming effects of The West Wing on images of the US presidency is an exception. They found that viewing The West Wing primes both positive images of the presidency and of Presidents Clinton and Bush. Holbert et al.’s study and much other research about the effects of political communication in general is concentrated on cognitive dimensions of political citizenship, such as political interests, knowledge, understanding, attitude,


Van Zoonen, Audience reactions to Hollywood politics

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party and candidate preferences. However, as Michael Schudson (2001) has pointed out, citizenship is not only a cognitive capacity, but also a cultural practice. That is, politics has to be done, or better, performed rather than merely thought about. Such political performances of ordinary citizens can take various forms, of which voting is the most conspicuous but certainly not the only option. Protest and activism would be other types, as discussion in everyday contexts would be. The effects of popular films and television series about politics, then, can also be sought in what people do as a result of watching these fictions, rather than merely in whether and how their ideas are confirmed or changed. Such ‘doings’ refer not only to embodied activities but also to speech, as Eliasoph (1990) has shown in her study of political talk as a presentation of self. Working within speech act theory, which asserts that people ‘do things with words’ (Austin, 1965), she analysed how particular styles of talking about politics enabled people to present a picture of themselves as ‘irreverent’, ‘intimidated’ or ‘concerned’ speakers. Combining the insights of Gamson, Schudson and Eliasoph leads to the assumption that movies and series about politics are particularly rich and powerful resources for people to make sense of politics on the one hand (Gamson), and to ‘do’ politics and to present a political self on the other (Schudson and Eliasoph). The following analysis is meant to explore this assumption and set the agenda for further research about the articulation of popular culture with politics.

Methodology The material used for this study was selected from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), an online collection of international movie information, reviews and audience comments that claims to attract over 25 million site visits a month. The selection of movies and television series about politics was guided, first, by the public visibility of these films, their reputations and – admittedly – some personal favouritism on the part of the researcher. Second, to ensure a wide and diverse range of audience reactions, the selection of films covered a variety of genres and narratives. In van Zoonen (2005) I have suggested that four types of narrative structure films and series about politics. The classic Hollywood rendition of politics in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, for instance, is told as a quest of an ordinary man fighting for ‘the people’ in a corrupt political environment. Often such quests take place within a context of manipulation and conspiracy, the latter being a second important motif in political film and television fiction, as, for instance, JFK, shows. However, in some fiction it is not so much conspiracy, but rather the puzzling procedures and bureaucracies of everyday politics that lead the story, often in comedies, such as the British television series Yes, (Prime)


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Media, Culture & Society 29(4) TABLE 1 Data

Narrative Quest Soap Conspiracy Bureaucracy Total

Movie or Television series Mr. Smith goes to Washington (1939) Dave (1993) * The West Wing (1999– ) Primary Colors (1998) Wag the Dog (1997) All the President’s Men (1976) * Yes, (Prime) Minister (1980–86)

Number of comments 75 44 92 114 143 67 14 549

* Television series

Minister. Some fiction works with the narrative conventions of soap opera and shows a community of people trying to get by in politics; the American television series The West Wing is the obvious example here. The four narratives seldom occur in their pure forms and almost every conspiracy story contains a quest, melodrama has its bureaucracy and so forth. However, the distinctions are useful for the selection of a diverse body of films for the research. In addition to the criteria of visibility and diversity of the films, the total number of postings included in the analysis should be manageable and reasonably divided over the different films and series. For the latter reason, JFK was not included because of the large number of comments, which would make up half of the research material. The ensuing material was predominantly American, with the exception of the British comedy Yes, (Prime) Minister. Although this series did not attract many comments, it is a classic comedy that is also very often induced in studies of government administration,2 which therefore warranted inclusion. All comments that were online available in February 2004 were collected and printed. The resulting data are summarized in Table 1. The selection is obviously not representative of the quantity and variety of films and television series that have been made about politics. Researchers interested in these genres will probably miss their own favourites or find the selection not the most relevant one to cover the entire field (see Neve, 1992; Rollins and O’Connor, 2003) for a more systematic treatment). Yet the selection is not meant to produce a quantitative distribution of particular kinds of audience performances arising from a representative sample of fiction in this field. Rather, the aim is to adequately map the range in audience reactions in order to explore the range of political performances resulting from popular film and television fiction about politics. Are the IMDb data suitable for examining the performance of politics? A movie database may be more likely to attract postings about films as films, than about their stories of politics.3 Several authors (e.g. Dahlgren, 1985;



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Hagen, 1997) have argued, however, that in order to understand people’s everyday, routine political discussions and understandings, mundane research contexts like birthday parties, the school yard, public transport or – as I assumed in this research – a movie discussion site, provide more natural results than interviews, focus groups or political discussion sites. There may be disadvantages related to this source of data: one does not know who is behind the posting, why the individual sent in a comment or how postings relate to people’s ‘real-life’ politics. In other words, it is unclear what these postings represent. That is something the analysis will not make clear either. Yet, in the context of the assumption that politics also involves the presentation of a political self, these data are helpful. The postings are put on a public forum that is meant for a wider audience. Whether intentionally or not, through their comments, the posters thus present themselves to others, and their posting constructs a ‘self’, however cursory and incomplete. While the problem of representation may be exaggerated in the context of internet postings because the ‘speaker’ is explicitly absent, it is an issue that is relevant for embodied language and face-to-face conversation as well. As Potter and Whetherell (1987: 178–9) have claimed: ‘Much of our vocabulary of mentalistic terms has no “inner” referent at all: instead of being merely descriptions of mental states these words are themselves an autonomous part of particular social practices.’ The emphasis in the analysis has therefore been on the kind of political self that is constructed in a particular kind of comment, rather than on what political knowledge, attitude or ideological position of the poster is reflected by it. A brief discussion of a posting about Mr. Smith Goes to Washington will clarify the difference in analytic focus. This film is a good tonic for anyone who has doubts about the truth in government and what a meritorious service it is to serve one’s country at the highest levels. I strongly recommend this film to anyone wanting a good dose of old fashioned American politics. (posted on 11 February 2003)

In this comment, the poster identifies a possible effect of watching this movie, namely that viewers would regain their faith in the ideal of public service. Although one could assume that the movie did have this effect on the poster (otherwise his recommendation might not have been so favourable), such a potential individual effect of watching Mr. Smith is not what is most important in the approach taken here. Through the comment the poster also presents an image of him or herself as a critical viewer who knows about misdoings in government, but nevertheless adheres to the ideals of American politics and urges others to join in this experience. The 549 comments were analysed through the procedures suggested by Strauss and Corbin (1990) that work with three consecutive coding steps: open, axial and selective coding. In the phase of open coding the individual comments were categorized into coherent collections of comments; the consecutive phase of axial coding revolved around the question of whether and


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how categories of comments were articulated with particular films or series; the third and final stage of selective coding involved the analysis of the categories and relations in terms of the core concept of this research, namely the performance of political self, asking in particular what kinds of politics were not performed on the basis of the films and television series selected. The open coding phase was guided by the question what people do in their comment and what kind of presentation is achieved through it. Four main categories were constructed from the comments: first, the comments involve people describing the content of the film or programme and comparing it to what the poster perceives as reality. The full comment may be a description, or parts of the comment may be descriptive. Second, people reflect in their comments on issues and dilemmas in politics. Again, the full comment may be reflective, or parts of it. Third, people use their comments to express judgements of politicians and political stories, and, finally, in some comments people fantasize about ideal ways of conducting politics. In the next section, I will analyse the four categories in more detail and discuss how they are articulated with the narrative motives and the films and series.

Results Description, reflection, judgement and fantasy are the four categories that summarize what people do in their comments. All these categories, or combinations of them, appeared in single comments, but single comments could also be completely descriptive, reflective, judgemental or fantasizing. Before discussing the categories in more detail, it is important to note that a sizeable 40 percent of the postings did not contain political comments at all, but mainly provided an endorsement of script, acting, visuals or whatever other features that are involved in making good movies or television. Even explicit reconstructions of political events, like All the President’s Men evoke such nonpolitical notes, both to advise for and against the film: Everything about this film is top notch. The acting, photography, art direction, everything. I can’t recommend it too highly. (3 August 2002) O man, I am sorry, I have seen this film twice. And it is boring, boring, boring. 2 and half hours of two guys asking questions on the phone or in person. Sometimes they get answers, sometimes they don’t. Rinse and repeat. (3 August 2002)

Comments like these counter the assumption made earlier that popular renditions of politics provide powerful resources for people to present their own politics. Obviously, they also do not achieve this for audiences who simply take movies like these as entertaining stories rather than as occasions to talk about politics.



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Description, or the smart self Many comments contain the posters’ retelling of the story of the film in combination with a reference to the way the film itself ‘describes’ reality. Such a double description of the film and real-life politics is present in the comment below about The West Wing: One does get the drift of how decisions are reached, the chain of command, the coddling up to congress and the public at large, and of course the power play and influence peddling, the continual spin doctoring of public opinion, and of course the perennially cynical but necessary White House press corps. (12 January 2001)

Allusions to ‘realism’ are strong anchors for the descriptive comments on the films and television series. They are based on a hunch of how things go in politics. Yes, (Prime) Minister in particular drew very specific real-life comparisons: I watched this programme with my parents who are civil servants (in India) and they tell me every bit is true. (7 September 2001) From first hand experiences not with the British but the European administration and from my studies of political science I can pledge the satire to be really, really sharp. (20 January 2004)

The use of ‘realism’ as a criterion to assess the qualities of television and film fictions about politics resembles the way experiential knowledge, as identified by Gamson (1992), is brought into play when people talk about real politics. Both real and fictional politics seem to be weighed against what people know (or think they know) about politics. Posters’ assessments of the realistic quality of the film or television series determine whether and how they will be affected by it. When texts are taken as realistic depictions, it becomes possible for audience members to express and endorse new perspectives. Wag the Dog, for instance, was very often discussed in terms of its realism or lack of credibility. Only when considering it a realistic rendition of American politics is a comment like the one below possible: ‘Watching TV news footage has become different after this movie’ (1 August 2003). Learning like this is exacerbated when film and television fiction about politics is seen in educational settings, which often occurs. Read, for instance, a student’s comment on Mr. Smith: This movie was da bomb! we watched it in social studies and im like oh great here is a boring ol’ black and white movie. But I watched it and really got into I! Frank Capra was cool. It teaches you a lot about the House of Representatives and the Senate and Fillibusters. (2 November 2002)

From such learning experiences, recommendations and encouragements ensue to see a particular movie or series. A common remark, for instance, is


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‘if you ever had any interest in politics, this is the show for you’ (3 August 2000). Another reviewer calls upon politicians to learn from The West Wing: I’ve read that Mafioso study mob movies to learn how to behave. If politicians do the same with political shows, maybe The West Wing could make a contribution beyond mere entertainment. (29 March 2001)

Through comments like these, posters present themselves as smart people, who know what is going on in ‘real’ politics, or have learned such from the particular movie or television series they watched. They want to share their insights with others and encourage them to go and watch too. There is a thin line between such smartness and cynicism. All the President’s Men drew the following comment: ‘I couldn’t follow any of it. I gathered that most of the pols involved were liars and cheats, but what else is new’ (29 March 2001). The performance of a smart self is not exclusive to a particular narrative motive. Yet it was conspicuously present in the comments on Yes, (Prime) Minister and Wag the Dog. For both productions, this is in line with their public debate and reputation. Wag the Dog’s release coincided with the Lewinsky scandal, which attracted worldwide attention because of the striking resemblance of the film’s story to the manoeuvres of Clinton. Yes, (Prime) Minister has been endorsed by politicians, government bureaucrats and academics as close to reality, and this is also reflected in the performance of a smart political self.

Judgement, or the ideological self The descriptions analysed in the comments above often involve assessments that are more specific about a reviewer’s political position. The comment on what politicians could learn from fiction implies, for instance, a criticism of politicians and their current mores and conduct. Verdicts also come in the form of explicit ideological judgements about politics as represented in the text. An unambiguous current in these judgements is a critique of the overall liberal perspective of Hollywood – as a short-cut term for film and television. IMDb users have presented The West Wing, in particular, as Hollywood’s answer to the presidency of George W. Bush: The producers of the show should keep on dreaming, presumably it acts as some type of therapy so that they can come to terms with a Texan like Bush as president, who knows? (21 August 2003) It really is liberal Hollywood’s answer to being shut out of Washington on almost every front. (13 February 2004)



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Predictably, The West Wing has attracted reverse support from liberals: It is unabashedly – dare I say in these reactionary times – ultra-liberal and proud of it. (5 December 2003) I’m proud to be a liberal and it’s nice to see a popular television program keeping the philosophies that I espouse in the forefront of millions of Wednesday night television viewers. (12 November 2002)

Such an identification of the politics of Hollywood is obviously not reserved for The West Wing. Other films have attracted parallel conservative critique and liberal support: All the President’s Men is a bad movie glorifying the no-good Commies who helped to bring down the greatest President of all time, Richard Nixon. (12 November 2002) Well, perhaps I’m biased. I enjoy films that have Republicans getting their just desserts. Especially ‘Tricky Dicky’. (12 November 2002)

Such remarks fit easily into existing political oppositions, and confirm a basic consistency of media effects research, namely that people tend to selectively perceive media offerings and mould them into their own – in this case ideological – frameworks. Yet other comments indicate a much more complex process and demonstrate that resentment or appreciation of a film’s or series’ ideology is not, by definition, simply predicated upon one’s own views. A viewer of Dave, who considers himself ‘a liberal of sorts’, was somewhat turned off by its partisan stance: It’s pretty obvious where the movie’s politics lies – there is no ambiguity of purpose, no voice for any other view.… I’m an American Liberal of sorts and moments in this movie made me wince because of their obvious propaganda. (12 November 2002)

A conservative viewer of Dave nevertheless liked the movie, despite its politics: Yes, the movie arguably has a liberal slant, but I was an avid Rush Limbaugh fan when I, along with two other super-conservatives, first saw this movie, and we all three loved it. If your political ideology is the only thing keeping you from enjoying this movie, then I mourn for you. (12 November 2002)

Similar comments were posted for The West Wing, with conservatives expressing their appreciation of the show, despite its politics. Obviously, for such viewers the appeal of fiction like this is located on another plane than ideology. In fact, a common observation is that it is a shame if ideology guides one’s pleasure:


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If you let your political viewpoint or your demand for reality get in the way of enjoying it, so much the worse for you. (12 November 2002)

In those comments in particular, one can see how audiences use movie and television fictions about politics to perform their ideological position in a public setting. The posters who present themselves as liberal or conservative mostly deem Hollywood film and television products ‘liberal’. This qualification does not particularly pertain to one of the titles or narrative motifs we researched here. In fact, systematic academic assessments of fictional representations of politics have identified most of them, regardless of the story line, as having a liberal undertone (e.g. Neve, 2000). Also, ‘Hollywood’ has canvassed for many liberal causes and is a regular campaign stop for the American Democrats (Brownstein, 1992). The IMDb-posters thus repeat what seems to be common knowledge about Hollywood’s politics, and tend to express appreciation thereof if they present themselves liberal and aversion if they consider themselves conservative. Yet it is interesting that a number of posters in our research group felt that ideology should not have anything to do with the pleasure of watching. While they presented themselves within an ideological context, through their comments they prescribe a distance between the ideology of a film and its possible appeal. For them, apparently, ideology and pleasure can exist separately from each other. Reflection, or the reasonable self Reflection in the IMDb comments involves the presentation of the film or television series that the poster watched as a series of dilemmas and compromises. This style is apparent in the gratification posters say they derive from seeing politicians portrayed as ‘flesh and blood’ people, who suffer from human frailties like the rest of ‘us’. It was especially visible in the discussions of Jack Stanton, the Clinton-like leading character in Primary Colors: ‘This film made me think about Clinton as well as politicians in general. What is admirable, what is not acceptable, what is it we really “want” in our public officials?’ (25 May 2000). ‘Reflection’ entails people who reflect on what they have seen and who stress that one has to reach one’s own conclusions. Typical comments in this category present politics as a battle between contradictory forces: a West Wing viewer summarizes it as ‘how idealism has to meet reality’ (15 January 2004), a fan of Yes, Prime Minister labels it as ‘the eternal fight between progress and reaction’ (3 July 1999). Often the contradictions are framed as a list of diverging ideals, like in this comment on All the President’s Men: It is far more than one of the essential conspiracy films. It is about politics, life, how we deal with things, the quest to find what’s wrong, to weed out those who cannot meet the challenge! (14 September 2001)



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Another person uses almost the same kinds of words to describe Primary Colors: ‘This film says something about life, compromises, ambition and what doing good means’ (14 September 2001). The West Wing evokes such comments as well: ‘It paints a fair and critical picture of the American society and it’s place in the world. The show salutes certain aspects of American life while not being afraid to criticize others’ (14 September 2001). But the most elaborate reflection was made in a comment on Dave: It’s a genuinely heart warming political fairy tale that leaves you with both a glimmer of hope and a sense of desperation. We’re exposed to a White House resident who is decent and good and above the burdensome, prohibitive game of politics, while we simultaneously realise that whomever we in the real world put in the Oval Office, while he or she may be a genuinely decent human being, that person will always be answerable to the power and influence of campaign funds that are the currency and commodities in Washington. (25 February 2001)

People who react in this way to the movies or series they have seen, present themselves as open-minded people, who refrain from strong judgements but see the complexities of everyday politics. They identify dilemmas in everyday political practices that are beyond ideological struggles; the posters at least do not connect these dilemmas to a particular political ideology. They thereby show themselves as reasonable people, who are especially apt at identifying the moral and practical quandaries that politicians, as human beings, will be confronted with in their everyday work. This ‘reasonable self’ emerged in particular in response to The West Wing and Primary Colors but is not limited to the soap narrative present in these two titles. However, a soapish narration of politics as a community of people struggling together to achieve certain goals does open up more possibilities for reflection than the quest, bureaucracy and conspiracy do. Fantasy, or the longing self In the reflective comments, a desire for a better politics is often present, but it is always balanced with a pragmatic, sometimes cynical recognition of real political processes. In the full fantasy comment, political fictions seem to be used to muse on the uncontested existence of a perfect society and an ideal political process that surpasses partisan and ideological oppositions. Such utopias pertain to the virtues of ordinary human beings and to the country itself, and they include – often – a critique of prevailing cynical attitudes. One viewer loved Dave because of the way the film suggests, ‘that the common man makes for a better politician’ (1 September 2000). In the utopian comments, the common man is presented as possessing the common virtues (‘helping others’, ‘honesty’) that politicians seem to lack. ‘There is good in mankind’, one viewer comments, after having watched Mr. Smith goes to Washington (1 September 2000). A fan of The West Wing, says:


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It makes me wonder if there might be merit and value in politics after all.… if only because the people behind the politics might be genuinely motivated people and not the ego-maniacs they sometimes appear to be. (1 September 2000)

Apart from the American people, American institutions and the country itself are the subjects of hope and dreams. The West Wing, one viewer says, ‘compels you to believe in your government despite all the reasons it gives you to despair of it’ (1 September 2000). The American press is the institution that receives a boost as a result of All the President’s Men (13 December 2002), and if one wants reassurance about American politics in general, Mr. Smith, a reminder of ‘the greatness of our nation’ (27 January 1999) is offered as the cure: The film is good tonic for anyone who has doubts about the truth in government and what a meritorious service it is to serve one’s country at the highest levels. I strongly recommend this film to anyone wanting a good dose of old-fashioned American politics. (1 April 2003)

What is interesting is that the comments on American institutions come from non-American, as well as from American viewers of these texts. An Edinburgh fan of The West Wing assumes that it is ‘the White House as I’m sure, most Americans and we would like it to be’ (19 August 2001) and an Australian viewer calls it ‘emblematic of the America you desperately wish to believe in’ (19 August 2001). However, foreign viewers also strongly judge the series precisely for what they feel is American propaganda. An Argentinian viewer says: ‘They show you what they want and make the presidency look good, which doesn’t exist in any country. Don’t buy it especially nowadays with that prehistoric ape in the White House’ (30 September 2002; there was a similar comment from Hungary on 16 July 2003). The utopian category obviously is an optimistic one. It collides with cynical accounts of politics. Mr. Smith, for instance, is presented as ‘the triumph of optimism over world-weary cynicism’ (15 March 1999) and as giving a ‘non-cynical heart-warming message’ (15 March 1999). The West Wing is equally appreciated: NBC has risen above the bad jokes or rips on our political system, and created a television show that provides us hope and comfort in the belief that those in government service and politics truly do care about the ‘man or woman on the street’. (16 February 2000)

Viewers anchor their utopias in firm ground; they recognize and label them as dreams, as in one comment on Dave: ‘my favourite of the White House wishful fantasy genres’ (20 February 1999); or they present them in an ironic way, as one viewer does in his presentation of the leading journalists in All the President’s Men ‘the dynamic duo is our only hope’ (21 February 2003). Although the fantasies in these comments about idealistic politics and perfect politicians are obviously grounded in criticism of current practices,



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the focus of the posters is on the way the movie or series in question enables them to imagine a better way of practising politics. They present a picture of realistic people who want to maintain an optimistic perspective on politics and long for politicians and practices that meet their desires. It is not a naïve wish, as the irony in many comments testifies, but it is a clearly present current in the comments expressing both frustration and hope. Mr. Smith, Dave and The West Wing, in particular, evoke these presentations. Absence, or where is the informed self? What is it that people do not do with these texts; in other words, what is not performed through the reactions to these texts? There are very few specific references to concrete political issues and events in the 549 IMDb comments that were analysed. In the 92 reactions to The West Wing, for instance, that range from the beginning of the series in 1999 into its fifth season in 2004, only two episodes received comments that were anchored in real political issues: the episode that was made right after the 9/11 attacks attracted both a positive statement (‘amazing’) and a negative one (‘terrible), and an episode from the first series about the death of a homeless man who turned out to be a medalled Vietnam veteran caught praise from several people for being so moving. One statement on Mr. Smith said that the plot was unbelievable because ‘I can’t find the part in the Constitution that empowers the federal government to loan money to build a boys camp’ (20 May 2003), while another mentioned the recent behaviour of ‘Bush and Blair stampeding through the UN with total disregard for democracy’ (1 April 2003). These were the only two reactions (out of 75) that made a connection with concrete political events. Some IMDb commentators did summarize Wag the Dog in terms of its coincidence with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but in a descriptive way. There also was an occasional comment about the relevance of the movie for understanding the Iraq war: This movie is far more relevant than when it first appeared because it understands the politics of terrorism, suitcase bombs, the increased role of the CIA and, at the end, the need to go back to Albania (nee Iraq) and finish up the job. It is definitely a far more relevant film to view today than it was in 1997. (16 August 2002; similar comment on 28 January 2003)

One may contend that the lack of political specificity in the reaction to these films is the result of the fact that the films themselves focus in a rather general way on politicians and the political process, and much less on concrete political issues. Such an explanation is supported by the fact that – as already mentioned – some 40 percent of the reviews did not mention anything political at all; as one reviewer of The West Wing said: ‘Trust me, it’s not all about boring politics. There are enough non-political plots to keep your interest’ (30 September 2003).


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If the political generality of the texts is indeed the source of the rather broad focus of the comments, one would expect a film that does zoom in on a specific issue to receive more detailed comments. Yet, if one considers Erin Brockovich as a movie about industrial policy versus environmental and health concerns, that film also did not produce highly detailed comments on these issues. Commentators summarized the film as a story of a single mum working herself up to a better future, or as a general David versus Goliath story, or as an example of legal drama like A Class Action. Actress Julia Roberts, who plays the lead role, is the focus of many comments, and only rare observations place the politics of the movie at its heart: Should the big corporations be sued for trying to cut costs and therefore provide a cheaper product [or make more profits if you are a cynic] for the consumer? Or produce at a higher cost and keep the consumer safe? Erin thinks she has the answer; watch and see her in action. 5 stars. (8 April 2002)

Discussion The analysis has shown how diverse movies and television series like Mr. Smith goes to Washington, Dave, Primary Colors, The West Wing, Wag the Dog, All the President’s Men and Yes, (Prime) Minister enable people to think about the dilemmas of politics that politicians face (reflection), criticize or praise politicians for their morals and stories for their ideology (judgement), and express their hopes and ideals (fantasy). In addition, some stories give their viewers the feeling that they have acquired new knowledge about specific elements of politics, which provides them with means to describe what they see as politics (description). Although large numbers of the analysed comments did not address politics at all, there were enough that did to warrant the conclusion that popular films and series about politics can function as a resource to present one’s ideas in a public setting. This outcome is particularly relevant when considering the almost total absence of research about audience reactions to such films and series, and about people’s articulations of popular culture and politics in general. The results of this analysis demonstrate that people ‘do’ politics in relation to films and series, and construct in their reactions a particular and public version of their political selves. That result is very much at odds with the beliefs of cultural and political pessimists who invariably label popularizations of politics as a ‘malaise’, or talk of ‘mediacracy’, ‘dumbing down’, ‘soundbite politics’ or ‘pseudo-politics’, all of which are radically different and should be kept apart from ‘real’ politics (e.g. Hart, 1994; Meyer, 2002; Postman, 1985; Scheuer, 2001). The research at hand has shown that popular film and television culture does not necessarily produce an impoverished political performance: superficial and reflective, serious and



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comical, brief and elaborate, ideological and matter-of-fact comments alternate on this platform. Nor do they lead to non-political presentations, because different ideologies and partisanships were offered in the comments. The question whether the particular narrative motifs evoke particular responses could not be answered univocally; the quest frame in Mr. Smith and Dave seemed especially helpful in terms of fantasizing about ‘the people’, ‘human virtues’ and ‘America’. The longing citizen seems easier to nourish with this kind of popular fiction than with everyday political journalism, which some deem to be unpleasantly cynical. Yet, the quest did also invite the descriptive, reflective and judgemental styles, as the diversity of comments has shown. The soap frame in The West Wing and Primary Colors seemed especially fertile for people reflecting on the moral and political dilemmas that they consider part and parcel of the political process, although (Prime) Minister Jim Hacker, framed in bureaucracy, also attracted a comment on the continuous tension between ideals and human flaws.4 The conspiracy motif was not simply related to a particular kind of reaction, although Wag the Dog did seem to produce a platform for (cynical) judgement. That did not seem to be the case for All the President’s Men, which, despite the strong presence of the conspiracy frame, could also be read as a successful quest on the part of two journalists. The analyses demonstrate that popular representations of politics provide people with an opportunity to pick up and/or confirm a broad sense of politicians and the political process, and enable them to express general political reflections and judgements. The relevance of these outcomes for the refutation of cultural pessimism about articulations of politics with popular culture notwithstanding, other significant questions have come up as a result of these data, all of which pertain to the relation between the postings and the posters. Are IMDb postings a result of an existing political interest, or did the movie or series itself evoke a political reaction? If so, did these movies incite a long-term political performance of the poster, or was it a one-off event? How do these postings compare with people’s presentation of their political selves in other everyday settings or in official political contexts? Although, obviously, all these questions require additional research and accounts, the four ‘selves’ reconstructed here are not so unexpected that one does not recognize more elaborate and elegant versions of them in existing political discourses. The ideological self is a common sight in political struggle and standpoint politics, the reasonable self may fit well in the models of deliberative democracies that political theorists have developed, and the longing self may have something in common with authors who have conjured up images of ‘utopia’. The familiarity of the IMDb performances can be seen, also, as evidence for the position that popular cultural renditions of politics are a relevant and part and parcel of political sense-making and performances.


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Notes Portions of this article were previously published in Entertaining the Citizen: When Politics and Popular Culture Converge by Liesbet van Zoonen (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005). 1. Margaret Thatcher, the former Conservative prime minister of Great Britain even wrote an episode of Yes, Prime Minister (see http://www.yes-minister.com/thatcherscript.htm). 2. It was re-released on DVD in 2003 and was short-listed by British audiences as one of the 10 best British comedies ever (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/sitcom/top10. shtml). References to the series in studies of government administration can be found in Cairney (1997), Garret (2002), Hoopes (1997), Letwin (2003). 3. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this comment. 4. Yes, Prime Minister also provoked relatively few comments on the IMDb, which makes it hazardous to generalize from them.

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Liesbet van Zoonen is Professor of Media and Popular Culture at the University of Amsterdam, and Professor II at the Institute for Media and Communication of the University of Oslo. Address: Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam, Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam, The Netherlands. [email: [email protected]]

