The President as Character
25
That’s fair enough. Given the prejudice she would face, the
nation might feel safer with a female leader possessed of great
height, athleticism (Davis nearly represented the U.S. in
Olympic archery) and robust, bee-stung lips. I look forward
avidly to the Jolie Administration (90).
Much like the focus of real-world media coverage on women candidates and
politicians, the critics writing about Davis’s portrayal of a president focused first
and foremost on her appearance and personal attributes. But given the nature
and focus of the show—which is less on politics and the presidency and more on
the problems of being a mom and a president—perhaps that’s to be expected.
As president, Mackenzie Allen spends as much time focusing on her
family—fretting about a missed dinner and taking time out from a national crisis
to talk about Robinson Crusoe with her youngest daughter—as she does on the
affairs of state. It’s an intentional focus, according to the show’s creator, Rod
Lurie, who said in one interview that he wanted to show the personal problems
that came with being a woman in the White House and that he wanted a
character who could be strong and soft. It’s why he named the character
Mackenzie, he said, “because it’s powerful sounding. There’s something very
feminine about Mackenzie and very masculine about Mac,” which is the
character’s nickname (Seibel 17). The problem, of course, is that in creating a
character who lets her personal problems and family issues take center stage,
Lurie created a show that managed to reify the idea that a woman in the White
House is first and foremost a woman—that running the country often may come
in second to any personal obligations. She’ll tackle an international crisis, but
only after her children are safely tucked into bed. Given the role that television
now plays in telling us who we are as a society and what to value, Commander
in Chief did little to present a radically different or fresh role model for women.
Entertainment’s Ability to Shape Attitudes
In the average home, television is on for more than seven hours a day and
individuals in that home average three hours a day spent watching (Gerbner 178;
see also Gerbner et al. 45). As George Gerbner et al., write:
Transcending historic barriers of literacy and mobility,
television has become the primary common source of
socialization and everyday information (usually cloaked in the
form of entertainment) of otherwise heterogeneous
populations. We have now reached an unprecedented juncture
at which television brings virtually everyone into a shared
national culture. . . . As with religion, the social function of
television lies in the continual repetition of stories (myths,
“facts,” lessons, and so on) that serve to define the world and
legitimize a particular social order (44).