Fictionalised Politics:
How politics and politicians are
represented in the US and UK
M13092 (20 credits)
Level
3
Taught
Autumn Semester, 2010-11
Convenor
Prof Steven Fielding
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Content .......................................................................................... 3
Educational Aims ................................................................................................ 3
Learning Outcomes............................................................................................. 3
Module Evaluation .............................................................................................. 3
Lecture/Workshop Titles ...................................................................................... 4
Part One: Approaching Political Fiction ............................................................... 5
Week 1. 27/9/10: What is the purpose of this module? ........................................ 5
Week 2. 4/10/10: What are the problems with political representation? ................. 5
Week 3. 11/10/10: Why should anyone interested in politics study fiction? ............. 7
Week 4. 18/10/10: What are the origins and development of the ‘political’ novel? ... 8
Week 5. 25/10/10: What can political fiction tell us? ............................................ 9
Part Two: Using Political Fiction ....................................................................... 11
Week 6. 1/11/10: How are Presidents and US politicians represented? ................. 11
Week 7. 8/11/10: How are Prime Ministers and UK politicians represented? .......... 12
Week 8. 15/11/10: What role does sex and gender play in political fiction?........... 13
Week 9. 22/11/10: Why has the political conspiracy genre been so popular? ........ 14
Week 10. 29/11/10: Why are so many political films ‘populist’?........................... 15
Week 11. 6/12/2010: From bad to worse? ........................................................ 16
Method and Frequency of Classes ....................................................................... 17
Method of Assessment ...................................................................................... 17
Sources of information ...................................................................................... 17
Coursework Support ......................................................................................... 21
Guidance to Essay Writing ................................................................................. 21
Assessed Essay Titles........................................................................................ 22
Appendix: Political fiction: an ongoing data set.................................................. 23
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Summary of Content
How formal – party - politics is represented in films, novels, short stories, plays and
television (note: in this module these five forms are covered by the term ‘fiction’) is an
exciting and growing area of research. This is especially so in the US, but also (slowly
but surely) in the UK. While the study of narrowly defined ‘political’ novels has a long
lineage, it is only during the last decade or so that an interest in fictions expressed on
the stage, screen and page has crept into more mainstream analysis.
Educational Aims


To promote a critical appreciation of the relationship between fictional
representations of politics and the ‘reality’;
To develop an understanding of the nature of the US and UK political systems
especially in the post-war and contemporary periods.
Learning Outcomes
Having successfully completed the module you should be able to demonstrate:
i)
ii)

Knowledge and understanding:
An understanding of the literature analysing representative politics;
A critical appreciation of the literature on the contemporary ‘crisis’ of politics;
A capacity to use fictional depictions of politics to assess changing attitudes to
the subject;
Ability to compare and contrast the experience of the US and UK.


Intellectual skills:
Aptitude in applying conceptual, original and independent thinking;
A facility for critical analysis, synthesis and reasoned argument;



iii) Professional/Practical skills:
 Advanced research skills through the identification, location and exploitation of
appropriate material;
iv) Transferable & Key skills:
 Skills of assessment and judgment through discriminating between a variety of
competing arguments generated by historians, political scientists and
journalists;
 Oral and written presentational skills through the need to produce seminar
presentations and essays;
 Skills of self-direction, self-evaluation and time management.
Module Evaluation
Evaluation and feedback are crucial to the success of any module. The School wants
students to have their say on Politics modules. Therefore modules are formally
evaluated on a biennial basis, so please use this opportunity to have your say. If you
have any other comments or queries regarding this module, please contact the Module
Convenor.
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Lecture/Workshop Titles
Date
Lecture
Wk 1
27/9
Wk 2
4/10
Wk 3
11/10
Wk 4
18/10
What is the purpose of this
module?
What are the problems with
political representation?
Why should anyone interested
in politics study fiction?
What are the origins and
development of ‘political‘
fiction?
What can political fiction tell us?
Wk 5
25/10
Wk 6
1/11
Wk 7
8/11
Wk 8
15/11
Wk 9
22/11
Wk 10
29/11
Wk 11
6/12
How are Presidents
represented?
How are Prime Ministers
represented?
What role does sex and gender
play in political fiction?
Why has the political conspiracy
genre been so popular?
Why are so many political films
‘populist’?
From bad to worse?
Seminar
Introducing the issues Group A
Introducing the issues Group B
Analysing political fiction Group A
Analysing political fiction Group B
Depicting representative politics
Group A
Depicting representative politics
Group B
Analysing Mr Smith Goes to
Washington Group A
Analysing Mr Smith Goes to
Washington Group B
Show and tell Group A
Show and tell Group B
I strongly recommend that you attend lectures as there I will impart basic knowledge,
in particular outlining key arguments, approaches and themes – and so providing you
with the framework for your independent study. Seminars give you the chance to
discuss specific issues raised in lectures in some depth; here the onus in is on you,
rather than me, my role being limited to that of facilitator (i.e. someone who assists
by encouraging those in attendance to find their own solutions to any problems I
pose). The main purpose of the Seminars in this module is however to learn how to
interpret fiction, something that is not as obvious as you might initially think: hence
your active participation is vital if you wish to do well.
You should spend about 10 hours a week researching per module, and this module is
no different. So, while lectures and seminars are important to your learning, the main
emphasis is on you to develop points raised in them. If used properly – by preparing
adequately for them and thinking through any issues you wish to raise - the seminars
can be an invaluable means of test running any ideas you may have picked up during
your researches and so help support your individual research. I will ask you to keep
diary of what you have done between seminars, which we can discuss at the
start of every seminar.
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Part One: Approaching Political Fiction
Week 1. 27/9/10: What is the purpose of this module?
This lecture will give you a clear sense of what the module is about - and what it is not
about. It will help you accurately frame your expectations and activities over the next
months. The sources below are meant to give you a taste of what is to come, so it
would be a good idea to take at least a cursory look at a selection to help you begin to
appreciate the kinds of approaches with which you will need to become familiar.
Murray Edelman, From Art to Politics: How Artistic Creations Shape Political
Conceptions (1995)
Steven Fielding, ‘David Hare’s fictional politics’, Political Quarterly, 80:3 (2009) PDF
Steven Fielding, ‘Dramatising New Labour’, broadcast on Radio 4, 17 July 2010, CD
copy available from me
Daniel P. Franklin and Michael J. Baun (eds), Political Culture and Constitutionalism.
A Comparative Approach (1995)
Christopher Harvie, The Centre of Things. Political Fiction in Britain from Disraeli to the
Present (1991)
Catherine Johnson and Gemma Rosenblatt, ‘Do MPs have the “Right Stuff”?’,
Parliamentary Affairs, 60:1 (2007) PDF
Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor (eds), Hollywood’s White House: The Presidency
and Film and Television (2003)
Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner, Camera Politica. The Politics and Ideology of
Contemporary American Film (1988)
Jeff Smith, The Presidents We Imagine (2009)
Politics, Literature, and Film section of the American Political Science Association
website: http://www.apsanet.org/~politicsandlit/
Jesse Walker, ‘Mr. Showbiz Goes to Washington’, Reason Magazine, June 2004:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/29164.html
Week 2. 4/10/10: What are the problems with political representation?
The module takes place during a ‘crisis’ in established representative politics. The
lecture will survey how political representation has been analysed theoretically and
historically, grounding its account in the experience of the US and UK. It will in
particular focus on explanations of this ‘crisis’ and suggest the extent to which political
representation is an inherently flawed exercise – something that has been explored in
fiction, past and present.
Theory
Gideon Baker. ‘Revisiting the concept of representation’, Parliamentary Affairs, 59:1
(2006) PDF
David B. Hill, ‘Political Culture and Female Political Representation’ The Journal of
Politics, 43:1. (1981) PDF
L. Marin, On Representation (2001)
Hanna Pitkin, The Concept of Representation (1967)
A. Przeworski et al, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (1999)
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History
Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Labour, 1920-24 (1971), introduction
Steven Fielding, ‘Rethinking the “rise and fall” of two-party politics’, in P. Addison and
H. Jones (eds), The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British History, 1939-2000
(2005)
Steven Fielding, ‘Not an unmixed blessing’. The place of ‘party’ in British politics, c.
1910-40’ (2007) PDF
Edmund S. Morgan, Inventing the People. The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England
and America (1988)
James Vernon, Politics and the People. A study in English political culture (1993)
‘Crisis’
Margaret Canovan, ‘”People”, politicians, populism’, Government and Opposition, 19:3
(1984) PDF
Margaret Canovan, Populism (1981)
Joseph Cappella and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Spiral of Cynicism. The Press and the
Public Good (1997)
Russell J. Dalton and Martin P. Wattenberg, ‘Unthinkable democracy: political change
in advanced industrial democracies’, in Russell J. Dalton and Martin P. Wattenberg
(eds), Parties without Partisans (2000)
James S. Fishkin, The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy (1995)
Colin Hay, Why We Hate Politics (2007)
Catherine Johnson and Gemma Rosenblatt, ‘Do MPs have the “Right Stuff”?’,
Parliamentary Affairs, 60:1 (2007) PDF
R. Katz & P. Mair 'Changing models of party organisation and party democracy: the
emergence of the cartel party', Party Politics, 1:1 (1995)
P. Mair 'Party organisations: from civil society to the state', in R. Katz & P. Mair (eds),
How Parties Organise (1997)
Cas Mudde, ‘The populist zeitgeist’, Government and Opposition 39:4 (2004) PDF
Charles Pattie, Patrick Seyd and Paul Whiteley, Citizenship in Britain (2004)
Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone (2000)
Sidney Verba and Norman H. Nie, Participation in America (1987)
P. Webb 'Party organisational change in Britain: the iron law of centralisation' in R.
Katz & P. Mair (eds), How Parties Organise (1997)
Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, entry for ‘Political representation’:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/political-representation/
Hansard Society: http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/
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Week 3. 11/10/10: Why should anyone interested in politics study fiction?
There are still some who think ‘politics’ is just about parties, policy-making and
parliaments; there are others who now conceive of ‘politics’ so widely the term almost
loses a precise meaning. This lecture will look at how an increasing number of
academic now use fiction; the case for referring to fiction to better understand
attitudes to politics; and the general case that art can construct such attitudes.
Politics and fiction
Murray Edelman, From Art to Politics: How Artistic Creations Shape Political
Conceptions (1995)
James F. Davidson, ‘Political science and political fiction’, American Political Science
Review, 55:4 (1961) PDF
Joseph J. Foy (ed), Homer Simpson Goes to Washington (2008)
Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What? (1999)
Colin Hay, Political Analysis (2002)
G. Negash, ‘Art Invoked: A Mode of Understanding and Shaping the Political’,
International Political Science Review, 25:2 (2004) PDF
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Movies as Politics (1997)
Maureen Whitebrook, ‘Politics and Literature?’, Politics 15:1 (1995)
Maureen Whitebrook, ‘Only Connect: Politics and Literature 10 Years Later, 1982-92’,
PS: Political Science and Politics, 26:2 (1993) PDF
Catherine Zuckert, ‘Why political scientists want to study literature’, PS: Political
Science and Politics 28:2 (1995) – part of symposium on political scientists and novels
and film PDF
International Political Science Review, 12:1 (1991) Special Edition on The Politics of
Art E-JOURNAL
Fiction as embodying political ideas
Staci L Beavers, ‘The West Wing as a Pedagogical Tool’, PS: Political Science and
Politics, 35:2 (2002) PDF
Robert W. Gregg, International Relations on Film (1998)
Michael Hanne, The Power and the Story: Fiction and Political Change (1996)
Anthony Hutchison, Writing the Republic. Liberalism and Morality in American Political
Fiction (2007)
S. Ingle, ‘Politics and literature: means and ends on Koestler’, Political Studies 47:2
(1999) PDF
James L. McDowell, ‘From “Perry Mason” to “Primary Colors”: using fiction to
understand legal and political systems’, Legal Studies Forum 24 (2000) PDF
Rodney Smith, ‘Political parties in contemporary Australian fiction’ (2002), available
from www.arts.anu.edu.au/sss/apsa/Papers/smith.pdf
Cynthia Webber, International Relations Theory. A Critical Introduction (2001)
Maureen Whitebrook (ed), Reading Political Stories: Representation of Politics in
Novels and Pictures (1991)
John Whalen-Bridge, Political Fiction and the American Self (1998)
Peter Woodcock, 'The Polis of Springfield: The Simpsons and the Teaching of Political
Theory', Politics, 26:3 (2006)
Catherine Zuckert, ‘On Reading Classic American Novelists as Political Thinkers’, The
Journal of Politics, 43:3 (1981) PDF
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The collapsing bounds of the ‘political’
J. Adams, ‘Art in social movements: Shantytown women’s protest in Pinochet’s Chile’,
Sociological Forum 17:1 (2002) PDF
Murray Edelman, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (1985)
Paul Kahn, The Cultural Study of Law (1999)
Elly A. Konijn and Brad J. Bushman, ‘World leaders as movie characters? Perceptions
of George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein’, Media
Psychology, 9 (2007) PDF
Robert Lipkin, Constitutional Revolutions (2000)
Michael Saward, ‘The Representative Claim’, Contemporary Political Theory, 5:3
(2006) PDF
John Street, ‘Celebrity politicians: popular culture and political representation’, British
Journal of Politics an International Relations, 6:4 (2004) PDF
Darrell M. West and John M. Orman, Celebrity Politics (2003)
Liesbet van Zoonen, Entertaining the Citizen. When Politics and Popular Culture
Converge (2005)
Politics, Literature, and Film section of the American Political Science Association
website: http://www.apsanet.org/~politicsandlit/
Week 4. 18/10/10: What are the origins and development of the ‘political’
novel?
This lecture looks at how political fiction – which once meant just meant novels – used
to be interpreted. It was seen largely in literary terms – and apart from the seminal
works of Benjamin Disraeli – political novels were generally seen to be bad literature.
This classic view of the subject continues to exert its influence and the lecture explores
ways in which political novels can differ from other kinds of political fiction.
Robert Blake, Disraeli (1966), ch. 9
Joseph L. Blotner, The Political Novel (1955)
Joseph Blotner, The Modern American Political Novel (1966)
R. Carnell, Realism, Partisan Politics and the Rise of the British Novel (2006)
Michael Flavin, Benjamin Disraeli: The Novel as Political Discourse (2005)
Sharon M. Harris, ‘Introduction: literary politics and the political novel’ in Sharon M.
Harris (ed), Redefining the Political Novel (1995)
John Halpern, Trollope and Politics (1977)
Christopher Harvie, The Centre of Things. Political Fiction in Britain (1991)
Irving Howe, Politics and the Novel (1957)
Irving Howe, ‘The idea of the political novel’, in Irving Howe (ed), Politics and the
Novel (1987)
Townsend Ludington, ‘The Idea of the Political Novel’ in Harish Trivedi (ed), The
American Political Novel. Critical Essays (1984)
Gordon Milne, The American Political Novel (1966)
J.A. Morris, Writers and Politics in Modern Britain (1977)
Morris Edmund Speare, The Political Novel (1924)
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Week 5. 25/10/10: What can political fiction tell us?
The significance and role of fiction in creating or reflecting political ideas is very much
up for debate. The lecture outlines some of the issues raised by using them – issues
that will already have been tackled in workshops. It will in particular focus on the
debate about what impact film has on audiences and the role played by genre in
structuring any work of fiction.
Reading films or novels
Roland Barthes, ‘Death of the author’, Image, Music, Text (1977) or http://evansexperientialism.freewebspace.com/barthes06.htm
John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson (eds), The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (1998),
part 1
James Monaco, How to Read a Film (2000), ch. 1
Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing about Film (1998)
Sylvan Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing about Literature (2008)
John Sutherland, How to Read a Novel (2006)
Impact on audiences
William C. Adams, Allison Salzman, William Vantine, Leslie Suelter, Anne Baker, Lucille
Bonvouloir, Barbara Brenner, Margaret Ely, Jean Feldman, Ron Ziegel, ‘The Power of
The Right Stuff: A Quasi-Experimental Field Test of the Docudrama Hypothesis’, The
Public Opinion Quarterly, 49:3 (1985) PDF
John C. Besley, ‘The role of entertainment television and its interactions with individual
values in explaining political participation’, The Harvard International Journal of
Press/Politics, 11:2 (2006) PDF
John Bodnar, Blue-Collar Hollywood: Liberalism, Democracy, and Working People in
American Film (2003)
Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, Film Theory and Criticism (2004)
Steven R. Brown, ‘Political Literature and the Response of the Reader: Experimental
Studies of Interpretation, Imagery, and Criticism’, American Political Science Review,
71:2. (1977) PDF
Andrew C. Butler et al, ‘Using popular films to enhance classroom learning’,
Psychological Science 20:9 (2009) PDF
Lisa D. Butler, Cheryl Koopman, Philip G. Zimbardo, 'The Psychological Impact of
Viewing the Film "JFK": Emotions, Beliefs, and Political Behavioral Intentions', Political
Psychology, 16:2 (1995) PDF
Darren W. Davis and Christian Davenport, ‘The Political and Social Relevancy of
Malcolm X: The Stability of African American Political Attitudes’, The Journal of Politics,
59:2 (1997) PDF
William R. Elliott and William J. Schenck-Hamlin, ‘Film, politics and the press: the
influence of All The President’s Men’, Journalism Quarterly 56:3 (1979)
Franklin Fearing, ‘Influence of the movies on attitudes and behavior’, Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, 254 (Nov., 1947) PDF
S. Feldman and L. Sigelman, ‘The politics of prime time television: The Day After’, The
Journal of Politics 47:2 (1985) PDF
David Graham & Associates Ltd, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard. Report on Audience
Figures (2007) PDF
Paul Grainge (ed), Memory and Popular Film (2003)
Jostein Gripsrud, ‘Film audiences’ in John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson (eds), The
Oxford Guide to Film Studies (1998)
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S. Harper and V. Porter, ‘Moved to tears: weeping in the cinema in postwar Britain’,
Screen, 37 (1996)
Ruth Inglis, ‘An objective approach to the relationship between fiction and society’,
American Sociological Review 3:4 (1938) PDF
Silvo Lenart and Kathleen M. McGraw, ‘America watches "Amerika:" Television
Docudrama and Political Attitudes’, The Journal of Politics, 51:3 (1989) PDF
Paula Marantz Cohen, Silent Film and the Triumph of the American Myth (2001)
R. Lance Holbert et al, ‘”The West Wing” as endorsement of the U.S. Presidency:
expanding the bounds of priming’, Journal of Communication, 53:3 (2003) PDF
R. Lance Holbert, ‘A typology for the study of entertainment television and politics’,
American Behavioral Scientist, 49:3 (2005) PDF
R. Lance Holbert et al, ‘The West Wing and depictions of the American Presidency:
expanding the dimensions of framing’, Communication Quarterly, 53:3 (2005) PDF
Steven Neale, Genre and Hollywood (2000)
Michael Pfau et al, ‘Influence of prime-time television programming on perceptions of
the Federal Government’, Mass Communication & Society, 4:4 (2005)
Kay Richardson, ‘The dark arts of good people. How popular culture negotiates “spin”
in NBC’s “The West Wing”’, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 10:1 (2006) PDF
Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner, Camera Politica. The Politics and Ideology of
Contemporary American Film (1988)
Jeffrey Richards and Dorothy Sheridan, Mass Observation at the Movies (1987)
Steven J. Ross (ed), Movies and American Society (2002)
Jeffrey Sadow, ‘An Experiment on Cinema’s Effect on Political Attitudes’, Paper
presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, 2004:
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/6/7/8/7/p67879_i
ndex.html
Graeme Turner, British Cultural Studies. An Introduction (1990), ch. 4.
Liesbet van Zoonen, ‘Audience reactions to Hollywood politics’, Media, Culture &
Society, 29:4 (2007) PDF
Significance of genre
Barry Keith Grant (ed), Film Genre Reader (1986)
Jonathan Munby (ed), Public Enemies, Pubic Heroes. Screening the Gangster Film
(1999), introduction
Steven Neale, Genre and Hollywood (2000)
Mike Chopra-Gant, Hollywood Genres and Post-War America: Masculinity, Family and
Nation in Popular Movies and Film Noir (2006), ch. 1
Tom Ryall, ‘Genre and Hollywood’ in John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson (eds), The
Oxford Guide to Film Studies (1998)
Thomas Schatz, Hollywood Genres (1981)
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Part Two: Using Political Fiction
Week 6. 1/11/10: How are Presidents and US politicians represented?
This lecture will explore the different ways in which US politicians have been
portrayed, with specific reference to the Presidents both ‘real’ and imagined. As Head
of State the President plays a symbolic role within the polity as well as holding a
powerful office with tangible constitutional power. The lecture consequently focuses on
how the President has been portrayed as a national ‘hero’ in certain fictions and also
how real Presidents have been depicted – contrasting in particular Abraham Lincoln
and Richard Nixon, the quintessential ‘good’ and ‘bad’ commander-in-chiefs.
Studies of the office
Robert DiClerico, The American President (2000)
Tim Hames, Governing America (1996)
Joe Klein, The Natural. Bill Clinton's Misunderstood Presidency (2002)
Joe Klein, Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivialized By People Who Think
You're Stupid (2006)
James P. Pfiffner and Roger H. Davidson (eds), Understanding the Presidency (2000)
Michael Nelson (ed), The Presidency and the Political System (2006)
Jon Roper, The American Presidents: heroic leadership from Kennedy to Clinton (2000)
Andrew Rudalevige, The New Imperial Presidency. Renewing Presidential Power after
Watergate (2005)
Representations
Albert Auster, ‘Oliver Stone’s Presidential films’ in Philip John Davies and Paul Wells
(eds), American Film and Politics from Reagan to Bush Jr (2002)
Paul C. Challen, Inside the West Wing (2001)
Melissa Crawley, Mr. Sorkin Goes to Washington: Shaping the President on Television's
the West Wing (2006)
Rob Edelman, ‘Politicians in the American cinema’ in Gary Crowdus (ed), The Political
Companion to American Film (1994)
Thomas Fahey, Considering Aaron Sorkin: Essays on the Politics, Poetics and Sleight of
Hand in the Films and Television Series (2005)
Mark Feeney, Nixon at the Movies (2004)
Thomas J. Knock, ‘History with lightning: the forgotten film Wilson’, in Peter C. Rollins
(ed), Hollywood as History: American Film as Cultural Context (1998) also in American
Quarterly 28 (1976)
Joseph H. Lane, ‘The Stark regime and American Democracy: a political interpretation
of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men’, American Political Science Review, 95:4
(2001) PDF
Harry Keyishian, Screening Politics. The Politician in American Movies (2006)
S. Robert Lichter, Linda S. Lichter, and Daniel Amundson, ‘Government Goes Down the
Tube. Images of Government in TV Entertainment, 1955–1998’, Press/Politics, 5:2
(2000), PDF
Robert L. McConnell, ‘The genesis and ideology of “Gabriel over the White House”’,
Cinema Journal, 15:2 (1976) PDF
Sean McCann, American Literature and Presidential Government (2008)
Mark E. Neely, ‘The Young Mr Lincoln’, in Mark C. Carnes (ed), Past Imperfect. History
According to the Movies (1995)
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Mark S. Reinhart, Abraham Lincoln on Screen: A Filmography of Dramas and
Documentaries Including TV, 1903-97 (1999)
Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor (eds), Hollywood’s White House: The Presidency
and Film and Television (2003)
Jeff Smith, The Presidents We Imagine (2009)
J. Smyth,’” Young Mr. Lincoln”: between myth and history in 1939, Rethinking History,
7:2 (2003) PDF
Peter C. Rollins, The West Wing: The American Presidency as Television Drama (2003)
Shawn Parry-Giles and Trevor Parry-Giles, Constructing Clinton. Hyperreality and
Presidential Image-Making in Postmodern Politics (2002)
Trevor Parry-Giles and Shawn J. Parry Giles, The Prime-time Presidency: The West
Wing and U.S. Nationalism (2006)
Stephen J. Whitefield, ‘Richard Nixon as a comic figure’, American Quarterly, 37:1
(1985) PDF
Harrison Ford for President website: http://www.danielhsia.com/hfprez/
Some relevant fictions
Fictional politicians: The Great McGinty; West Wing; All the King’s Men (novel and
two film versions); Election; The Last Hurrah (novel and film); The Running Mate;
Advise and Consent (novel and film); The Best Man (play and film); My Fellow
Americans; K Street; American Dreamz; 24
Real politicians: Primary Colors (novel and film); The Path to War; Election; Thirteen
Days; The Reagans; The Day Reagan was Shot; Power; Charlie Wilson’s War; Milk
Lincoln: Lincoln (1930); Young Mr. Lincoln; Abe Lincoln in Illinois; Lincoln (1988)
Nixon: An Evening with Richard Nixon; Our Gang; The Company; Death of a
Politician; Secret Honor; Nixon; Dick; The Assassination of Richard Nixon; Frost/Nixon;
Watchmen
Presidential heroes: Gabriel over the Whitehouse; Air Force One; Independence
Day; The American President; West Wing; Truman; Commander-in-Chief
Week 7. 8/11/10: How are Prime Ministers and UK politicians represented?
While some talk of the ‘presidentialisation’ of the office, in contrast to the US President
the UK Prime Minister is not Head of State. For this, and other reasons to be outlined
in the lecture, the Prime Minister is rarely portrayed in ‘heroic’ terms. In fact, while
enjoying some similarities, depictions of US and UK politicians are strikingly different,
revealing significant contrasts in their national political cultures.
Studies of the office
M. Foley, The Rise of the British Presidency (1993)
Michael Foley, The British Presidency: Tony Blair and the Politics of Public Leadership
(2000)
Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders Since 1945 (2001)
D Kavanagh, A Seldon The Powers Behind the Prime Minister: The Hidden Influence of
Number Ten (1999)
Anthony King, The British Prime Minister (1985)
G. Wilson, ‘The Westminster Model in Comparative Perspective’, in I. Budge and D.
McKay (eds), Developing Democracy (1994)
Special issue on ‘Presidential and Parliamentary Democracies: Which Work Best?’,
Political Science Quarterly, 109:3 (1994) E-JOURNAL
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Representations
David Berry and Simon Horrocks (eds), David Lloyd George: The Movie Mystery
(1998)
Stephen Coleman, ‘Beyond the West(minster) Wing: the depiction of politicians and
politics in British soaps’, ICS Working Paper (2007), PDF
Steven Fielding, ‘A mirror for England? “Populist” cinematic representations of party
politics, ca. 1944-64’, Journal of British Studies, 47:1(2008) E-JOURNAL
Steven Fielding, ‘David Hare’s fictional politics’, Political Quarterly, 80:3 (2009) PDF
Steven Fielding, ‘Never a Gabriel over Whitehall’, Contemporary British History, 23:4
(2009) PDF
Steven Fielding, ‘”Sheep without a shepherd”? Britain’s fictional politics, c. 1900-40’
(unpublished paper), PDF
Steven Fielding, ‘Dramatising New Labour’, broadcast on Radio 4, 17 July 2010, CD
copy available from me
‘Recreating our political past, http://www.historyandpolicy.org/opinion/opinion_24.html
‘The Ghost of Tony Blair’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/16/film-the-ghosttony-blair
‘The drama of New Labour’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10604082
Shannon Granville, 'Downing Street's Favourite Soap Opera: Evaluating the Impact
and Influence of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister', Contemporary British History
23:3 (2009) E-JOURNAL
Trevor Griffiths, Scripts for ‘Bill Brand’ (1976) PDF
I. Langer, ‘A historical explanation of the personalization of politics in the print media:
the British prime Ministers (1945-1999)’, Parliamentary Affairs, 60:3 (2007) PDF
Blake Morrison, ‘The fatal flaw’, Guardian, 31 March 2007 (on Blair literature):
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2046510,00.html
J. Richards and A. Aldgate, Best of British. Cinema and Society, 1930-1970 (1983),
chapters on Fame is the Spur and South Riding.
Melanie Williams, ‘No Love for Johnnie’ in Brian McFarlane and Roy Ward Baker (eds),
24 Frames. The Cinema of Britain and Ireland (2005)
Some relevant fictions
Fictional politicians: House of Cards trilogy (novels and TV series); First Amongst
Equals (novel and TV series); The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer: Yes Minister/Prime
Minister; The Thick of It: Paradise Postponed (novel and TV series); Who Goes Home?
The Minister; No Love for Johnnie (novel and film); The New Statesman; Grass Roots;
A Very British Coup; My Dad’s the Prime Minister; State of Play; Party Animals
Real politicians: Disraeli (film and TV series); The Prime Minister; Young Mr Pitt;
Fame is the Spur; Absence of War; Confessions of a Diary Secretary, Mo
Churchill: Young Winston: The Gathering Storm; The Wilderness Years, Into the
Storm
Blair: The Queen: Love, Actually; Second Term; The Deal; The Trial of Tony Blair, The
Special Relationship; W
Thatcher: Sink the Belgrano; The Falklands Play; Thatcher: the Final Days; Margaret
Thatcher – The Long Walk to Finchley; Thatcher the Musical; Margaret
Week 8. 15/11/10: What role does sex and gender play in political fiction?
Feminist theorists - most notably Joan Scott - has exposed the extent to which
perceptions of gender underpin how we see the world. This lecture looks at how
women and men – and their sexualities - have been portrayed over time within
political fiction. Reflecting their C19th role as ‘angels in the house’, women have
traditionally been marginal political figures in fiction as much as ‘reality’. However
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changes over recent decades have seen them assume a more significant (fictional)
role, often as critics of established (male) political practice.
Deborah Denenholz Morse, Women in Trollope’s Palliser Novels (1987)
Steven Fielding, ‘”Because a man stands up”: gender and sexuality in UK and US
political fiction’, available from: http://www.psa.ac.uk/2007/pps/Fielding.pdf
Steven Fielding, ‘The Iron lady was no victim’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/26/margaretthatcher-bbc
John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson (eds), The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (1998),
see chapters by Patricia White, Anneke Smelik and Alexander Doty
Marsha Kinder, ‘The Image of Patriarchal Power in "Young Mr. Lincoln" (1939) and
"Ivan the Terrible, Part I" (1945)’, Film Quarterly, 39:2 (1985-1986) PDF
Leslie Petty, Romancing the Vote: Feminist Activism in American Fiction, 1870-1920
(2006)
Janet Staiger, Bad Women: Regulating Sexuality in Early American Society (1995)
Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (1988)
Ruth Bernard Yeazell, ‘Why political novels have heroines: “Sybil”, “Mary Barton” and
“Felix Holt”’, Novel: A Forum on Fiction, 18:2 (1985) PDF
Some relevant fictions
UK: The Years Between (play and film); Carry On Girls; A Parliamentary Affair; A
Woman’s Place; The Prime Minister’s Wife; Vote to Kill; The Amazing Mrs Pritchard; No
Job for a Lady
US: State of the Union; Kisses For My President; Protocol; Ada Dallas (novel and film);
The Manchurian Candidate (novel and two films); The Contender; Commander In Chief
Week 9. 22/11/10: Why has the political conspiracy genre been so popular?
Political fictions operate within different kinds of genre that shape the stories they tell.
One of the most powerful is the ‘conspiracy’ genre. Condon’s Manchurian Candidate is
generally regarded the first such example of that genre, one given greater potency by
‘real’ events - most notably the Kennedy assassination. The lecture will explore the
interaction between fiction and ‘reality’ in the development of the conspiracy genre –
and suggest that it points to an endemic fault line between the people and those who
govern them.
Albert Auster, ‘Oliver Stone’s Presidential films’ in Philip John Davies and Paul Wells
(eds), American Film and Politics from Reagan to Bush Jr (2002)
Lisa D. Butler, Cheryl Koopman, Philip G. Zimbardo, 'The Psychological Impact of
Viewing the Film "JFK": Emotions, Beliefs, and Political Behavioral Intentions', Political
Psychology, 16:2 (1995) PDF
Mark Fenster, Conspiracy Theories (2008)
Christopher Harvie, ‘Political thrillers and the condition of England from the 1840s to
the 1980s’ in Arthur Marwick (ed), The Arts, Literature and Society (1990)
Peter Lev, American Films of the 1970s (2000)
Greil Marcus, The Manchurian Candidate (2002)
Robert S. Robins, Jerrold M. Post ‘Political Paranoia as Cinematic Motif: Stone's "JFK"’
(1997), http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/robins.htm
Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner, Camera Politica. The Politics and Ideology of
Contemporary American Film (1988)
Ian Scott, American politics in Hollywood film (2000), Ch. 4
Art Simon, Dangerous Knowledge. The JFK Assassination in Art and Film (1996)
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Marita Sturken, ‘Reenactment, Fantasy, and the Paranoia of History: Oliver Stone's
Docudramas’, History and Theory, 36: (1997) PDF
Donald Whaley, ‘”Biological business-as-usual”. The Beast in Oliver Stone’s Nixon’ in
Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor (eds), Hollywood’s White House: The Presidency
and Film and Television (2003)
Paranoia and the belief in conspiracy
Jack Bratich, Conspiracy Panics. Political Rationality and Popular Culture (2008)
Samuel Chase Coale, Paradigms of Paranoia (2005)
Richard Curry and Thomas Brown, Conspiracy: Fear of Subversion in American History
(1972)
Matthew Frye Jacobson and Gaspar Gonzalez, What Have They Built You to Do?: The
Manchurian Candidate and Cold War America (2006)
Richard Hofstadter, ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’, Harper’s Magazine, Nov.
1964,
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_
style.htm
Richard Hofstadter, The paranoid style in American politics (1966)
Peter Knight, Conspiracy Culture (2000)
Peter Knight (ed), Conspiracy nation (2002)
Timothy Melley, Empire of conspiracy (2000)
Jane Parish and Martin Parker (eds), The Age of Anxiety (2001)
Daniel Pipes, Conspiracy (1997)
Robert S. Robins, Jerrold M. Post, Political paranoia (1997)
Peter Stearns, American Fear (2006)
Some relevant fictions
The Manchurian Candidate (novel and two films); The Parallax View (novel and film);
Executive Action; All the President’s Men; Twilight's Last Gleaming; Winter Kills (novel
and film); JFK; Dick; Absolute Power; State of Play; A Very British Coup (novel and TV
series); Enemy of the State; Shooter; 24 (Season 5)
Week 10. 29/11/10: Why are so many political films ‘populist’?
The lectures in Weeks 7-9 suggested politicians have been depicted in positive and
negative ways. An influential template for the ‘good’ politician was created by Frank
Capra in Mr Smith Goes to Washington, a film that has been remade several times and
has inspired any number of homage and blatant copies in both the US and UK. The
lecture will explore that model – in which the innocent little man/woman takes on the
establishment - and also look at attempts to encourage the viewer and reader to
sympathise with more conventional political figures.
Eric Loren Smoodin, Regarding Frank Capra: Audience, Celebrity, and American Film
Studies, 1930-1960 (2004)
Victor Scherle and William Turner Levy (ed), The films of Frank Capra (1977)
Donald C. Willis, The Films of Frank Capra (1974)
Leland A. Poague, Another Frank Capra, (1994)
Frank Capra, The name above the title: an autobiography (1985)
Brian Neve, Film and politics in America: a social tradition (1992), ch. 2
Kathleen Moran and Michael Rogin, ‘”What’s the matter with Capra?”: Sullivan’s
Travels and the Popular Front’, Representations, 71 (2000) PDF
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Michael P. Rogin and Kathleen Moran, ‘Mr Capra goes to Washington’, Representations,
84 (2003), http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/pmt/exhibits/1812/capra.pdf
Victor Scherle and William Turner Levy (eds), The films of Frank Capra (1977)
Ian Scott, ‘Populism, pragmatism and political reinvention. The Presidential motif in
the films of Frank Capra’ in Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor (eds), Hollywood’s
White House: The Presidency and Film and Television (2003)
Charles Wolfe ‘Mr Smith Goes to Washington: democratic forums and representational
forms’ in Robert Sklar and Vito Zagarrio (eds), Frank Capra: authorship and the studio
system (1998)
Frank Strickner, ‘Representing the working class: individualism and the masses in
Frank Capra’s films’, Labor History 31:4 (1990) PDF
‘Frank Capra’s America’, Journal for MultiMedia History, 2 (1999),
http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol2no1/Capra1.html
Lorraine Mortimer, 'The charm of morality: Frank Capra and his cinema', Continuum:
The Australian Journal of Media & Culture, 7:2 (1994),
http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/7.2/Mortimer.html
Populism
Cas Mudde, ‘The populist zeitgeist’, Government and Opposition 39:4 (2004) PDF
Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason (2005)
Francisco Panizza (ed). Populism and the Mirror of Democracy (2006)
Yves Mény and Yves Sure (eds), Democracies and the Populist Challenge (2002)
Paul Taggart, Populism (2000)
Robert McMath, American Populism (1993)
Margaret Canovan, Populism (1981)
Lawrence Goodwyn, Democratic Promise: the Populist Moment in America (1976)
Ghiţa Ionescu and Ernest Gellner (eds), Populism: its Meanings and National
Characteristics (1969)
Also refer to readings from Weeks 6, 7 & 8.
Some relevant fictions
US: Mr Deeds Goes to Town; Mr Smith Goes to Washington; State of the Union; Meet
John Doe; Young Mr. Lincoln; It’s a Joke Son; Billy Jack goes to Washington; The
Happy Hooker goes to Washington; Truman; Dave; The Distinguished Gentleman;
Head of State; Shooter
UK: Ali G Indahouse; Vote for Huggett; Old Mother Riley MP; Grass Roots; The
Amazing Mrs. Pritchard
Week 11. 6/12/2010: From bad to worse?
This lecture will draw together the various themes highlighted by the module, and
suggest the extent to which we can use political fiction to see evidence of the
contemporary crisis of representative politics – and speculate how far it might be one
of the causes of this crisis!
Refer to reading from Week 2 on ‘crisis’.
Some relevant fictional comparisons
The Manchurian Candidate (compare and contrast the 1962 and 2004 film versions)
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All the King’s Men (compare and contrast the 1949 and 2006 film versions)
Yes Minister compared with The Thick of It
Lincoln (1930) compared with Lincoln (1988)
Vote for Huggett compared with Ali G IndaHouse
Born Yesterday (compare and contrast 1950 and 1993 film versions)
Mr Smith Goes to Washington compared with Head of State/The Distinguished
Gentleman
An Ideal Husband (compare and contrast 1895 play, 1947, 1998 and 1999 film
versions)
Method and Frequency of Classes
The module is taught through a weekly lecture and fortnightly two-hour seminars. The
lecture is held in Room A41, the Clive Grainger Building at 12.00 on Mondays; the
seminars in Room B29, the Archaeology Building at 9.00 on Tuesdays. For the latter
please sign up via Nexus.
Lecture notes and other learning resources, such as readings are available via WebCT.
Method of Assessment
This 20 credit module will be assessed on the following basis:
Assessment Type
Essay 1
Essay 2
Weight
50%
50%
Requirements
2,500
2,500
Submission
9/11/10
10/1/11
When submitting your essay to the School Office please make sure that you submit it
in duplicate, date stamp both the essays and the cover sheet and then submit in
person to the School Office. You will be issued with a receipt for your essay. Please
note that the School Office will be open from 10am till 4pm (Monday to Friday) on
submission days. Essays handed in after 4pm will be stamped as late and usual
University penalties will be applied.
The standard University penalty for late submission should be 5% absolute standard
University scale per normal working day, until the mark reaches zero. For example, an
original mark of 67% would be successively reduced to 62%, 57%, 52%, 47% etc.
Normal working days include vacation periods, but not weekends or public holidays.
Applications for extensions will not normally be considered retrospectively. Any
student wishing to apply for an extension should collect and complete the necessary
forms from the School Office and submit these to the relevant Year Tutor together
with any necessary documentary evidence.
Sources of information
The Hallward Library should hold all the texts listed in the handbook. Many of the
articles are available online (these are marked here as E-JOURNAL) via the
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Nottingham network. Some of these I have downloaded and placed on the module
WebCT pages in the Readings for Lectures folder: they are marked PDF.
The internet is an especially valuable source of information regarding particular films
and novels so you should use that extensively, especially when working on your
second essay. I have listed some of the most useful sites towards the end of the
handbook.
The list of novels, plays, films and television shows included in the Appendix at the
end of the booklet is not exhaustive – politicians and politics crop up all over the place
– including in series such as Dr. Who – seminars are ideal for you to share your
discoveries with us.
Recommended Texts
There is no one key text that covers all the module as it spans a few areas of interest.
However there are some books that it would be useful to have to hand during the
course of the module ands which I have found especially useful.
Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing about Film (1998)
Sylvan Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing about Literature (2008)
Murray Edelman, From Art to Politics: How Artistic Creations Shape Political
Conceptions (1995)
Christopher Harvie, The Centre of Things. Political Fiction in Britain from Disraeli to the
Present (1991)
Jeff Smith, The Presidents We Imagine (2009)
John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson (eds), The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (1998)
Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor (eds), Hollywood’s White House: The Presidency
and Film and Television (2003)
Surveys of US and UK politics
I expect that most of you will have some background knowledge of the contemporary
politics and political history of the US and/or UK. If not, I suggest you take an early
chance to acquaint yourselves with the basics by consulting any of the below. When
you come to answer essays in Section B you will find it useful to have a firm grasp of
the national, political and historical context in which works of fiction were produced.
Once you have a grasp of the basics you should use these texts’ bibliographies and
footnotes for more detailed information. You should also refer to the texts listed for
weeks 7 and 8.
US politics
Edward Ashbee, US Politics Today (2004)
Alan Grant & Edward Ashbee, The Politics Today companion to American government
(2002)
Duncan Watts, Understanding American government and politics (2006)
David H. McKay, American politics and society (2005)
John Kentleton, President and nation: the making of modern America (2002)
Robert Singh (ed), Governing America : the politics of a divided democracy (2003)
UK politics
Peter Clarke, Hope and Glory. Britain 1900-1990 (2004)
Michael Foley, The Politics of the British Constitution (1999)
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Bill Jones et al, Politics UK (2001)
Dennis Kavanagh et al, British Politics (2006)
Kenneth Morgan, Britain since 1945. The People’s Peace (2001)
Paul Webb, The Modern British Party System (2000)
Surveys of US and UK cinema
I don’t expect many of you to have a strong grasp of cinema in the US or UK so it is
important that you get a sense of that early into the module – the workshops should
be especially useful in that regard. Below are some texts that tackle different aspects
of the respective national cinemas during much of the C20th. They will also be
relevant when writing yours essays.
You should note that there are more works on cinema and US politics compared to
work on the UK – this is one of the many instances in which British academics lag
behind their American counterparts.
UK cinema
Robert Murphy, Realism and Tinsel. Cinema and Society in Britain 1939-49 (1992)
Sue Harper and Vincent Porter, British Cinema of the 1950s. The Decline of Deference
(2003),
Charles Barr, Ealing Studios (1993)
Vincent Porter, ‘Methodism versus the market place: the Rank Organisation and British
cinema’ and Jeffrey Richards, ‘British film censorship’, both in Robert Murphy (ed), The
British Cinema Book (1997)
Andrew Spicer, Sydney Box (2006)
Peter Forster, ‘J. Arthur Rank and the shrinking screen’ in Phillip Sissons and Michael
French (eds), Age of Austerity, 1945-51 (1964).
Philip Gillett, The British Working Class in Postwar Film (Manchester, 2003)
Andrew Spicer, Typical Men. The Representation of Masculinity in Popular British
Cinema (2001)
J. Richards and A. Aldgate, Best of British. Cinema and Society, 1930-1970 (1983)
M. Landy, British Film Genres. Cinema and Society, 1930-1960 (1991)
T.J. Hollins, ‘The Conservative Party and Film Propaganda between the Wars’, English
Historical Review 96:379 (1981)
US cinema
Ronald Brownstein, The Power and the Glory. The Hollywood-Washington Connection
(1992)
Philip John Davies and Paul Wells (eds), American Film and politics from Reagan to
Bush Jr (2002)
Daniel P. Franklin, Politics and Film: The Political Culture of Film in the United States
(2006)
Ernest Giglio, Here's Looking at You: Hollywood, Film and Politics (2005)
Peter J. Haas and Terry Christensen, Projecting Politics: Political Messages in American
Films (2005)
Joseph Natoli, Hauntings: Popular Film and American Culture, 1990-1992 (1994)
Brian Neve, Film and Politics in America: A Social Tradition (1992)
Steven J. Ross, Working-Class Hollywood. Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in
America (1998)
Steven J. Ross (ed), Movies and American Society (2002)
Ian Scott, American Politics in Hollywood Film (2000)
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Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies (1975)
Robert Toplin, History by Hollywood (1995)
Robin Wood, Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan (1986)
Useful web resources
Databases and more
British Film Institute Screenonline: a useful source of synopses, clips, etc
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/index.html
Some books out of copyright are available free to download thanks to Project
Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
Often subjective, but an invaluable source
http://wikipedia.org/
A critical forum on television and media culture: informed and useful
http://flowtv.org/
The internet movie database: great for synopses, reviews, reactions, etc
http://www.imdb.com/
Nottingham eLibrary gateway
Search these digital archives for contemporary reviews:
Times Digital Archive
Historical Guardian and Observer
Historical New York Times
Fiction on line
It’s a Joke Son (1947)
http://www.archive.org/details/its_a_joke_son
Disraeli: a play
http://www.openlibrary.org/details/disraeliplay00parkrich
Abraham Lincoln (1930)
http://www.archive.org/details/abraham_lincoln
Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-897129633961255565
Mr Deeds Goes to Town
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?p=r&user=leslie04film&page=16
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?p=r&user=leslie04film&page=17
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Meet John Doe (1941)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6221921349485626107&ei=kNCySKqVBIiYi
gKs4ID9DA&q=meet+john+doe
Batman, ‘Hizzoner the Penguin’, series 2 (1966)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhnBrMlqzEY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQfTXGR4jMg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26YRd5fW66k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez4p2gGYFkA&feature=related
The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (2006)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/amazingmrspritchard/
Thatcher the Musical (2006)
http://www.thatcherthemusical.co.uk/
Toryboyz (2008)
http://www.newcultureforum.org.uk/home/?q=node/338
Richard Condon audio interview
http://wiredforbooks.org/richardcondon/
Coursework Support
The Hallward Library and Halls of Residence have a number of networked PCs to
facilitate access to information on holdings.
As Module Convenor please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any difficulties
with the module or assessed work. I will be available without appointment during my
office hours during teaching weeks. Appointments to meet at other times can best be
made by contacting via email. My contact details together with office hours are noted
at the front of this module outline.
Guidance to Essay Writing
A short guide for students on essay writing skills and an outline of the marking criteria
used by staff is available from the School Intranet.
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Assessed Essay Titles
Part One: Approaching Political Fiction.
To be submitted by 4.00 pm 9/11/10.
There is only one essay question, but there are various ways in which it can be
answered, based on one, some or all of the topics outlined in the first part of the
module. The purpose of the exercise is to test your knowledge and appreciation of
some of the methodological issues raised by political fiction. So the question invites
you to address general issues of representation and the possible utility of fiction in
writing about politics – it does not ask you to discuss specific works.
‘Art creates realities and worlds. People perceive and conceive in the light of
narratives, pictures, and images. That is why art is central to politics, just as it is
central to social relationships and to beliefs about nature. There cannot be any
representation that reproduces another entity, scene, or conception, but only
constructions that may purport to reproduce reality while simplifying, elaborating,
accenting, or otherwise constructing actualities and fantasies.’ Critically assess Murray
Edelman’s assertions about the importance of fiction to politics.
Part Two: Using Political Fiction.
To be submitted by 4 pm 10/1/11
Questions in this section require you to focus on specific works of fiction and apply
some of the broader ideas examined in the first part of the module to help you analyse
them.
1. Account for how US Presidents and/or UK Prime Ministers have been represented
in fiction.
2. Account for how women have been depicted in US and/or UK political fiction.
3. Explain the popularity of the political ‘conspiracy’ genre in the US and/or UK.
4. Explain the appeal of ‘populism’ in representations of politics in the US and/or UK.
5. What does the fictional representation of a real political figure of your choosing tell
you about attitudes to them and to politics more widely?
Alternatively you can answer a question of your own devising. To do this you
must see me and then submit a formal written proposal by email, to which I need to
give my written consent. If you don’t follow this procedure and fail to adhere to the
agreed question the essay will be awarded a 0 mark.
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Appendix: Political fiction: an ongoing data set
This list of novels, plays, films and televisions shows is provisional and subject to
updating. It also includes only those works that are predominantly about formal
politics not those that merely contain passing references or the occasional scene. If
you discover other works please contact me so I can update this list. Googling
the title, looking it up on http://wikipedia.org/ or in the case of films going direct to
http://www.imdb.com/ should allow you to work out if it is relevant to your essay
research. You can of course ask me if that does not prove of use – or see what others
think.
While we have tried to buy at least one copy of every film and TV show and novel
listed below for the library, once you have identified those works you want to use in
your essay you should see how much they cost on amazon, play.com, ebay or iOffer
as sometimes they are very cheap. As I recommend viewing or reading the work
many times it might be an idea to consider purchasing them to allow you to do this at
your leisure. At the end of the module I might be prepared to buy some of these from
you.
Notes
G novel available free for downloading via Project Gutenberg: this is an ongoing
project so other novels out of copyright may now be available.
A can be viewed online at: http://www.archive.org/. As this is also an ongoing project
other older films may be added over time so it’s worth searching the site.
B can be viewed online at: http://www.openlibrary.org/. As this is also an ongoing
project other older films may be added over time so it’s worth searching the site.
1 available in region 1 format only: so you will need a multi region dvd player to view:
some players can be ‘modified’ to facilitate this – search for your model type on the
internet.
Due age – it’s too old or too new – for some films and television shows no dvd/video
copy may be available. However you can still refer to the work in an essay by piecing
together the plot from other sources.
Name in brackets for films refers to the director, for novel/plays it refers to the author;
for TV shows it is title only.
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Year
United States
Novel/Play
Film/TV
United Kingdom
Novel/Play
Film/TV
1895
An Ideal Husband
(Wilde) G
1904
John Chilcote
M.P. (Thurston) G
1907
Waste (Barker)
The Convert
(Robins)
1910
Mr Clutterbuck’s
Election (Belloc)
The New
Machiavelli
(Wells)
Disraeli. A Play B
1911
1912
1913
1914
The Ragged
Trousered
Philanthropists
(Tressell) G
Vote by Ballot
(Barker)
John Verney
(Vachel)
1915
Disraeli (Calvert &
Nash)
The Life Story of
David Lloyd
George (Elvey)
1916
1918
1921
1922
1923
Disraeli (Kolker)
Squibs MP
(Pearson)
1924
1925
The Presumption
of Stanley Hay,
MP (Hill)
Lord Raingo
(Fast)
1926
1929
1930
Disraeli (Green)
Lincoln (Griffiths)
A
1933
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Clash (Wilkinson)
His Worship the
Mayor
(Greenwood)
1934
1933
1932
Pimple, MP
(Evans)
The Phantom
President
(Taurog)
Duck Soup
(McCarey)
Gabriel over the
White House
(La Cava)
The Masquerader
The Shape of
Things to Come
(Wells)
Rinehard (Tweed)
24
1934
The President
Vanishes (Stout)
(Wallace)
The President
Vanishes
(Wellman)
1935
1936
The Woman of
Destiny
(Warshawsky)
Mr Deeds Goes to
Town (Capra)
South Riding
(Holtby)
Honourable
Estate (Brittain)
1937
1938
South Riding
(Saville)
Mr Smith Goes to
Washington
(Capra)
Young Mr Lincoln
(Ford)
Abe Lincoln in
Illinois (Cromwell)
The Great
McGinty (Sturges)
Citizen Kane
(Welles)
Meet John Doe
(Capra)
The Talk of the
Town (Stevens)
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
Wilson (King)
Hail the
Conquering Hero
(Sturges)
Fame is the Spur
(Spring)
The Prime
Minister
(Dickinson)
Young Mr Pitt
(Reed)
The Years
Between
(Du Maurier)
All the King’s Men
(Warren)
The American
(Fast)
It’s a Joke Son
(Stoloff) A
1948
State of the Union
(Capra)
1949
All the King’s Men
(Rossen)
1950
Born Yesterday
(Cukor)
An Ideal Husband
(Korda)
Fame is the Spur
(Boulting)
Vote for Huggett
Annakin)
Somewhere in
Politics (Blakeley)
Passport to
Pimlico
(Cornelius)
The Chiltern
Hundreds
(Carstairs)
The Mudlark
(Negulesco)
The Happy Family
(Box)
1951
1956
He Snoops to
Conquer (Varnell)
The Years
Between
(Bennett)
1947
1952
1953
1954
1955
Old Mother Riley
MP (Mitchell)
Who Goes Home?
(Edelman)
Man of the
Moment
(Carstairs)
Three Cases of
Murder
(Eady et al)
Last Hurrah
(O’Connor)
M13092 Fictionalised Politics
2010/11
25
1957
1958
1959
1960
Reluctant
Debutante
(Minnelli)
Last Hurrah (Ford)
1
The Manchurian
Candidate
(Condon)
Ada Dallas
(Williams)
Advise & Consent
(Drury)
The Best Man
(Vidal)
1961
1962
1963
Manchurian
Candidate
(Frankenheimer)
Advise & Consent
(Preminger) 1
Seven Days in
May
(Frankenheimer) 1
PT 109
(Martinson)
The Best Man
(Schaffner)
Fail-Safe (Lumet)
Kisses for my
President
(Bernhardt)
Carlton-Browne of
the FO (Boulting)
I’m Alright Jack
(Boulting)
Left, Right and
Centre (Gilliatt)
The Minister
(Edelman)
No Love for
Johnnie (Box)
Dr Strangelove
(Kubrick)
The Short List
(Walder)
Swizzlewick
1965
The Prime
Minister’s
Daughter
(Edelman)
Vote, Vote, Vote
for Nigel Barton
‘My Old Man’s A
Tory’, Steptoe and
Son Season 4
1966
The House Party
(Walder)
1964
The Man
(Wallace)
Sunrise at
Campobello
(Donehue)
Ada (Mann)
No Love for
Johnnie
(Fienburgh)
President’s
Analyst (Flicker) 1
1967
1968
1969
Washington DC
(Vidal)
An Ideal Husband
The Best of
Enemies Season
1
Rise and Rise of
Michael Rimmer
(Billington)
1970
The Parallax View
(Singer)
1971
1972
Our Gang (Roth)
An Evening with
Richard Nixon
(Vidal)
Burr(Vidal)
Bananas (Allen)
The Candidate
(Ritchie)
Winter Kills
(Condon)
The StarSpangled Crunch
(Condon)
The Parallax View
(Pakula)
Executive Action
(Miller)
The Conversation
(Coppola)
1973
1974
M13092 Fictionalised Politics
2010/11
Young Winston
(Attenbrough)
Don’t Just Lie
There, Say
Something!
(Kellett)
Carry On Girls
(Thomas)
South Riding
26
China Town
(Polanski)
The Missiles of
October
1975
1976
Vote to Kill (Hurd)
1876 (Vidal)
The Company
(Erlichman)
1977
1978
Death of a
Politician
(Condon)
All the President’s
Men (Pakula)
Eleanor and
Franklin 1
Twilight's Last
Gleaming
(Aldrich)
Billy Jack goes to
Washington
(Laughlin)
The Happy
Hooker goes to
Washington
(Levey)
Eleanor and
Franklin: the
White House
Years 1
The President’s
Mistress
Grass Roots
(Ashton)
Disraeli
Being There
(Ashby)
Winter Kills
(Richert)
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
The Nearly Man
Bill Brand
Lincoln (Vidal)
The Best Little
Whorehouse in
Texas (Higgins)
Kennedy
Secret Honor
(Altman) 1
Protocol (Ross)
A Very British
Coup (Mullin)
Number 10
First Among
Equals (Archer)
Paradise
Postponed
(Mortimer)
Palace of
Enchantments
(Hurd & Lamport)
1985
Power (Lumet)
1986
1987
Empire (Vidal)
No Way Out
(Donaldson)
1988
Libra (DeLillo)
Lincoln
Tanner ’88
(Altman) 1
1989
M13092 Fictionalised Politics
2010/11
Batman (Burton)
Yes Minister
Season 1
Yes Minister
Season 2
Winston Churchill.
The Wilderness
Years
Yes Minister
Season 3
Sink the Belgrano
(Berkoff)
House ofCards
(Dobbs)
Defence of the
Realm (Drury)
Yes Prime
Minister Season 1
First Among
Equals
Whoops
Apocalypse
(Bussmann)
Yes Prime
Minister Season 2
New Statesman
Season 1
A Very British
Coup
Paris By Night
(Hare)
New Statesman
Season 2
27
1990
Hollywood (Vidal)
1991
The Final
Addiction
(Condon)
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
American Hero
(Beinhart)
Shelley's Heart
(McCarry)
The White House
Mess (Buckley)
Primary Colors
(Klein)
1997
1998
No Safe Place
(Patterson)
1999
Mr George Jones,
President
M13092 Fictionalised Politics
2010/11
JFK (Stone)
‘Mr. Lisa Goes to
Washington’,
Simpsons Season
3
Scandal (CatonJones)
No Job for a Lady
Season 1
House of Cards
Hidden Agenda
(Loach)
‘Rat’ , Rab C.
Nesbitt season 1
No Job for a Lady
Season 2
GBH
New Statesman
Season 3
Thatcher: the
Final Days
No Job for a Lady
Season 3
New Statesman
Season 4
Damage (Malle)
Bob Roberts
(Robbins)
The Distinguished
Gentleman (Lynn)
Batman Returns
(Burton)
Malcolm X (Lee)
Dave (Reitman)
In the Line of Fire
(Petersen)
Born Yesterday
(Mandoki)
Speechless
(Underwood)
The American
President (Reiner)
Nixon (Stone)
Canadian Bacon
(Moore)
Independence
Day (Emmerich)
My Fellow
Americans (Segal)
Mars Attacks!
(Burton)
To Play the King
(Dobbs)
Absolute Power
(Eastwood)
Wag the Dog
(Levinson)
Air Force One
(Petersen)
Executive Power
(Corley)
Murder at 1600
(Little)
Shadow
Conspiracy
(Costamos)
Rough Riders
(Milius) 1
Elvis Meets Nixon
Bulworth (Beatty)
Primary Colors
(Nichols)
Enemy of the
State (Scott)
Deep Impact
(Leder)
Election (Payne)
Dick (Fleming) 1
Goodfellowe MP
(Dobbs)
Maiden Speech
(Renton)
Division Belle
(Hannam)
Mrs Brown
(Madden)
The Buddha of
Brewer Street
(Dobbs)
An Ideal Husband
(Cartlidge)
Norman Ormal
Sermon from St.
Albion’s
Mosley
Adrian Mole. The
Cappuccino Years
An Ideal Husband
(Parker)
The Absence of
War (Hare)
A Parliamentary
Affair (Currie)
The Final Cut
(Dobbs)
To Play the King
The Final Cut
The Politician’s
Wife
A Woman’s Place
(Currie)
The Black Book
(Keays)
Executive Action
(Doyle)
28
(Retallack)
2000
The Golden Age
(Vidal)
The Running Mate
(Klein)
Protect and
Defend
(Patterson)
2001
2002
No Way to Treat a
First Lady
(Buckley)
2003
Balance of Power
(Patterson)
2004
The Plot Against
America (Roth)
2005
2006
Capitol Murder
(Bernhardt)
2007
The Race
(Walters)
M13092 Fictionalised Politics
2010/11
The West Wing
Season 1
Thirteen Days
(Donaldson)
The West Wing
Season 2
Fail Safe
Running Mates
(Townsend)
The Contender
(Lurie)
Path to War
(Frakenheimer)
The West Wing
Season 3
24 Season 1
The Day Reagan
was Shot
Truman (Pierson)
What a Girl Wants
(Gordon)
The West Wing
Season 4
24 Season 2
RFK
Head of State
(Rock)
The West Wing
Season 5
The Reagans
Second Term
(Walters)
Innocent in the
House (McSmith)
The Prime
Minister’s Wife
(Crosland)
This Honourable
House (Currie)
Number 10
(Townsend)
The Manchurian
Candidate
(Demme)
The Assassination
of Richard Nixon
(Mueller)
Chasing Liberty
(Cardiff)
First Daughter
(Whitaker)
The West Wing
Season 6
K Street 1
Syriana (Gaghan)
Silver City
(Sayles)
Thank You for
Smoking
(Reitman)
Warm Springs
The West Wing
Season 7
Commander In
Chief
All the King’s Men
(Zaillian)
Bobby (Estevez)
Man of the Year
(Levinson)
American Dreamz
(Weitz)
Idiocracy (Judge)
24, Season 5
Charlie Wilson’s
War (Nicols)
Spin (Sixsmith)
Seventy-Two
Virgins (Johnson)
Adrian Mole and
the Weapons of
Mass Destruction
(Townsend)
Stuff Happens
(Hare)
Whispers of
Betrayal (Dobbs)
The Permanent
Way (Hare)
Ali G Indahouse
(Mylod)
The Project
The Falklands
Play
Love, Actually
(Curtis)
The Deal
State of Play
My Dad’s the
Prime Minister
Season 1
My Dad’s the
Prime Minister
Season 2
Time and Fate
(Price)
The Thick of It
Season 1
V for Vendetta
(McTeigue)
‘Aliens of London’
& ‘World War
Three’, Dr Who
series 1
Thatcher the
Musical
(Foursight)
Frost/Nixon
(Morgan)
Glass Houses
(Howard)
The Queen
(Frears)
The Thick of It
Season 2
Amazing Mrs
Pritchard
Trial of Tony Blair
The State Within
South of the River
(Morrison)
Confessions of a
Diary Secretary
29
2008
The Race
(Patterson)
Shooter (Fuqua)
The Ghost
(Harris)
New Statesman
(Marks & Gran)
Party Animals
‘The Sound of
Drums’, Dr Who
series 3
Capitol
Conspiracy
(Bernhardt)
The First Patient
(Palmer)
Vantage Point
(Travis)
Milk (Van Sant)
Swing Vote
(Stern)
Frost/Nixon
(Howard)
W (Stone)
Recount
Harold and Kumar
Escape
Guantanamo Bay
(Hurwitz and
Schlossberg)
State of Play
(MacDonald)
Watchmen
(Snyder)
The Special
Relationship
Iron Man 2
(Favreau)
Never So Good
(Brenton)
Toryboyz
(Graham)
Gethsemane
(Hare)
Born Yesterday
(Burn)
Margaret
Thatcher. The
Long Walk to
Finchley
2009
2010
M13092 Fictionalised Politics
2010/11
Margaret
In the Loop
(Iannucci)
Into the Storm
The Ghost
(Polanski)
Mo
On Expenses
‘Victory of the
Daleks’, Dr Who
series 5
30