The Prime-Time Presidency: The West Wing and U.S. NationalismContrasting strong women and multiculturalism with portrayals of a heroic white male leading the nation into battle, The Prime-Time Presidency explores the NBC drama The West Wing, paying particular attention to its role in promoting cultural meaning about the presidency and U.S. nationalism. Based in a careful, detailed analysis of the "first term" of The West Wing's President Josiah Bartlet, this criticism highlights the ways the text negotiates powerful tensions and complex ambiguities at the base of U.S. national identity--particularly the role of gender, race, and militarism in the construction of U.S. nationalism. Unlike scattered and disparate collections of essays, Trevor Parry-Giles and Shawn J. Parry-Giles offer a sustained, ideologically driven criticism of The West Wing. The Prime-time Presidency presents a detailed critique of the program rooted in presidential history, an appreciation of television's power as a source of political meaning, and television's contribution to the articulation of U.S. national identity. |
Contents
21 | |
2 Gendered Nationalism and The West Wing | 54 |
3 Racialized Nationalism and The West Wing | 87 |
4 Militarized Nationalism and The West Wing | 118 |
5 The West Wings PrimeTime Nationalism | 151 |
The West Wing Episode Directory | 173 |
The West Wing Character Directory | 179 |
Notes | 183 |
Bibliography | 203 |
Index | 223 |
Other editions - View all
The Prime-Time Presidency: The West Wing and U.S. Nationalism Shawn J. Parry-Giles No preview available - 2006 |
The Prime-Time Presidency: The West Wing and U.S. Nationalism Trevor Parry-Giles,Shawn J. Parry-Giles No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
Aaron Sorkin Abigail Bartlet affirmative action African American Alex Graves American presidency articulates campaign characters chief of staff Christopher Misiano Clinton color conflict confronts Congress construction context define depiction discourse dominant drama frame election enemies episode entitled Feminism fictional fight fighting figure film fire first season Fitzwallace gender heroic ideological influence Iosh issues Josh Josiah Bartlet Kersh Landingham leaders Leadership Leo’s male Martin Sheen masculinity Media military moral narrative national identity nationalistic o’LEARY office official Parry—Giles plot plotline portrayed pres President Bartlet presidential hero presidential heroism Qumar race racial reelection reflects reinforces relationship republican response Rhetorical Presidency role romantic Roosevelt Russian sexualized show’s significant specific staffers television tells terrorism terrorist Thomas Schlamme tion tionalism Toby Toby Ziegler TWI/V’s TWW’s U.S. nationalism U.S. presidency U.S. representative United University Press viewers voice West Wing White House women written by Aaron
Popular passages
Page 57 - Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
Page 196 - ... our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.
Page 120 - But because we set our own household in order we are not thereby excused from playing our part in the great affairs of the world. A man's first duty is to his own home, but he is not thereby excused from doing his duty to the State; for if he fails in this second duty it is under the penalty of ceasing to be a freeman. In the same way, while a nation's first duty is within its own borders, it is not thereby absolved from facing its duties in the world as a whole ; and if it refuses to do so, it merely...
Page 119 - The far-reaching, the boundless future will be the era of American greatness. In its magnificent domain of space and time, the nation of many nations is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles ; to establish on earth the noblest temple ever dedicated to the worship of the Most High— the Sacred and the True. Its floor shall be a hemisphere — its roof the firmament of the star-studded heavens, and its congregation...
Page 89 - Laws permitting and even requiring their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power.
Page 22 - In every age the ruling social or intellectual class tends to project its ideals in some form of romance, where the virtuous heroes and beautiful heroines represent the ideals and the villains the threats to their ascendancy.
Page 12 - In the literary artistic chronotope, spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole. Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot and history.
Page 90 - The third sense in which the word " Americanism " may be employed is with reference to the Americanizing of the newcomers to our shores. We must Americanize them in every way, in speech, in political ideas and principles, and in their way of looking at the. relations between Church and State.
Page 120 - The man must be glad to do a man's work, to dare and endure and to labor; to keep himself, and to keep those dependent upon him. The woman must be the housewife, the helpmeet of the homemaker, the wise and fearless mother of many healthy children.
Page 14 - In fact, all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined. Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined.