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Review
| The American President in Popular Culture, edited by John W. Matviko. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. 232 pages. $55.00, cloth.
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| Ever since George Washington posed unhappily for Gilbert Stuart, he and other American presidents have become as much captives of our popular culture as political manipulators of it. Their stern visages on official portraits and election campaign ephemera, their stage-managed 'photo-ops' and carefully leaked disinformation are not always how the public perceives them during and especially after their administrations. Consider how Mason Locke Weems turned Washington into a pedantic prig while Grant Wood lampooned Weems' cherry tree myth using Stuart's "dollar bill" portrait, or how the 1920s-1930s novelty song "Crazy Words, Crazy Tune" trivializing the Valley Forge hardships coincided with Gutzon Borglum's monumental icon at Mount Rushmore. And if our presidents can be said to strive to represent a shared sense of community, what are we to make of Calvin Coolidge posing in a Plains war bonnet, looking as stoic as a stereotypical Native American, but wearing a business suit, or being photographed fishing while wearing shiny leather shoes? Or consider Jimmy Carter's many public relations gaffes during his presidency. Matvikos' anthology of essays on popular culture and our presidents explores how they have created or shared a sense of community within the culture, or failed to, and our varied expressions of fascination with them. |
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Most examinations of presidents in popular culture focus either on the shifting reputation and representation of a single individual, especially the more charismatic ones like Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, Kennedy, and Reagan; or they focus on a particular aspect of popular culture, such as election campaign collectibles or satirical cartoons. Few have taken on the challenge presented in this volume. In thirteen essays, Matvikos and his collaborators describe or analyze a full range of reflections—celebratory, exploitive, or horrific—by which we express what presidents mean or have meant to us. Such an expansive examination calls for a multi-disciplinary approach, and the authors include experts in popular culture, history, communications, journalism, art history, political science, museum studies, and literature. Almost all their essays are well written, but as with most anthologies, they range from the conceptually suggestive, to the chronological or the merely perfunctory. Among the best are Hanna Miller's wide-ranging survey of memorabilia, Jerome Rodnitzky's knowledgeable journey through popular music, Benjamin Hufbauer's thoughtful description of presidential libraries, Juilee Decker's fascinating analysis of presidential portraiture, and Scott Stoddart's thematic approach to selected films. Other articles cover radio and television, cartoons, newspapers and magazines, birthplace memorials, drama, and myths and stories. |
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While of uneven quality, all the chapters have some solid information and surprises to offer the reader. For example, it was Coolidge, not F.D.R., who first effectively used radio broadcasts; and while the athletic Teddy Roosevelt pioneered the informal photo opportunity, it was the obese Taft who threw out the first pitch to begin the baseball season. And besides the well-known presidential memorials or lesser-known birthplace restorations, it is surprising to learn that totem poles exist which bear their likenesses. On the other hand, no single essay can be definitive; readers may notice gaps in the coverage of some subjects. The essay on presidential myths and stories omits Lincoln's prowess as a storyteller and the cultural purposes it served, and that on cartoons neglects such satiric representations of presidents as Frederick Burr Opper's lampoons of McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, and Tom Toles' "Star Wars" ridicule of Reagan. Another essay rushes over the entertainment value of early televised conventions and their subsequent decline. That on drama seems overly selective and chronologically jumpy. The article on magazines rushes through the 19th century. But, of course, in all cases, the essays are intended only as surveys. |
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Matvikos' anthology offers the teacher a number of ways to use this book in class. Students may choose to comb through the essays to construct a longitudinal picture of a particular president, researching supplementary material. Where an essayist offers a descriptive chronology of a subject, students may wish to develop thematic commonalities, and where the essay is thematic the student may research a broader, chronological coverage. Finally, the collection presents a number of unexamined or unresolved comparisons to consider. How may one explain the privacy of John Tyler's White House marriage but the publicity attendant on Grover Cleveland's? Why and how do certain presidents' lives or personalities better lend themselves to popular embroidering than do others: Carter versus Reagan, or Bush father and son? And why are Kennedy's sexual predations still treated as of less moment than Clinton's? The American President in Popular Culture, even with its limitations, is still a step beyond what has been previously published. Because it Synthesizes material culture, the media, and popular symbolism on the subject, it should inspire much comment and further research. |
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| Fairleigh Dickson University |
Kalman Goldstein, emeritus |
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