Fictional Female Presidency in Film, Television, and Literature : Representations from 1932 to 2024

This book examines the ways in which popular culture has entertained the notion of a female U.S. presidency through portrayals in film, television, and literature dating back to the 1930s.

To date, no woman has served as Commander in Chief in the White House. This lack of precedent, however, has not deterred the continued exploration of this idea in U.S. popular culture for decades. In this book, Kathleen W. Taylor Kollman analyzes fictionalized portrayals of female U.S. Presidents across a variety of media, spanning both genre and time period, to demonstrate how the perceptions of audiences and content creators have shifted when considering the idea of a woman’s ability to run the United States. She then contextualizes each example by positioning it alongside real-life women in politics to examine the accuracy of existing portrayals when compared to the media framing of aspiring political candidates.

By analyzing works diverse in genre, including science fiction dystopias, slapstick comedias, political dramas, satire, and romance novels, Kollman also explores the ways in which genre can also play a critical factor in the framing of these women with regard to both subject matter and approach. Scholars interested in parasocial relationships, the history of feminist movements, the intersection of political and media audiences, and popular media trends will find this book particularly compelling.