Imagining Madam President: a critical typology of fictional female presidents and intersectional presidentiality in U.S. politainment
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The purpose of this dissertation is to systematically explore and illuminate fictional female presidential portrayals in politainment, or the symbiotic fusion of entertainment media and politics. Grounded in literatures on politainment, presidentiality, and the cultural barriers women face in politics, I examine and evaluate the fictional female presidential representations in 15 television series spanning the first two decades of the twenty-first century. To conduct my study of these artifacts, I adopt a pluralistic approach involving a hybrid of textual and critical analysis based on the cultural barriers that women face in politics. I explore how television series of the past two decades construct and portray women as president in a critical typology, tracing the trajectory of thematic and stylistic features in their production and presentation. Using an intersectional perspective on television representation, I also evaluate how fictional female presidential portrayals promote social progress for marginalized identities or further subvert them to hegemonic forces and patriarchal tradition.
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Ph. D.