Analyzing US Presidents In Science Fiction
Like most people in the United States I’ve been following the Presidential race with some interest. For a while there it wasn’t clear if we were seeing the possibility of the first female president in Hilary Clinton or as it now turns out the chance of the first black president in Barack Obama. Of course there’s also a possibility we’ll have the 44th white male president too.
But this got me wondering how does science fiction, usually touted as forward looking, portray the US President? It turns out it’s not so different to real life.
As a starting point I used the list of actors who have played the US President from Wikipedia. I filtered this list to leave only science fiction movies and tv shows. I suspect the list is far from complete at least as far as sci-fi shows is concerned, but sometimes you have to work with the information available.
Image by Cherie Priest via Flickr
I tallied up the races and sexes of each of the actors to come up with the following percentages:
Breakdown by Sex
- Total Number of Presidents - 27
- Female Presidents - 2 - 7.4%
- Male Presidents - 25 - 92.6%
Breakdown by Race
- Total Number of Presidents - 27
- Black - 2 - 7.4%
- White - 25 - 92.6%
- Other Races - 0 - 0.0%
I must confess I was expecting at least a somewhat more diverse mixture than that. I suspect that if I was able to include books the numbers would look radically different. But perhaps there are examples form TV and movies that I have overlooked. If so please let me know and I’ll update the statistics. The raw data I used is below:
| Actor | President | Movie/Show | Sex | Race |
| Forrest J. Ackerman | The President | Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) | Male | Caucasian |
| Stanley Anderson | The President | Armageddon (1998) | Male | Caucasian |
| Robert Beatty | The President | Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) | Male | Caucasian |
| George Clooney | President Devlin | Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003) | Male | Caucasian |
| Ronny Cox | President Tom Kimball | Captain America (1990) | Male | Caucasian |
| Tom Everett | The President | The Island (2005) | Male | Caucasian |
| Henry Fonda | The President | Meteor (1979) | Male | Caucasian |
| Morgan Freeman | President Tom Beck | Deep Impact (1998) | Male | Black |
| Perry King | President Blake | The Day After Tomorrow (2004) | Male | Caucasian |
| Ronald Lacey | President Widmark | The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) | Male | Caucasian |
| Tom Lister, Jr. | President Lindberg | The Fifth Element (1997) | Male | Black |
| E.G. Marshall | The President | Superman II (1980) | Male | Caucasian |
| Christopher McDonald | The President | Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams (2002) | Male | Caucasian |
| Jack Nicholson | President James Dale | Mars Attacks! (1996) | Male | Caucasian |
| Donald Pleasence | President White | Escape from New York (1981) | Male | Caucasian |
| Bill Pullman | President Thomas J. Whitmore | Independence Day (1996) | Male | Caucasian |
| Cliff Robertson | President Jack Cahill | Escape from L.A. (1996) | Male | Caucasian |
| Peter Sellers | President Merkin Muffley | Dr. Strangelove (1964) | Male | Caucasian |
| Cotter Smith | President McKenna | X2: X-Men United (2003) | Male | Caucasian |
| Josef Sommer | The President | X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) | Male | Caucasian |
| Kenneth Welsh | President Raymond Becker | The Day After Tomorrow (2004) | Male | Caucasian |
| Ronny Cox | President Robert Kinsey | Stargate SG-1 (1997-Present) | Male | Caucasian |
| William Devane | President Henry Hayes | Stargate SG-1 (2004) | Male | Caucasian |
| Robert Foxworth | President Charles Halsey | The Outer Limits/Episode “Trial By Fire” (1996) | Male | Caucasian |
| Ford Rainey | The President | Lost in Space, (1965) | Male | Caucasian |
| Ernestine Barrier | Madame President | Project Moonbase (1953) | Female | Caucasian |
| Lynne Thigpen | President Marjorie Bota | Bicentennial Man (1999) | Female | Caucasian |
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
Alex Barnette
Don’t forget Terry Crews in Idiocracy as President Camacho & Tommy “Tiny” Lister in The Fifth Element as President Lindberg. All fine performances if you ask me.
Jul 7th, 2008
Alex Barnette
Oh I see you got Tiny, my bad.
Jul 7th, 2008
Noadi
Not surprisingly most of the black and female presidents portrayed have been very recent 1997,1998, and 1999. What does jump out at me is Project Moonbase in 1953 portraying a female president. I want to know more about that movie now.
Noadis last blog post..Shy, Novice, and Closeted Art Show Today!
Jul 7th, 2008
Johnd
Lining in DC how could you not follow the election E. most sci-fi fans don’t trust our leaders since their hiding the UFO evidence for us. I really like how Nixon is protrayed in the Graphic Novel “Watchmen” but I hear hes not going to be in the movie is that true?
Jul 12th, 2008
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