The Leading Man: Hollywood and the Presidential Image

Detailing the evolution of the duality now inherent in the role of the President of the United States%E2%80%94that of national and international celebrity%E2%80%94Peretti (Nightclub City: Politics and Amusement in Manhattan) convincingly explores the influence that popular culture%E2%80%94through journalism, theater, and, eventually and most importantly, motion pictures%E2%80%94has had on the nation's highest office. Breezing through the contributions of early presidential figures and their first ladies, Peretti begins by elucidating theater's influence on 19th-century political oratory before diving head first into how the burgeoning film industry and the mass media publicity machines that arose with it in the 1920s fomented a cult of personality that has transcended entertainment and found arguably insidious purchase in the political arena. What results is an interesting, if not obvious, presentation of the influential interplay between two seemingly disparate arenas, just how blurred the lines between the two have become, and what that means for the political process. (Sept.)