Most reviled US politician in pop culture

Cafe Society
1

Of course we have obvious targets from the Presidential ranks, most notably Nixon (Nixon, Secret Honor, Frost/Nixon, etc.), though Bush 43 certainly hasn’t got off easy either (W, Little Bush, That’s My Bush!). But while other recent presidents have been the butt of SNL jokes and late night spoof portrayals (Reagan, Clinton, Ford, etc.), most haven’t been on the receiving end of recurring unflattering portrayals in films and TV series, and most other presidents in our history are lionized (Wasington, Adams, Lincoln, Roosevelts, JFK).

So aside from Dick & W (including Cheney), what US politician has been portrayed the most negatively in our popular culture (by actual actors, not just newsreel footage or historical context)? One is tempted to zero in on J. Edgar Hoover, though he wasn’t really a politician. Joe McCarthy is another example, but most films that feature his portrayal are pretty obscure (even the good ones, like The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover and Citizen Cohn). Certainly the most famous film centering around him, Good Night and Good Luck, didn’t use an actor at all for his scenes, and he’s still most infamous for the Congressional hearings and their repercussions rather than these portrayals.

For me, two that stand out are Senators Owen Brewster (R-ME) and Homer Ferguson (R-MI) in The Aviator and Tucker: The Man and His Dream respectively. Both are fairly obscure politicians in our national memory, so their legacy (outside their home districts and history buffs) seems largely based on their portrayal (by famous actors in high-profile feature films from Oscar-winning directors) as hopelessly corrupt and personally malevolant bureaucrats, with barely any redeeming qualities whatsoever.

I have no idea if those portrayals are accurate or narrative conveniences (or more likely, a combination of the two), but their most visible and conspicuous place in our culture is a bad one.

So who else comes to mind?

2

Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall? His name and the name of his organization (largely thanks to Thomas Nast) are definitely synonyms for corruption and machine politics.

3

You know, pop culture is more than just movies.

4

Possibly Joe McCarthy.

5

It seems like all the early punk bands were united in their hatred of Reagan.

6

It may be a stretch (though J Edgar would also be pushing the definition) to call him a politician, but would Benedict Arnold count?

He is the classic definition of a traitor, and has been referenced that way for 200+ years…

7

If you want to define J. Edgar Hoover, then definitely him. It’s hard to think of a movie that makes mention of him that doesn’t also refer to his alleged cross-dressing.
Probably the best part of Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” is when Hoover’s lounging by the pool and starts making out with his Latino pool boy.

8

If Hoover counts, then so should Arnold, and I’d say it’s one of them.

Otherwise, I’m going with **jayjay **and saying McCarthy.

9

You must be too young to remember the Nixon years. All popular culture mocked and reviled him unrelentingly. Rock music used to be political, believe it or not, and Nixon was the target in hundreds of songs. Every other piece of culture aimed at the young took on Nixon as well.

There’s more venues for pop culture these days, so Bush 43 may have amassed more hated total, but in my lifetime nothing remotely compares to what was said about Nixon in intensity. And there was no Fox News and talk radio to celebrate him the way there was for Bush 43.

As for Owen Brewster and Homer Ferguson, you could talk to 1,000 people who have seen those movies and not find 2 who remember their names. Compare that to Nixon, where the measure of your decency is proportional to how much you hate him. :smiley:

10

Jokes about Nixon are still being made today- The Simpsons and Futurama have certainly helped keep Nixon jokes alive.

11

Probably the most reviled politician of his time was Abraham Lincoln, with FDR coming in second.

That’s the thing about popular culture. Once the populace dies off, it tends to be forgotten.

12

Not in the popular culture. Radio and movies usually were extremely reverent when dealing with FDR. There were people who hated them, but they were usually portrayed as being at best silly and at worst, greedy bastards in popular culture. (Note how movies in the 1930s portrayed the rich.) In any case, modern popular culture rarely attacks Roosevelt.

Lincoln, of course, was reviled in the South, but not so much in the North. Every president has his enemies and the nasty comments were common by those who didn’t agree with him. But unless you consider newspapers “popular culture,” it wasn’t the same way it became upon the invention of mass media. And any revulsion about Lincoln in the South was matched by the same revulsion of Jefferson Davis in the North. And, again, the mere hint of an attack on Lincoln these days draws ire (e.g., The Secret Life of Desmond Pfeiffer).

13

Mo(r)bo! How’s the family?

14

Nixon found his way into a lot of “pop culture”. I couldn’t find the famous poster sold during one of his campaigns (showing an obviously pregnant black woman wearing a T-shirt with the classic slogan “Nixon’s The One”), but here’s an Andy Warhol Nixon poster.

15

:confused:

I mean…of their time? Ever? Since 1776?

16

Beligerent and numerous.

17

The late South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond can barely be mentioned outside of the context of super racist politicians. He’s such a prime example due to

  • His flair for the dramatics during the civil rights battles. Particularly his record setting filibuster against civil rights

-The fact that he lived and served so long in the Senate. He only died six years ago or so, long after such political positions were considered acceptable.

  • He ran for president in 1948, and actually received 39 electoral votes

  • And oh yea…after his death we learned that he actually secretly had a black daughter.

Shortly after his death my girlfriend saw a comedic play about the life and times of Strom Thurmond, he’s a pretty easy target.