Image of US President in Hollywood

Max Weber in discussing on different kinds of authority, talks about three ideal types of authority: charismatic authority, rational authority, traditional authority. These three kinds of authority are just pure or ideal type, and we should not suppose that each leader should have just one type of these authorities, but also in any type of leadership and authority, one type of these is distinct and prominent, and other types of authority do exist of minimal.

In modern societies, along with establishing authority on the base of rationality and Bureaucratic institutions; for leadership, applying traditional authority and charismatic is also needed.

In traditional authority, the attempts are made towards joining the leader and especially leadership institutions together, with old traditional of the society to establish equality and likeness between whatever has reached to the leadership by the vote of (virtual or imaginative) people, and also previous successful and praiseworthy governments

But in modern societies, the important aspect of hidden authority of leadership, is its emotional and sensational dimension, and for this reason, the medias are been used too much. This dimension is made through sacralization the leaders personal characteristics and his daily behavior. Since, ordinary people have no way towards understanding the world of real behavior of leaders, and especially their ordinary, familial and daily behavior. The Medias perform this role. Therefore the mediation is done by these media will result in distortion or restoration of the reality, the transformation of the reality itself which in any case is not equal with the reality, if we donYt say that is an image, completely distinct or even contradictory with the reality.

This imaging exists in the process of broadcasting news and news stories, about the leaders, but the main imaging which affects the audiences is performed by means of movies.

One of the oldest modern institutions of leadership belongs to the US and of course, in cinema industry, also US cinema has the first universal power. In the one hundred history of cinema, US cinema has had strong junctions with its presidential institutions. Even though, by now, real and direct influence of cinema on US presidency, including a: Theodore Roosevelt (because of the war news of Spain and US) and b: Ronald Reagan (because of being a cinema star), but imaging in US cinema about its presidency has been too mach and in US cinema, especially in two recent decades, many films has been made, focusing on US presidency. Of course, both sides of this relationship have benefited from this unreal relationship. Long record of presidency and existence of different presidents with different kinds of natures, personal characteristics, and physical specialties, provides this kind of imaging for Hollywood.

For Hollywood, the main benefit is enjoying a permanent film making scripts, which of course has the ability of attracting the audiences. Having the advantage of this kind of relation, US leadership system, somehow is transformed a kind of cinema too. The presidents are conducted like actors, in \what to say] and \how to say]. They follow the scripts. They project an image and surround themselves with handlers to protect their image. The more popular, they will have more power. They will limit their presence in the society, so the public will not find them boring. They have to appear, naturally, in front of camera (a most unnatural circumstance). And they are judged by the quality of their performance.

But in this article, we are going to discuss about another dimension of this relation, i.e. US political system and presidential institution usage of Hollywood. Content analysis of some movies, been made about US presidency (American president, 1995; Absolute Power, 1996; Independence Day, 1996), show that in order to show charismatic authority of leadership, tries to enhance the influence of leadership among people and also fondness of public to the leadership, and somehow to image leadership institution as a holy and high value, not necessarily showing the leader himself as an innocent, clear, pure, and safe person. In other word, they will grant charisma to presidential institution instead of the president himself.

Beholden to the mythology of US president, by the Medias, is \the first in war, the first in peace, and first in hearts of his countrymen]. And in this process, there are too emphasize on details, with this myth becomes believable, and coexistence with that, becomes possible.

In this imaging, first, the president himself is been imaged as a person having characteristics such as liberated, educated, active, brave, handsome, man of family, morally safe, and bounded to the rules of democratic campaign. Meanwhile, people surrounding him, have the same characteristics. Second, in any case, if the president (in his media image) violated these principles, or came to power by cheating or tricks, or even in the period of his leadership, fell in the route of immorality, the system (which is been internalized by the people more traditional and more obliged rather than the president) will reject him, will oblige him to go back to the right route, if he will be obliged to resign, will be discharged from his position, even if the fault is too big that the resignation by itself is not enough, he will be obliged to do suicide.

Hollywood will create a standard image of the president. In this cinema, presidential images are mostly one-dimensional; they are either evil or angle. Hollywood provides us with the presidents who have little emotional depth. The presidents like other politicians have complex character and rarely they have one-dimensional personality. A large number of them (ten of all) have been ministers or their children. They are a vastly heterogeneous lot. They have been insecure people like Richard Nixon, boisterous outsized extroverts like Teddy Roosevelt, and remote, almost shy introverts like Woodrow Wilson. There have been tall presidents like the six-foot-three Washington and short ones like the five-foot four Madison. No wonder Hollywood has trouble with them. (Shenkman, 2003)

Besides, in this article, positive and negative result of providing such images, for the political system and also, its benefits for leadership system in Iran, will be explained.