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Emily LeForce
Ms. Gathof
ENGL102-05
29 February 2016
Research Proposal (draft)
After lots of research picking thorough some very helpful and some painfully unhelpful
sources, my research topic has developed into questioning how the depiction of politics in
America in movies and TV shows has developed and changed over time, particularly since the
1990s. In order to properly discuss my main topic, I also have to evidence how the representation
of politics mirrors the views, desires, and fears of the American people. I believe that view of
politics in pop culture is extremely important because young adults are rarely informed about
politics in our country and they therefore receive their knowledge, or at least most of it, from
movies and TV, which can be biased, emphasized, and misleading. I chose this topic because the
change of the view of American politics and the POTUS (President of the United States) in pop
culture has changed dramatically in just my lifetime and affected the way Americans view their
government.
My specific research question is: how has the portrayal of the American president in
movies and TV changed since the 1990s? When I began my research, my topic was far broader,
asking how politics have been represented in movies and television over time. With my newly
defined parameters, my topic is much easier to research and find quality sources. What scholars
are saying about my sources lines up with my thoughts and opinions for the most part. The
general idea is that as Americans have changed their views and fears about politics, the
representation of presidents and politics has changed right along side the popular opinion. Some

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scholars believe that the portrayal of presidents mirrors the presidents at the time of the film or
television show, others believe that the representation depicts what the American people want in
a president / government, and still others believe that the depiction of the president and
government depicts the fears of the American people or the future of the countrys politics.
However, all of the sources agree that the views of the American people mirror how politics are
represented in political movies, and that that view of politics in pop culture has changed over
time, which is my argument. I would like to do some more research to discover how much of the
voter population is made up of young adults, and how big our influence is and therefore how
big pop cultures influence is on choosing the leaders of our country.
The community issue that pairs with the interpretation of politics in pop culture is the
influence movies and TV has over young adults. If TV represents the POTUS in a negative way,
such as the rape scandal in the current TV show Scandal, young voters may feel obligated to
either not vote, or assume that certain candidates are also corrupt like in the show. With the
upcoming election, this issue is extremely relevant. I am using two movies and a TV show,
respectively, as primary sources from 1997, 2001, and 2012 to back up my research, and I hope
to find research showing how the positivity or negativity of the political representation of these
pop culture artifacts affected voting polls and attitudes of American citizens over the years.
My thesis statement should answer my research question fairly directly. My thesis
statement will be something along the lines of this: Since the 1990s, due to the mirroring of
political representation in movies and TV to the views and ideals of the American people, the
depiction of politics and the American presidency in particular have changed drastically in a
more negative way.

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My target audience is the American young adult population. Not only do I personally
relate to this specific group of people, but also young adults are more influenced by the
representation of politics in pop culture such as movies and TV shows. As viewers of the movies
and TV shows I plan to discuss, my target audience will have an understanding of the plots, but
should be able to learn through the paper about how the portrayal of the POTUS and American
government in general in some movies and shows may be misleading and influential to their own
thoughts on American politics, of which we are, as voting citizens, a part of.