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The Entertainer-in-Chief: How Popular Culture Has Remade the American Presidency with Kathryn Cramer Brownell

A Conversation with Kathryn Cramer Brownell about popular culture’s effects on the White House

Gerald R. Ford became President at an unprecedented time of intensifying media scrutiny and growing public cynicism. To build back public trust in the presidency, he turned to popular culture tools, ultimately elevating expectations for presidents to entertain audiences and inadvertently changing what it meant to be “presidential” in the United States.

The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation welcomed Kathryn Cramer Brownell to discuss her book Showbiz Politics: Hollywood in American Political Life and how Hollywood connections can be an asset in the political world.

 

Watch the Program Here

When

May 18, 2023

Program Supporters

Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum

 

About Kathryn Cramer Brownell

Kathryn Cramer Brownell is associate professor of history at Purdue University and author of 24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News and Showbiz Politics: Hollywood in American Political Life.

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