billy bob thornton played the president in that. you have asteroid hitting the earth as the narrative. in one movie, you have a black president, and in one movie you have a traditional white president, and i will go through the list of many of the white presidents we know and love or despise. and, there was no controversy about the fact that morgan freeman was playing the president. granted, he had already played god, so this was like a step down, maybe. but, there was a lot of controversy about the fact that two exact same narratives, that had huge budgets, were made by two different studios and came out within weeks of each other. that was the controversy, not the fact that you had an african american actor playing the president, which, at that point in 1998, you did not see that much of. as i started to do this research, i went back and looked at the deep impact issue , and again, you could talk about this question of representation because we are all used to seeing people like martin sheen, michael douglas, alan alda, harrison f

and billy bob thornton also played it twice. that's usually the folks who get cast either on television or film as presidents. and so i was sort of looking at you know, we have this example, as i said, of morgan freeman. then i was looking a little bit forward. and at that point in 2007, we'd had dennis haysbert and d.b. woodside on the television 24 as president. but you also had chris rock as as president in the movie head of terry crews in idiocracy. and also you at that point, you would see in jimmy smits in the wing that we had talked about, sort of there's an evolving sort of cat warrior grouping. i saw of black men or men of color who who were sort of getting into the narrative of. and so i was looking at that and and and as i was looking at that, i went a little bit, of course, as one does with historians and the there's there's a film from 1933 that also features a black president, but really the first one in the contemporary period is this movie called the man th's that stars james earl jones was made in 1972. it's alm

played the president twice and prince philip once, he seems to be the type for male leaders and billy bob thornton are those are usually the folks who are cast in television or film as president. i was sort of looking at we have this example of morgan freeman and then i was looking forward and at that point in 2007 we had, and db woodside on a television show 24 as president. we also had chris rock as president in the movie head of state. terry crews in a theocracy and also at that point jimmy smits in the west wing which we talked about, there is an evolving category or grouping that i saw, black men, or men of color who were sort of getting into the narrative. i was looking at that and as i was looking at that, i went a little bacar, of course as one does as a historian, there is a film from 1933 at features a black president but really the first one in the contemporary. is this movie call the man starring james earl jones it was made in 1972. it is almost impossible to watch it i found that t ile doing this research. it was very difficult find. i asked my friendof the library of congress to dig