Do Hollywood presidents.need a Maga makeover?

Netflix’s Zero Day’ sticks to a long tradition of noble figures occupying the White House. But with Trump in charge once again, Phil Harrison says writers should embrace the insanity

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There’s a moment in the opening episode of Netflix’s new political thriller Zero Day when, in the wake of a massive, deadly cyberattack on America, Robert De Niro’s former president George Mullen embarks upon an impromptu walkabout through a devastated city. In front of him is a crowd teetering on the line between angry and hostile. After being furiously challenged by one hothead, Mullen stops and addresses him directly. He’s reassuring but slightly combative. He challenges the man – and by extension the country – to respond to the crisis by trying to find the best in themselves.

Quickly, the man is won over – seemingly convinced that in spite of everything, America might actually be in safe hands after all. Ironically in the wake of recent events, the sitting fictional president in Zero Day is a Black woman, Angela Bassett’s Evelyn Mitchell. Which is lovely, but come on now guys. Are you really expecting us to regard this wholesome scenario, in which, even in the midst of trauma, Americans can be rallied by a bipartisan appeal to the common good, as remotely representative of current lived reality? If anything, it prompts a sad, cynical snigger.

In truth, there’s always been a mildly comical aspect to fictional American presidents. And the more seriously they take themselves, the more comical they become. Mullen takes himself very seriously indeed. But from the resolute liberal piety of Martin Sheen’s West Wing paragon of virtue Jed Bartlet to the gung-ho fighter pilot chops of Bill Pullman’s Thomas J Whitmore in