Barack “Political Megastar” Obama

Comic depictions of Barack “political megastar” Obama are the focus of this chapter. Obama’s presidency presented something of a challenge to political humorists. He seemed to have few comic handles, or behaviors, characteristics, and so on, to lampoon. Besides being portrayed as perhaps overly intellectual and somewhat distant, probably the most common Obama-related theme crafted by political humorists during the 2008 campaign was that his popularity rivaled that of a rock star. This characterization was hardly negative. This said, a few classic comedic bits about his presidency emerged during his time in office, not least of which were Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele’s Obama’s “Anger Translator” skits.