Politics is Theatre… Or at Least, Good TV

This essay is part of a limited series featuring Santa Clara thought leaders leading up to the U.S. Election on November 5, 2024.

The moment platinum-selling recording artist Lil Jon shocked the crowd during the roll call at the Democratic National Convention, it was clear something in the political landscape had shifted.

Political conventions are no stranger to celebrity appearances but this was a bit different. The Atlanta-born rapper wasn’t just giving a speech. Instead, he was part of the convention proceedings, pledging the presidential delegates of the state of Georgia to the tune of “Turn Down For What.”

This moment didn’t happen by accident. The national conventions have become appointment television—a four-day commercial if you plan right—and the Harris campaign treated it that way. Lil Jon’s appearance was a tightly kept secret. A camera was strategically placed to follow him down the stairs. The result? A carefully orchestrated and highly memeable moment that reached millions.

Eight years after a business man turned reality TV host won the presidency, it’s hard to ignore the influence of entertainment on elections. Campaigns are embracing the power of production value through national conventions and polished video advertisements while upping their social media game with influencer-style social media content that allows them to control messaging and reach shifting demographics.

So how do voters make sense of this? Professor Mike Whalen is here to help. Before he became an accomplished documentary filmmaker, he started his career as a producer in the early days of reality television on shows like Fox Television’s “COPS” and MTV’s “The Real World.” We asked him to help us separate reality from reality television.

Lil Jon is far from the first celebrity to appear at a national convention. What helped his performance during the roll call break through to such a wide audience online?

Good reality television is about spontaneity and authenticity. There has to be a sense that you’re not creating reality, but capturing it. That’s what the DNC did really well. Lil John was a surprise. Nobody expected him to come out. It was almost like in pro wrestling when the wrestler’s music plays and the Junkyard Dog comes out. It was something old and something new brought together and presented in a unique way. That’s what makes that fresh.

But it wasn’t just Lil John, the entire roll call took a proceeding that should be boring and instead built suspense. Rather than saying, “Okay, who’s next? Okay, it’s Mississippi. Now we’re off to Montana,” where you dread every step, instead you’re wondering how the DJ is going to connect music to each state. If you’re making a reality television show, if you’re writing a screenplay, every scene should make the audience ask, “What’s gonna happen next?” And that’s why it worked so beautifully.

There was also a sense that something might go wrong, which is important in reality television. I’m sure Secretary of the DNC Jason Rae has never worked next to a live DJ before. Maybe he was in a little over his head, but he was having the time of his life so that kept the audience on their toes. The Democrats had a curse and a blessing with Biden dropping out. The curse was, how do you plan this event in a month? I don’t know how they did that. But the blessing was, they had a total blank slate. Nobody knew what they were going to see. It’s the difference between walking into a theater to watch a movie you’ve never seen and watching it for the fifth time.

On the last night of the RNC, Republicans had a memeable moment when Hulk Hogan spoke and ripped his Hulkamania shirt off to reveal a Trump shirt. What worked about that?

Hulk Hogan worked well because Hulk is still beloved by so many, despite his scandals. The problem was it lacked some of the spontaneity of Lil Jon. When Hulk Hogan walked up there with the Hulkamania shirt, we all knew what was going to happen—he’s gonna rip off his shirt because that’s what he always does. So celebrity isn’t the only factor. The DNC had a few misses with celebrities as well—Kerry Washington and DL Hughley didn’t work for me. We may like these stars and think they’re wonderful human beings, but none of us live a life like them. So to me it’s easy to come off as inauthentic. The only part that worked with Kerry Washington was when Kamala’s two nieces were explaining how to pronounce her name. The kids were a little nervous. Kerry Washington is a mother and you could see those instincts come out.

Shifting away from the conventions, 30 years ago the media would cover campaign stops at diners where candidates would interact with people. Today, campaigns are capturing these moments themselves, editing them, and publishing them on social media. How much can these types of scenes be orchestrated? 

Every reality show I’ve ever produced or directed, there was never a scene we didn’t control to some extent, even if it was just setting up parameters. On “The Real World,” if two cast members had a crush on each other, you’d ask a stranger at a bar to flirt with one of them so the other would get jealous. So the the conflict was real, but how it happened was controlled. Even a show like “COPS,” the directors and producers talk with the police before a warrant is served to get a sense of what is going to happen so they can set up a camera in the right spot.

When a politician walks into a diner or the corn dog stand at the county fair, everything can be orchestrated. Somebody on their team visits ahead of them and asks people, “Hey, if Vice President Harris walked in here, what would you ask her?” Once they find someone who has a question that matches the desired messaging, you tell your candidate to talk to them first. Of course there will be surprises along the way but if the surprise is positive, you leave it in and if it’s not, you edit it out.

The one wrench in this is cell phones. J.D. Vance for example had a stop at a donut shop that, it appears, his people didn’t vet before he went in. Even worse, they didn’t stop people from using their cell phones. So you had an awkward encounter that was actually captured on camera by someone outside the campaign and shared.

Democratic VP candidate Tim Walz has used social media content to establish his personality through content creator-style videos with his daughter and at restaurants. He even appeared on the viral-sensation Subway Takes with Kareem. How do you prepare someone for success in a situation like that?

You want to set up parameters so a person can be spontaneous in an authentic way but in a controlled environment. Someone like Tim Walz is straight out of central casting. He’s the corny dad who constantly makes bad jokes and hangs out with his kids. He’s relatable in that way. So having the videos with his daughter allowed him to be himself in a way that felt natural but could also be edited.

Looking at this a little differently, one of the most brilliant moments Kamala Harris has had on the stump, in my opinion, was walking up to reporters on the tarmac and saying “Whatcha got?” Harris had been criticized for not talking to reporters, so she pivoted, walked over, and said, “Whatcha got?” It worked because it felt real and addressed a criticism, but it was also extraordinarily controlled. You have a loud jet right there. If it’s not going well, she can just walk away and the reporters can’t move. So it’s a spontaneous moment but in a controlled environment.

It’s easy to forget but in a way, Trump started a lot of this. He was literally a reality show host on “The Apprentice” and blurred those lines of entertainer and politician during the 2016 campaign. How would you describe Trump the politician through the lens of reality television?

In 2016, Trump was unpredictable in a good narrative way. His experience and knowledge of being on TV, especially reality TV, was a huge advantage. He knew how to play to the camera, how to move and interact with the audience through that lens. In “The Apprentice,” everything was set up for him, staged so he would look in command and powerful. At his rallies, Trump has this same control. Rallies are carefully orchestrated, much like most reality TV shows, to get a very specific end result. Trump thrives in this scenario and even in off-the-cuff situations because there are no curveballs. He literally follows a script.

But in 2024, I think he is losing this advantage because he can’t stay on script. In a situation like a debate, nobody has that control. During his debate with Vice President Harris, he got angry because it didn’t follow the script he planned for. This is where I draw a huge difference between actors and reality stars. Actors have formal training to react to the person opposite them in a scene—some are even great improvisational actors—however, reality stars have none of this training. Take them out of their “reality” and most struggle because they can’t pivot and react well to the unexpected. The most alarming failing of Trump during that debate, for me, was his lack of image control. His reality TV experience should have taught him to think about how he will come across visually and I think the enduring image from this debate was the split screen of one person engaged, almost joyous, and the other frowning, scowling, refusing to look at his competitor.

In some ways, people today are more media-savvy and skeptical to what they see online. On the other hand, creators are getting better and better at blurring the line of reality and entertainment. What would you tell people about the political content they see online? 

That everything is edited or orchestrated. Every time you see a candidate on television or online, you should assume that it has been scripted, edited, and orchestrated by producers to get exactly one message, just like a political ad. Don’t believe what you see. Use it only as an opportunity to investigate more.

Michael Whalen is the Knight-Ridder/San Jose Mercury News Professor of Communication at Santa Clara University.