Influence on The West Wing The screenplay for the film inspired many aspects of Sorkin's later television drama
The West Wing. The two productions follow the staff of a largely idealized
White House, and like many of Sorkin's projects, share ideologies. The film's influence can be seen most clearly in early episodes of the series; some dialogue-passages in the two are nearly identical. Sorkin has been known to say that much of the first season was actually taken from material he edited out of the first draft of
The American President script. One of the issues touched on in the film and developed in the series relates to gun control bills, developed in "
Five Votes Down". While the bill is ultimately withdrawn by President Shepherd because it is ineffectual, on the series President Bartlet and his staff work hard to pass their bill even though it is badly flawed (and end up doubly unhappy when VP John Hoynes, whom the President and senior staff are feuding with, clinches the bill for them by persuading an influential southern Democrat to support it). More significant is the issue of a "proportional response" to military attacks on American assets abroad. In
The American President, Andrew Shepherd finds himself in the
Situation Room having to order such an attack against Libya's intelligence headquarters after they bombed a missile defense system called "C-STAD" (Capricorn Surface-to-Air Defense) which had been positioned by the U.S. in Israel. He muses for a single line "Someday, someone's gonna have to explain to me the virtue of a proportional response", before giving the order. In "
A Proportional Response",
President Bartlet finds himself in similar circumstances (Syrian intelligence shot down a U.S. plane in Jordan and killed numerous Americans, including a young Naval officer who the President had decided would be his personal physician) and, seated in the White House Situation Room with his own National Security Council asks: "What is the virtue of a proportional response?" In both cases, the President chooses a military response that is relatively measured, but in the movie President Shepherd never considers a "disproportionate" response while President Bartlet plans such an action to destroy a large civilian airport in Syria; he eventually gives the green light for a strike similar to the one used in the movie. The Global Defense Council, the fictional environmental lobby where Sydney Wade worked, is also featured in the
West Wing episode called "
The Drop-In", and is often referred to in other episodes. In
The American President, Sydney Ellen Wade is ultimately fired from her lobbyist position because the president has brokered a deal that causes her legislative effort to fail. Similarly, in the final episode of the third season of
The West Wing, Deputy Chief of Staff
Josh Lyman uses the same tactic and ends up getting
Amy Gardner fired from her position at the Women's Leadership Conference. Josh and Amy are dating when this takes place, just as the main characters are here. However, on the TV series it is Amy who tries to scuttle a bill (welfare reform) and Josh refuses to accept the demands of three Republican Congressmen because they amount to blackmail.
The American President includes mention of a Governor Stackhouse, while there is a
Minnesota senator Howard Stackhouse (
George Coe) in the
West Wing episodes "
The Stackhouse Filibuster" and "
The Red Mass". In the same way, the French President attending a state dinner in
The American President seems to be the same President d'Astier often referred to in
The West Wing. Several actors from
The American President reappear in
The West Wing, including
Martin Sheen (whose character in
The American President, A.J., is at one point accused by Shepherd of lacking the courage to run for office himself) as President
Josiah Bartlet,
Anna Deavere Smith as
National Security Advisor Dr.
Nancy McNally,
Joshua Malina as
White House Communications Director Will Bailey,
Nina Siemaszko as Ellie Bartlet,
Ron Canada as Under Secretary of State Theodore Barrow, and
Thom Barry as Congressman Mark Richardson. Portrayals of the president as idealistic but indecisive are also similar. In
The American President, Shepherd has to be convinced by his staff to stand up to his Republican opponent and pursue gun control and environmental legislation decisively. In
The West Wing, Bartlet is sometimes referred to as “Uncle Fluffy” when endorsing moderate views that are more conciliatory and less resolute (for example, in the episodes “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet” and “The Two Bartlets”). More generally, both presidents are former university professors (history in the movie, economics in the show) with no military experience and a low tolerance for political expediency.
Further legacy The concept for the television show
Spin City was set in motion after the writers had seen
Michael J. Fox in
The American President playing one of the President's political aides. They wanted him to play a similar character for television. In January 2012, while criticizing then-leader of the opposition (and future Prime Minister)
Tony Abbott in a speech at the
National Press Club in
Canberra, Australian Federal Minister (and another future Prime Minister)
Anthony Albanese plagiarised several lines from
The American President. In April 2013,
New York Times columnist
Maureen Dowd drew a sharp contrast between President
Obama's unsuccessful
effort to secure passage of expanded
background-check legislation in the Senate, on one hand, and the all-out vote-gathering effort in
The American President. The President responded to the column at the 2013
White House Correspondents' Dinner, noting the criticism and posing a series of rhetorical questions to Michael Douglas, who he said was in the audience, including, "Could it be that you were an actor in an Aaron Sorkin liberal fantasy?" In the 2016 Presidential election candidate
Ted Cruz paraphrased a portion of
The American President when fellow candidate
Donald Trump insulted Cruz's wife. Cruz stated, "...and if Donald wants to get into a character fight, he’s better off sticking with me because Heidi is way out of his league,” alluding to the speech President Shepherd made about Rumson's attacks on Sydney Ellen Wade. The film is recognized by the
American Film Institute as number 75 in its 2002 list of
100 Years...100 Passions. == References ==