Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau: the risks of the pop-culture leader

In a recent episode of JerrySeinfeld'sweb series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, the famed comic met with the president of the United States the man entrusted with the nuclear weapons codes and the like and asked him about his underwear.

"How far can you wander around up there in your underwear, how far can you get before there's like people and it's not cool," askedSeinfeld ona walking tour of the White House withBarackObama.

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"It's not cool generally wandering around in my underwear," the president said, playing the straightman.

"If I slid open your underwear drawer one brand or a number of brands?"

"Yougottago with one brand," saidObama deadpan.

That the presidentwould be asked questions about his undergarmentsshouldn't surprise Seinfeld fans, considering his comic penchantfor focussing on theminutiaeof daily life.

But going along with the gag in a presidential setting can raisequestions about how far leaders cangobefore they risk sullying the dignityassociated with high office.

"Every White House has this debate between the media advisers who are pushing for this because they count the number of hits, the amount of exposure that it gets,versus the more policy-orientedpeople whoare concernedbecause this is a person who is making life and death decisions, making peace and war decisions," saysGil Troy, aMcGillUniversity history professor and author of the new bookThe Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s.

As he sees it, "thereshould be a kind ofgravitas, there shouldbe a certain kind of decorum, there shouldbe a certainkind of distance surrounding the office.And it's very hard to do thatin an age of popular politics, in an age of popular culture."

Vogue photo shoot

It's an issue that has already confronted Canada's newest prime minister, whojust a couple monthsafter taking office caused a stirfor his unconventional, almost sultry photo shoot in the fashion magazine Vogue.

That he agreedto such a shoot was one thing, but being shown inan intimate embracewith hiswife,SophieGrgoire-Trudeau, his hands firmly clasping her behind, was an image Canadians were not used to seeing from their leader.

Trudeaumade no apologies for the photos, arguingthat hard news publications are not the only venue for Canadians to get to know their leader.

"People get their news through a variety of sources. And for a lot of people, certainly in the United States, reading that Vogue article will have been the only thing they see about Canada or Canadian politics all year," he told The Canadian Press.

This desire, to be more accessible to different forms of pop culture media,has certainly been embraced by Obama.

Sittingpresidents had previouslydipped into the unconventional Richard Nixon appeared on the variety showLaugh-In, for example, whileGerald Ford pre-recorded anintroduction toSaturday Night Live. And presidential candidateshave appearedonlate night talk shows in the runup to the election.

YetObamabecamethefirst sitting president to appear on a late-night talk show, when he became a gueston the Tonight Show with JayLenoin 2009.

And it was just one of a slew of appearances he has made with pop and comic hosts such as Jimmy Fallon, (in which he "slow jammed' the news), Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O'Brien, Oprah Winfrey,Ellen DeGeneres andSteve Harvey, as well as on shows likeThe View, Live WithKelly and Michael, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, Myth Busters,Funny or Die's Between Two Ferns withZachGalifinakis, and, most recently, the reality show Running Wild with Bear Grylls.

These appearances have becomefodder for some conservatives, who believed theywereunbecoming of the leader of the free world. But even comedian David Spade, not exactly known to wade into political issues, commented on Obama'srecent appearance on the reality show Bear Grylls.

'It's just too much'

"A president should have a little more dignity," Spade told TMZ."I realize Woodrow Wilson went on Dancing with the Stars once," he joked.

"But what president is doing reality shows?It just sounds weird to me. It's just too much."

When Obama appeared on ZachGalifinakis's web show, ostensibly to promotehis new Obamacare health-insurance,Mike McCurry,the former press secretary to Bill Clinton,cautioned that one does have to "worry about the dignity of the presidency."

"There's a limit to how much you can do," he told the New York Times.

Canadian prime ministers, of course, haven't had the same access to late night talk fests,althoughJean Chrtien did appear on the now defunct Open Mike withMike BullardShow andparticipated in certain CBC's comedy shows. Prime ministers have also generally played along when ambushed by cast members of This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Chretien also ate hamburgers with CBC's Rick Mercer, while Paul Martin went Canadian Tire shopping with the comedian and Stephen Harper invited him for asleepover at24 Sussex.

"I do very much respect the need to trigger a democratic conversation," Troy said. "The fact that there's so much noise out there makes it really hard for the president or prime minister to get noticed."

But at the same time, national leaders must also think about the most difficult decisions they have to sell to the public, and how much they have madethemselves less of an authority figure because they've become so familiar, he said.

"There's a kindofdelicatebalance there. And it does feel recently it's been lost."