And of course the fictional Borgen debates came scripted and with a convenient tendency to over-explain each politician's position so viewers could easily place them on the spectrum.
And if you can persuade more than half a million people to watch a subtitled, fictional, Danish political debate on a Saturday night and not have them punch their own eyes out with boredom, you have to presume they can cope with actual real British politicians discussing an actual real British election.
Beginning Monday April 30, "Winkerbean" cartoonist Tom Batiuk's storyline will depict the fictional Westview High School's debate over the same-sex couple's plan to attend the dance, "with one side demanding acceptance and the other side expressing intolerance," according to an email statement.
Meanwhile, Tintinophilia has (as reported in Libération) penetrated the corridors of power: on Tuesday night, the eve of the French release of Spielberg's film, the "Club of Parliamentary Tintinophiles" — literally, members of the French parliament, or National Assembly — met in the Assembly's actual hall to stage a mock debate on a fictional political crisis invented by Hergé (who died in 1983).
Whether any of this will ever become shape-shifting in the fictional sense is open to debate.
But today, I'd rather link this recent debate about a fictional rape with things that have been happening in the real world.
In another scene the fictional Longford takes part in a televised debate that includes real video of the mother of one of the victims, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey.
Though there's debate about whether Incidents is fictional, it has become a staple on school reading lists for its depiction of slavery's cruelties from a female perspective.
In books and law review articles, he presented parables and allegories about race relations, then debated their meaning with a fictional alter ego, a professor named Geneva Crenshaw, who forced him to confront the truth about racism in America.
Finally, one weakness of current debates is the reliance on fictional thought experiments of unclear real-world relevance, or formal models with assumptions that can be manipulated to support either position.
