With all the political drama going on with the presidential nominations, I figured the perfect show to discuss this week would be “House of Cards”. Also because I just watched the movie “The Usual Suspects” and I’m going through an obsession with Kevin Spacey phase. (f you haven’t seen that movie I also recommend it…but let’s continue with the show! If you take my advice and watch the show you will also be able to be in the loop and fully understand what people mean when they call a certain politician a Frank Underwood.
Although I’ve participated extensively in Model UN and I enjoy being up to date on all the latest current events and political issues, I have never been a big fan of political dramas. I do enjoy the political comedy “Veep”, but that is a discussion for another time and perhaps another blog post! If you are similar to me in your thinking that political dramas are kind of boring, I say watch the show and I promise you will change your mind. A deeper meaning I’m coming to find from this blog is that it is important to go into things with an open mind even if those things are simply television shows. Now let’s go down to it!
The show follows political Frank Underwood as he attempts to work his way up the political ladder by any means necessary. Trust me I mean any means. This man is absolutely ruthless and it is incredibly entertaining to watch. Underwood lies, cheats, and even does the unthinkable all in the name of gaining power. It’s also so fun to watch the dynamics between Frank and other characters. For instance, him and his wife, who is essentially a Lady Macbeth, have a bizarre chemistry that doesn’t seem anything like love, but rather simply marriage for benefit. Then there is the dynamic between Frank and his chief of staff, Doug, who is basically his servant, which is just so fascinating to see. Now don’t go into this show expecting to love any of the characters because you won’t. They are all horrible and corrupt with their own agendas, but for whatever reason you still feel happy whenever their plans come to fruition.
Fun fact: In my AP Government and Politics class, my teacher shows us two video clips. One of them was from “The West Wing” which ran from 1999-2006 and the other was a clip from “House of Cards” which began its run in 2013. The former showed the politicians being just and honest and loving towards their country. The latter showed Frank Underwood being his normal manipulative self as well as insulting the United States. My teacher’s purpose in showing us how shows are reflective of culture and that just in those short amount of years our view of politicians changed so drastically. I suppose this was more of an interesting anecdote than a fun fact…so this Peachoid is an important plot point during one of the seasons! That’s pretty fun I suppose!
I have heard good things about this series, so I definitely want to watch it now that I’ve also read your post! I think it is also super interesting that the view of politicians has changed so much over the years. Nice job making this super interesting!
I tried to start watching House of Cards, but never got past the first episode unfortunately. But so may of my friends are obsessed with the show. After reading this post, I think I may try to watch it again, because I usually really enjoy political dramas. I also love your point about the two shows reflecting the culture change in our country. It is sad, but also very true.
I have heard so much about House of Cards from others that I have kind of just let references to it fly by me. Having been interested in politics and scenarios depicted in your description, I always thought of going back to Netflix and watching the series. Unfortunately, I never got around to it. I was also always scared that once I started, I would not be able to stop, so I’m waiting until I have a little bit more time to be able to binge watch. House of Cards is most definitely on my list and I cannot wait to start watching it!
Hi! I really liked the pot, I’m not the biggest fan of political dramas myself, but I love keeping up to date with politics in general, sadly I feel Comedy Central does a better job informing political news than politics itself. I have heard about “House of Cards” before and it is fascinating to see how people’s perspective on politics has changed so drastically in such little time. My question here is though, is this drastic change in perspective due to better media coverage in exposing politicians, or the lack of media honesty, which is making people frustrated. Also love your fun facts! I would suggest you to also maybe do posts on reality shows as they seem to be the new thing for this generation, even though I personally prefer TV shows myself.