{"id":2908,"date":"2016-07-26T13:09:12","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T12:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2908"},"modified":"2016-07-26T13:24:01","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T12:24:01","slug":"house-of-cards-feminist-shite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/2908\/","title":{"rendered":"House of Cards: Feminist Shite"},"content":{"rendered":"

(If anybody doesn’t want to read spoilers of Seasons 1-4 of the American TV series House of Cards, don’t read this post.)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I recently finished the fourth and most recent season of the American TV series House of Cards<\/em>, starring Kevin Spacey and nobody else who can act. \u00a0Several people had recommended it to me, with one or two saying it was “amazing”. \u00a0Perhaps I should have been forewarned by the fact that two of these people were women of a feminist persuasion.<\/p>\n

Seasons 1 and 2 weren’t bad, and depicted an utterly unscrupulous and ruthless Kevin Spacey manipulating situations and people as he wormed his way from Democratic party whip to Vice President and finally to President of the United States. \u00a0What I found most interesting about the first two seasons was that it showed what I suspect is the true nature of politics, i.e. politicians making decisions which affect millions of people purely to further their\u00a0own personal ambitions. \u00a0The series lays bare the corrupt and unprincipled nature of politicians and politics for all to see, yet the show is loved by people who favour big government and believe politicians should have ever-more involvement in people’s lives. \u00a0I know at least one fan who decries the antics of Kevin Spacey’s Frank Underwood yet intends to vote for Hillary Clinton in November. \u00a0Go figure.<\/p>\n

But somewhere between Seasons 2 and 3 the feminists got hold of the script and effectively made the show all about Frank Underwood’s wife, played by Robin Wright. \u00a0She played a reasonable supporting role in the first two seasons, ably assisting her husband in his rise to the top (but also betraying him in more ways than one), but during Season 3 she revealed her own political ambitions and contrived to land herself the position of US ambassador to the UN. \u00a0During the nomination process her opponents pointed to her utter lack of experience yet she obtains the position anyway thanks to her husband’s prerogative to just appoint somebody of his choosing – whereupon she promptly makes a complete idiot of herself and the United States by being played like a fiddle by the Russians. \u00a0I thought at this point she’d be relegated to a supporting role again, her character having been shown to lack experience or competence in a political role – \u00a0as her opponents were saying (and any reasonably viewer thinking)\u00a0all along.<\/p>\n

But no. \u00a0The feminists who had hijacked the script were having none of it. \u00a0Season 4 saw Frank Underwood lying in a coma having been shot in an assassination attempt, a\u00a0weak VP in temporary charge, and First Lady Claire Underwood running about doing what she likes as though she had some constitutional authority to do so. \u00a0A strong, experienced, and somewhat ruthless female secretary of state allows herself to be bullied by Claire into submission, to the ridiculous extent that it is Claire who is sent into a room alone with the Russian president to negotiate a solution to some strategic issue of vital importance. \u00a0And of course, Claire gets the notoriously stubborn Putin-a-like to capitulate by browbeating him in a manner in which I suspect feminists think women should speak to their husbands. \u00a0As the season advances, Claire finds herself able to order members of the presidential staff around on whim, involving herself in matters of national security even to the point of being in the situation room, and not a single person in the administration raises a squeak in protest.<\/p>\n

This wouldn’t be so irritating were it not for the fact that each scene of Claire’s brilliance takes on exactly the same form. \u00a0She wears the same arse-hugging style of dress or skirt in every shot, she manages a single facial expression throughout the entire series, and for each pivotal scene the only thing that changes are the words being spoken. \u00a0It quickly becomes repetitive, and not a little tedious. \u00a0But not content with that, the feminists have to ramp it up by making Claire the object of seemingly every key man’s sexual desire as well. \u00a0In Seasons 1 and 2 she is shagging a rather hip British photographer who is world famous, the type that would in real life be hanging around models from Eastern Europe. \u00a0But in House of Cards<\/em> he’s pining after the ageing wife of a US senator. \u00a0She finds herself fending off the advances of the (divorced) Russian president, who tells Frank\u00a0that she is truly beautiful, or something like that. \u00a0Because prominent Russians are well known for flattering American\u00a0women and have difficulty picking up stunners back home. \u00a0Uh-huh. \u00a0In Season 4 Claire is shagging a famous author, a younger man hired by Frank to write their speeches or biographies, or something. \u00a0When Frank finds out he doesn’t mind, and this ruthless motherfucker who committed two murders in his ascendancy to the White House doesn’t just accept it, but gives the couple his blessing. \u00a0Again, the idea that a famous author would fall in love with the older wife of the US president instead of having a beautiful, loving partner of his own doesn’t even get questioned. \u00a0Despite various betrayals on her part of her husband’s political maneuverings plus the aforementioned infidelities, Frank wakes from his coma praising her to the heavens, forgiving her in full, and stating in unequivocal terms\u00a0that she is the most important person in the entire series. \u00a0Even the wife of the Republican presidential nominee is forced by the scriptwriters to shower her with gushing praise during a visit to the White House. \u00a0Season 4 ends with her being nominated as the VP on her husband’s ticket, having seen\u00a0off seasoned and ruthless female opponents by making hackneyed speeches in a figure-hugging dress.<\/p>\n

The audience, by\u00a0having it rammed down their\u00a0throats every episode, is expected\u00a0to unconditionally\u00a0accept that Claire Underwood is a brilliant politician, responsible for every success her husband has achieved, desired sexually by every man who meets her, and is easily capable as a\u00a0president herself (there is a Season 5 on the way). \u00a0By contrast, despite a brief affair with a young journalist in Season 1, her husband Frank is a greying, cuckolded, semi-invalid who owes her everything. \u00a0It is the definition of tedious, and I almost didn’t make it to the end of the series. \u00a0Watching this rubbish during the current buildup to the US presidential election, I got the feeling that the scriptwriters were fantasizing about what Michelle Obama could do in her position as First Lady. \u00a0Now I see the progressive media praising her speech<\/a> at the Democratic National\u00a0Convention for all its worth, I am wondering if a section of the American liberal left haven’t confused real-life politics for a TV show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(If anybody doesn’t want to read spoilers of Seasons 1-4 of the American TV series House of Cards, don’t read this post.) I recently finished the fourth and most recent season of the American TV series House of Cards, starring … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[79,20,78,44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2908"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2908"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2913,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2908\/revisions\/2913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}