There is a public television station in the United States called C-Span, which often broadcasts congressional debates in the United States. When I was living in the U.S. many years ago, as a political science major, I sometimes felt compelled to move to that station to "learn more about American politics." But, my God, it's a boring, gray-haired old man hypnotizing a group of gray-haired old men at the speed of a mum-m-on-a mmm. I usually last less than ten minutes and then I can't bear to change the channel.
Shouldn't politics be as bizarre and colorful as Disney's roller coaster? Not to mention American politics!
It's good now. David Fincher satisfies our curiosity about American politics. In the American drama "House of Cards", Washington is full of murder, pornography, lies, bribery, gladiatorial fights, deception, conspiracy, ...... Mr. Feng, a bigwig from China, controls the elections in the United States through American casinos, the vice president's wife was once raped by a general, his office director was stoned to death in the woods by a prostitute, and the vice president and his wife and their security guards simply played threesome.
"Some people think that 'House of Cards' has lifted the dark curtain on Washington politics, what do you think?" a reporter asked.
Well, if you believe that there is such a "truth" in Chinese politics that there is a big man who speaks fluent English and can easily influence China's Politburo decisions, who has been indicted twice, released twice, and then appointed head of the Chinese government's trade mission to negotiate with US presidential-level officials, and incidentally manipulated the results of US and bipartisan elections, and finally was sentenced to death by the Chinese government when he was arrested for the third time – then you can believe that "House of Cards" exposed the truth about Washington. According to this truth, the chapter will be titled "A Man with the Surname Feng and Others" when people in the future write about today's era.
"House of Cards" is certainly much better than C-Span, but if you look at it as "investigative journalism", you can't help but "think outside the box". The truth is that the TV is very spicy and hot, and the reality is very plain water.
Hello, seductive conspiracy theories
The impulse to treat House of Cards as a work of realism is not difficult to understand. In a sense, "House of Cards" is the culmination of conspiracy theories - almost every word and every look of the hero and heroine contains a new conspiracy, and the biggest conspiracy is democracy itself—greedy and cunning politicians deceive and deceive the people under the cloak of "democracy" for their own interests and power.
Conspiracy theories are always seductive, even flattering, because they easily satisfy our dual sense of superiority, both intellectually and morally. One thing is by no means as simple as it seems, and I—through the simple-minded of you—have followed the clues, with a Sherlock Holmes-esque mind, to connect the flickering fragments and discover a new continent-like picture. Besides, poor Freddy, poor Megan, poor Russo, you have the only integrity and gentleness left in this world, but in this world where "big fish eat small fish, small fish eat small shrimp", you are deceived, fooled, and my righteous indignation—through their ugliness—is your last Noah's Ark.
When asked what he thought of "House of Cards", even Oba President Ma expressed his admiration for the actor Frank Underwood: "This guy has done a lot of things, I wish things could work so quickly and efficiently." Obama's comments largely tell the truth about Washington politics: that it is an inefficient system because of the various powers and checks and balances. Inefficiency often means that politicians can't do good things at a fast pace, but they are also less likely to do bad things at a fast pace.
From this point of view, "House of Cards" has quite a realistic component. If we leave aside the overly vivid dramatic foam, "House of Cards" can also be said to hide the basic framework of American politics.
On the one hand, we see how bipartisan rivalry, separation of powers, lobby groups, exchange of interests among legislators, personal grievances, and social divisions make it difficult to do or be made into "four dislikes". In "House of Cards", Clarie's "Anti-Military Sexual Harassment Bill" was originally expected, but it was finally disrupted by the gladiatorial battles of various forces. Although the "good for the country and the people" education bill and the Port Jefferson Bridge project were finally passed, the "bloody storm" experienced in them really made politicians shy away from democracy. These episodes are easy to remind us of the twists and turns of Obama's various reforms, especially the health care reform bill, in the United States. From congressional debates to government shutdowns, from Supreme Court rulings to polls, in order to pass the health care reform bill, he can be said to have pulled the American medical system by 3 centimeters after the corpses were scattered all over the field.
It is no wonder that political scientist Fukuyama, commenting on current American politics, lamented that American democracy has degenerated from democracy to vetocracy—too many checks and balances and veto opportunities often nullify reform intentions. Of course, this "stalemate" in politics is not so much the betrayal of "politicians to the people" as the tearing of "one part of the people and the other part of the people" - look at the polls in the United States for and against health care reform, the two sides are always evenly proportioned. Although most left-wing media in the United States are accustomed to dismissing the slowness of "progressive reform" as a mess or even a conspiracy by politicians, while the Chinese media have been spreading the idea that "the US government is too bad, but the American people are good" and other "progressive causes" that oppose the nationalization of health care, the ban on guns, abortion, and tax increases, it is not just the hundreds of reactionary politicians in Washington who oppose the nationalization of health care, the ban on guns, the abortion, and the tax hikes. If the "left" has to be said to be "good", then about half of Americans are "badass".
It's hard to do good, and it's not easy to do bad
If there is an inherent crisis in American politics – or even democracy, democracy – at the heart of this crisis is not the hijacking of the public interest by greedy politicians, not the Machiavellian machinations of the underwoods or the Raymonds, but the fact that representative institutions can express the will of the people (the basic meaning of democracy), but when the will itself is extremely torn, it is difficult to heal this rift, and it may even exacerbate this rift because of its built-in mobilization mechanism.
On the other hand, in this system, it is not so easy for a politician to do bad things that bring disaster to the country and the people. Although "House of Cards" portrays the evil Underwood to the point of invincibility for the sake of ratings (and has had to cast almost everyone around him — from the president and secretary of state to security guards and journalists — into a 50-IQ doll), it indirectly presents a complex picture of American politics. It was not a vertical pyramid system, but more like a criss-crossing parallel spider web.
Even in "House of Cards," the rules of the game are the same: not only is it impossible for the president to stop the media from covering government scandals, that is, any medicine prescribed to him by a doctor must be made public as "government information"; in the face of surging public opinion, the president has to shoot himself in the foot and appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate himself, and this imposing prosecutor can aggressively pursue the president, vice president, Wall Street tycoons, and foreign tycoons; and the "black and gold forces" from home and abroad It may be possible to influence the US elections in stages, but once it encounters the uncrowned king of the media, it often collapses; party members are all "unorganized and undisciplined", "party whips" must kneel and kowtow in various coercion and inducement when they try to "unify their thinking" before the bill is passed, and no matter how politicians play power tricks, elections (embodied in the two seasons of "House of Cards" as the midterm elections in Congress) will always be a specter hovering over their heads......
From this point of view, at first glance "House of Cards" is a "high black" work of American politics, but at a second glance it seems that it can also be regarded as a "high white" work.
Hollywood science and superficiality
Of course, most people don't have the patience to observe the deep rules of the game in House of Cards, and more people see the game itself: pornography, murder, lies, revenge, ...... All these exciting elements are put into the hot pot of "House of Cards", and the audience eats heartily. There is a review of "House of Cards" on Douban titled "Frank teaches you to become a hypocrite before you become a big thing". From Shakespeare to American dramas, from the rise and fall of Rome to the rise of great powers, interpreting all stories and history as footnotes to "thick black studies" really completes the "local transformation" of foreign knowledge.
However, this cannot be blamed on the audience's lack of understanding. In fact, the Hollywood industrial machine has long been making this superficiality. One conspiracy theory movie and TV series after another came out, completing the double massage of the audience's intelligence and morality. Viewers who walk out of the cinema or turn off their televisions and computer screens – ordinary people in this or that camp of social tears do not increase their awareness of rational consultation, debate and compromise on public policy – even though these are what realpolitik desperately needs, but with a deeper resentment to shift all political responsibility onto others. In the next political confrontation, they will be more justified and more pathetic, further exacerbating the political stalemate. Oh, those bad guys!
But it doesn't seem entirely to blame Hollywood either. It is said that Hollywood script writing is mostly very "scientific". From the selection of directors and actors to the design of the plot, there is a large amount of box office historical data based on it. That is, it is the market, not the subjective will of Hollywood screenwriters, that determines this superficiality. The market expresses a preference for intellectual and moral hypnosis, and Hollywood worsens it further.
Of course, it may be demanding to require entertainment works to assume the function of resolving social contradictions. It is said that a good film and television work should be open to different interpretations, the benevolent will see the benevolent, the wise will see the wise, and the people who love hot pot will see the hot pot. From this point of view, "House of Cards" is indeed an excellent work. Some people see thick black studies in it, some people see introductory textbooks of American politics, some people see Shakespeare, some people see "Dream of Red Mansions" - if you want to see "Crayon Xiaoxin", I guess you can also see it.
However, in the interpretation of Rashomon, "good-looking" reflects the director's most basic respect for the audience - in Chinese, it is called "respecting the laws of the market". At this point, "House of Cards" deserves the audience's tribute, and its popularity is also reasonable. Not a single line is nonsense, one point is too much, one point is too little, the actors' performances – especially Kevin Spacey – are a perfect waltz, and the plot is naturally full of ups and downs, leading the audience through tension, sighs, anger, hope, and pity. Like a lot of people, I'm going to start holding the bench and stretching my neck for Season 3 anyway. Anxious, why hasn't Underwood died yet, when will he die?
Text/Liu Yu
