House of Cards between Machiavelli and Machiavellianism

Strategies of involvement and moral detachment in House of Cards

Journal of Literary Semantics ◽

10.1515/jls-2018-0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 47 (1) ◽

pp. 21-41 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sandrine Sorlin

Keyword(s):

Moral Judgment ◽

Social Relationship ◽

Cognitive Strategies ◽

House Of Cards ◽

Level Model ◽

Production Crew ◽

The Way

Abstract The aim of this paper is to evince the reasons why the viewers tend to ‘root for the bad guy’ in House of Cards in spite of his amoral undertakings. It delves into the linguistic, pragmatic and cognitive strategies employed by the protagonist, Frank Underwood, to ‘transport’ the audience in the narrative while distancing them from moral judgment. It is shown that the ‘Para-Social Relationship’ he constructs with the audience invites them to adapt to his goals and perspective, guiding their emotions and reactions, distracting them from ethical matters through generalised impersonalised aphorisms and transgressive humour. Lastly it proposes a three-level model of producing/viewing processes that are specific to House of Cards, highlighting the way the protagonist’s manipulation of audience involvement breaks apart in the last seasons, as the production crew alters the Frank-audience relationship.

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House of cards

BMJ ◽

10.1136/bmj.39171.643368.47 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 334 (7597) ◽

pp. 772-773 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Michael Cross

Keyword(s):

House Of Cards

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Playing (the Casino) Indian: Native American Roles in Peak TV

American Indian Culture and Research Journal ◽

10.17953/aicrj.44.4.mohler ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 44 (4) ◽

pp. 79-100

Author(s):

Courtney Elkin Mohler

Keyword(s):

Native American ◽

First Century ◽

Character Type ◽

House Of Cards ◽

Award Winning ◽

Established Line ◽

The Sopranos ◽

Noble Savage ◽

Twenty First Century ◽

Big Love

The current television era, sometimes called “Peak TV,” was ushered in with serious creatordriven shows of the late 1990s. The increasingly frequent Indian character type of the manipulative, money-hungry, and usually criminal casino “chief”/CEO simultaneously offers dramatically significant guest-star roles for Native actors and reflects a neoliberal version of the Noble Savage fit for twenty-first century audiences. This article analyzes examples of the “casino Indian: characterization found in the award-winning television dramas The Sopranos, Big Love, The Killing and House of Cards. Adapting the figure of the imagined “Indian” to suit the anxieties of our political and economic moment, each of these critically acclaimed shows have created an image of “Indianness” in relation to “casinos” and thereby have added the casino Indian trope to the long-established line of “Indian” characters crafted by non-Native “experts,” writers, and artists of the stage and screen.

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As Vantagens da Amoralidade: Melodrama, comentário político, e interação com o público em House of Cards

10.11606/d.27.2018.tde-27122018-103101 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Giancarlo Casellato Gozzi

Keyword(s):

House Of Cards

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A rapidly expanding house of cards: the silent loss of cell physiology hampers marine biosciences

10.32942/osf.io/xkj6n ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Frank Melner ◽

Imke Podbielski ◽

Felix C Mark ◽

Martin Tresguerres

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Marine Organisms ◽

Cell Physiology ◽

Biological Mechanisms ◽

House Of Cards

Perspective: An ongoing loss of expertise on the biochemistry and physiology of marine organisms hampers our understanding of biological mechanisms upon rapidly growing “-omics” approaches reply -ultimately affecting our ability to predict organismal responses to climate change.

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