'House of Cards': Political Sublimation

The audience at the sneak preview of “House of Cards” delighted in a first episode that already has a cult following, with Frank Underwood, congressman from the great state of South Carolina, in seventh heaven, fully dedicated to a new series of infamies in the service of increasingly unchecked ambition.

The pilot episode of the second season is replete with dramatic twists, by now required of any fiction deserving of the title. The entertainment lies in playing along, and in this case, the writers and audiences are full accomplices in the tricks of the genre: The latter are charmed by Underwood (Kevin Spacey) who addresses them in confidence.

For sure, in this post-Red Wedding world — we are talking about “Game of Thrones” — it is a given that being among the five or six main characters in a series no longer insures survival. We would like to say more, but as is well-known, none less than Barack Obama has issued an anti-spoiler order from his presidential Twitter account. Far be it from us to succumb to the temptation of television high treason. It suffices to say that the diabolical Underwood has not lost his taste or calling for hatching ploys fit for Cesare Borgia. It is not a coincidence that showrunner Beau Willimon confessed to us that in the “House of Cards” writers’ room, Machiavelli’s “The Prince” is among the most consulted texts.

In reality, even more so, we are dealing with a Shakespearean character, Richard III in particular, because of Underwood’s habit of turning directly to the audience and repeatedly breaking the “fourth wall,” as happens in the Elizabethan tragedy, so quintessentially conspiratorial.

The Manichean mythopoetics in America does not provide for an intrinsic admiration of power and its occult machinations, however. In contrast to Italy for example, there is no natural love of conspiracy theories or implicit respect for the tyrant’s well-devised ruse. The underhand agreement is not technically recognized as a natural political engine, even while it is well-known that dirty tricks get outsourced to the surveillance apparatus and secret wars, especially ones abroad: What the eye cannot see, the heart cannot mourn.

As far as political power is concerned, at the end of the day, the useful mystification of virtuous politics prevails — in the story, government conspiracies take cues from mafia ploys more often than not. A tacit admiration for intrigue applies to Don Corleone or Tony Soprano but not much to the West Wing of the White House, which in Hollywood’s imagination is full of essentially ethical politicians.

However, with Frank Underwood, we have a character who allows for a love-hate relationship with Americans, a character who is a congenitally immoral powerful man. He and his Lady Macbeth, Claire (Robin Wright), spell out politics as an infernal vapor, confirming the worst suspicions of some anti-political tea partyer, and call up the tacit admiration of Machiavellians: In summary, a canon of guilty pleasure for spectators who are finally free to indulge in the taste for unscrupulous politics, diametrically opposed to the civic virtues of Frank Capra’s heroes and election ad candidates.