Name: House of Cards Explained: Shakespeare, History & Guilty Pleasure
Uploaded: 2018-04-14T13:02:40.000Z
Duration: 14 min 54 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

For those of us climbing to the top of
the food chain there can be no mercy.

Advanced passive voice

There is but one rule: hunt or be hunted.

Back in 2013 house of cards came on the
scene as Netflix's first ever self

commissioned original series. Since then
the series created by Beau Willimon has

not only grown as a mature, textured
piece of television, but also offered a

sturdy foundation for the towering house
that Netflix built.

Inspired by the 90s BBC series starring
Ian Richardson, and the 1989 book by

Michael Dobbs, House of Cards's appeal
is based on its darkly distinctive mood

and world,
it's Shakespearean magnitude, its

heightened mirrors of our own world and
historical past, and the guilty pleasure

of rooting for its deliciously wicked
central couple -- Frank and Claire

Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey and
Robin Wright. Let's walk through each of

these elements which make this series so
enduringly binge worthy. Beware there

the spirit of Shakespearean history and
tragedy to imbue its drama with hyper

real grandeur and intrigue. We feel we
might be watching a heightened version

of today's politics presented as
exaggerated history for a future

audience. The show captures perhaps
better than any modern example the

spirit of what Shakespearean audiences
must have felt going to see productions

of Richard III. In the historical
play the villainous Richard, who Spacey

played at the London Old Vic in 2011, speaks openly to the audience,

using his asides, not to confess but to gloat about his wicked designs.

BBC predecessor, utilizes the same
confessional fourth wall break

[Please slit my wrists with this butter
knife.]

fall flat on camera.  But it works thanks to Spacey's

enjoyably devious performance, the
over-the-top nature of this extra dirty

world, and the disconnect between Frank says to us, and how he appears to

[I will not run for President. Look they're thinking it's

Getting this window into his mind fascinates us

and knowing his secrets gets us on his
side until we subtly root for his success

at all costs. We feel in the know,
superior to the foolishly honest victims

All of this psychologically works on us
the same way Shakespeare played his

audiences. In Othello, Iago is
motivated by resentment when a fellow

promotes another over him --  just as
Frank's plot against the President is

set off by him feeling robbed of his
promised cabinet position. Claire takes a

cue from Iago's tactics of suggestion,
as well, when she plants the idea of an

[I just have a thing about women who sleep with

But the Shakespeare play that most deeply shapes House of Cards

Macbeths disconnect between inner and
outer to hide their true selves. As Lady

[Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.]

Russo's ghost in church, this recalls how Macbeth is haunted

by the ghost of Banquo the friend he
murdered. Most strikingly though is Lady

Macbeth as a model for Claire. At times,
like Lady Macbeth, Claire seems the

superior mastermind, the even more
ambitious one really pulling the strings.

Claire's convincing lack of need for
romance, fidelity, or motherhood reminds

[I'm willing to let your child wither and

die inside you if that's what's required.]

references having given suck, or
breastfed, a child but we're told that

the Macbeth's are childless. Their implicit
lost child is

echoed in Claire's past abortions. And
neither woman expresses regret for a

childless destiny. Yet in both stories
the couple's lack of children starts to

haunt them, at least politically. The
Macbeth's and their barren crown, and

the Underwoods in their inability to
present the shining picture-perfect

family of Frank's Republican opponent, Conway.

The Macbeth's ascent to power leads to a mixed-up

world in which fair is foul, and foul is
fair. Yet in the vast majority of

Shakespeare's plays divine order or
great chain of being must inevitably be

restored. it remains to be seen if the
House of Cards universe believes

in poetic justice, but if Macbeth is any indication the

story doesn't end well. The Macbeth's
breakdown from within, as Lady Macbeth

obsessively tries to wash invisible
blood from her hands, and Macbeth

reflects that "life is a tale told by an
idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing."

The dangerous nihilism of the Macbeth's
can only drive human beings insane where

we cannot continue to engage with the
world of nothing that means nothing.

Like a mix of Shakespearean history and
tragedy, House of Cards also draws

loosely and colorfully from our own
historical past and present. In season

4, Underwood and Conway introduce a
meta-commentary comparing themselves to

Richard Nixon and John F Kennedy in the
1960 presidential election.

[If you were a Democrat you'd be unstoppable
you'd be the new JFK.]

Nixon, whom Spacey also played in the
2016 film Elvis and Nixon, is a plausible

parallel. Brought down by his own
paranoid plots, crimes, and scandals

Nixon was experienced and ruthless. Kennedy was young, relatable

and charismatic, just as the social media
friendly Conway speaks directly to

Americans and gives people hope. In the
show, the candidates represent opposite

parties to their historical parallels. Underwood is a Southern Democrat,

long after the age when Democrats
held the South. And Conway is a

[Oh you're a New York Republican that's an attractive

[And you're a Democrat from South Carolina that's even bigger fiction.]

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House of Cards Explained: Shakespeare, History & Guilty Pleasure

perceive

present

majority

exaggerate