Fictional television and American politics: From 9/11 to Donald Trump

by Jack Holland

Overview

We live in a golden age of fictional television, while our politics has never been so controversial. This book explores that relationship, asking what it is that some of America’s most popular TV shows have to say about its politics.

Perhaps, like the author, you have gasped at Game of Thrones and balked at Breaking Bad. This book illustrates how, far from being outside of politics, shows such as these are deeply political, helping to fill our world with meaning. To this end, the book analyses Game of Thrones, House of Cards, The West Wing, Homeland, 24, Veep, The Wire, The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad. These are all politically consequential shows that shape how we feel and think about world politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526134233
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Publication date:	07/19/2019
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.53(d)

About the Author

Jack Holland is Associate Professor in International Security at the University of Leeds

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction
Part I: Watching television
1 America and the screen
2 Screening America under Bush, Obama, and Trump
3 Drawing lines: world politics and popular culture
4 Analysing fictional television
Part II: Politics and television
5 World politics as realpolitik (in House of Cards and Game of Thrones)
6 Constructing counter-terrorism (in Homeland, 24, and The West Wing)
7 Imagining the president (in The West Wing, 24, and Veep)
Part III: Television and our political world
8 Ethics and inequality (in The Wire)
9 Being human in a world of zombies (in The Walking Dead)
10 The personal is political (in Breaking Bad)
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

‘Like one of the brilliant television shows analysed in the text, this book grips the reader from the very first page and draws them into a fascinating, incisive, thoughtful and utterly compelling analysis of television, culture and politics. I simply could not put it down. If you want to better understand the bewildering nature of American political life today, you couldn’t do much better than this amazing book. It demonstrates how television and politics mutually constitute each other, no more so than in the Reality TV politics of the current Trump administration. This book makes clear that to understand American politics, you have to understand television. Hugely recommended.’
Richard Jackson, University of Otago, New Zealand

‘Jack Holland's account of how fictional television shapes the world politics of the US in the twenty first century marks a major advance in the analysis of international relations and cultural politics. On the one hand, his analysis demonstrates how fictional television enables us to make sense of who we are, our places in the world, and how we should interact with others. On the other, he reveals the discursive war of position that resonates through the formal politics of the American presidency and those of our fictional televisual worlds. In doing so, Holland ensures that readers will never look at world politics, or their favourite television shows, in quite the same way again.’
Kyle Grayson, Newcastle University

From the Publisher