Bodily States on Screen
Gendering Spheres of Influence inHouse of Cards
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3948331 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Susanna Hast (0000-0002-4370-4388, Theatre Academy Helsinki, University of the Arts, Helsinki, Finland, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 436-463 |
| Publication date | 2018-04-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geopolitics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1465-0045 • E-ISSN: 1557-3028 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14650045.2018.1451844 |
| OpenAlex | W2809171358 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 39 |
This article elaborates how the political television drama House of Cards presents the state as a gendered human body, anthropomorphised in the United States’ presidential couple Frank and Claire Underwood and Russia’s President Viktor Petrov for popular consumption. In an attempt to bring gender into conversation with the concept of sphere of influence, the article shows the tensions between militarist masculinity and queer subjectivity. In House of Cards, the viewer can identify statecraft as mancraft, and see how nonnormative behaviour is written off statecraft. The article focuses on bodily performances as signs of different approaches to power, and argues that House of Cards reinforces a militarised ideal of power over in the everyday practices in and around the White House, as well as in the form of spheres of influence. The series produces a choreography of militarist performance, an imagery which reinforces the understanding of world politics as a terrain for establishing spheres of influence. In the series, spheres of influence become manifest through the exacerbating of patriarchal conduct and centralisation of power, as well as in the premise of building security on the basis of enmities and influence. Sphere of influence, thus, represents a form of masculinised order, pinned against feminised anarchy, leading not only to the subordination of the influenced state, but nonnormative subjectivities, in particular
Aesthetics · Art · Masculinity · Political science · Politics · Separate spheres · Sociology · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Law
Emotions, Politics and War
War as Experience
Gendered States
Aesthetics and World Politics
Research Methods in Critical Security Studies
Unspoken Rules and Superpower Dominance
Studying the Agency of Being Governed
The Curious Feminist
Living a Feminist Life
The Anarchical Society
The Logic of Masculinist Protection
Bananas, Beaches and Bases
Gender in international relations
To boldly torture where no one has tortured before – Star Trek and the transformation of the ‘progressive’ social imaginary of torture in the United States
MasculinitySoFragile
Cinematic Ontologies and Viewer Epistemologies
In Search of Thinking Space
The state as person in international theory
The Vice in Vice President
The Superpowers and their Spheres of Influence
Central Europe
Democrats against Democracy
Queer International Relations
Living a Feminist Life
The dance of militarisation
The Good Wife's (Geo)Politics Between Originality and Stereotypes
Small Screen IR
Under Western Eyes
Events of the Body Politic
Sexed Bodies and Military Masculinities
Hegemonic Masculinity
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,57 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2025 (7) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |