How Frank Underwood Paved the Way for Donald Trump

Transmedia (De-)Construction of Civil Religious Narratives in (Fictional) American Politics

Abstract

Located between Bellah’s American Civil Religion, Bredekamp’s Image Act Theory, and Genette’s theory on narratology, this essay examines the impact House of Cards had on the 2016 presidential elections. Kevin Spacey’s iconic character Frank Underwood was the first presidential villain, and the first one who moved beyond the series to appear at the Correspondents’ Dinner in 2013. While the breaking of the fourth wall was not new to film, interactions with the audience on- and off-screen were fundamentally new. Furthermore, by including ‘real’ news anchors like Stephen Colbert or John King in the show, boundaries between fact and fiction are blurred. Also, portraits of former presidents are used to contextualize but also contrast Underwood’s words and actions. This stylistic element employs many civil religious narratives which are part of the collective memory. Watching Underwood undermine those commonly known civil religious and democratic dogmas in the ‘fictional reality’ changes and shapes the audience’s perception of the American presidency’s institutional narratives. By rearranging various civil religious elements into a completely new, yet familiar picture, the fictional presidential narrative became part of the historical imagination. Thus, the insight House of Cards offered to a fictional Washington, D.C. with non-fictional markers enabled Donald Trump’s campaign team to develop persisting media strategies for his Reality Show.