Politics and Politicians in Contemporary US Television

Betty Kaklamanidou is a Fulbright scholar and Assistant Professor in Film and Television History and Theory at Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece. She is the author of The ‘Disguised’ Political Film in Contemporary Hollywood: A Genre’s Construction (forthcoming, 2016), Genre, Gender and the Effects of Neoliberalism: The New Millennium Hollywood Rom Com (2013) and two books in Greek on adaptation theory and the history of the Hollywood rom com. Betty is also the co-editor of The Millennials on Film and Television (2014), HBO’s "Girls" (2014), and The 21st Century Superhero (2010). Betty’s articles have appeared in Literature/Film Quarterly, Celebrity Studies and The Journal of Popular Romance Studies.Margaret J. Tally is Professor of Social and Public Policy at the School of Graduate Studies at Empire State College, State University of New York, USA. She is the author of Television Culture and Women’s Lives: Thirtysomething and the Contradictions of Gender, and co-editor of The Millennials on Film and Television: The Politics of Popular Culture and HBO’s Girls: Questions of Gender, Politics, and Millennial Angst.

• Notes on ContributorsAcknowledgementsForeword: Television Criticism and Contemporary U.S. Politics(Douglas Kellner)Introduction: American Television in the 2010s (Betty Kaklamanidou and Margaret Tally)The Political TV Shows of the 2010s: Showrunners, Reality and Gender (Betty Kaklamanidou and Margaret Tally)"The Last Hurrah": The West Wing and the Future of American Politics after 9/11’(Ian Scott)"Stand Up, Fight Back": Race and Policing in The Good Wife and Scandal (Caryn Murphy)The Leader of the Free World? Representing the Declining Presidency in Film and Television(Gregory Frame)Would Niccolò Machiavelli Endorse House of Cards’ Frank Underwood?(Anthony Petros Spanakos) House of Cards – House of Power: Political Narratives and The Cult of Serial Sociopaths in Narrative Politics in American Quality Dramas in the Digital Age (Elena Pilipets & Rainer Winter) The Cold War (Re)-visited in House of Cards and The Americans (Betty Kaklamanidou)"Call it The Hillary Effect": Charting the Imaginary of "Hillary-Esque" Fictional Narratives(Margaret Tally)Veep’s Poetics of Omnishambles(Marc Edward Shaw)Index

'This timely collection of informative and insightful essays helps us to make sense of early twenty-first century American TV serials -- from The West Wing and Veep to Scandal and House of Cards -- that grapple with the potent drama of party politics during the Bush and Obama years.' - Michael Z. Newman, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, U.S.A 'The essays in this volume offer engaging analyses of recent fictional political TV shows. Collectively, they persuasively argue that depictions of U.S. political culture on entertainment television have never been more relevant while making insightful connections to contemporary political campaigns.' - Chuck Tryon, Fayetteville State University, U.S.A