纸牌屋第六季

剧情：Netflix宣布，《纸牌屋》第六季将于 年正式恢复拍摄。罗宾·怀特继续主演，应该就是主要聚焦于克莱尔这个角色了。不会有凯文·史派西，但是他饰演的下木总统如何处理还没有办法知道。跟以往每季13集的长..展开

剧情：{if:"

I was determined to not watch the new season of House of Cards for the simple reason that I wanted to boycott the series, following the firing and shaming of actor and producer Kevin Spacey. I found his eviction from the acclaimed TV drama, and the media lynching for “sexual misconduct”, or whatever, he had been submitted to, unfair, unjust and unjustified. As a target of the ≠Me Too movement, Spacey wasn’t given a realistic chance to defend himself, apart from a pathetic public apologetic letter which sounded as insincere as fabricated. The success of the show was certainly due to a lot of excellent reasons: good writing, perfect casting, charismatic actors, especially Spacey, who, along with Robin Wright, really carried the whole project (both were producing and writing, as well as performing). Without him, it would not be the same and I liked it the way it was before.

Then a student from my gender class wrote to me on WeChat, asking if I had seen the last season. He wanted to know what I thought about the new angle of the main plot: the woman president firing the patriarchal government to replace it by an all-female cabinet. The idea seemed to me at once intriguing, provocative, ridiculous and, really, hypocritical. So, I decided to watch it, only to see what the show’s take on this revolutionary idea was: women taking over the government of the most powerful country on the planet, in a word, the fantasy of gynocracy in a men’s world. I must say I was a bit speechless for a while, not knowing how to express in words what I had to grasp in this new “Girl Power” phenomenon.

Television has done its fair share of PC activism, especially in the muddy waters of gender discrimination and women valorizing. The recent seasons of Westworld and American Horror Story are based on a very clear, and fierce, gender war, where women are fighting with men over the domination of the world. Even the notorious, and unavoidable, Game of Thrones is hinting towards a “bitch-against-bitch” finale. I guess it is a little relief from the usual pissing contests of the usual all-male-heroes narratives. Strangely, even if the level of testosterones has significantly decreased, the incoherence of the scripts, and the lack of credibility of the characters terribly weakens the “strong woman” messages. In a word, these “gynocratic” dictators only show us that a woman’s world is every bit as authoritarian, cruel, and short-sighted as patriarchy. The fantasies of gynocracies these series show us are disturbingly doing the opposite of what they would be expected to do: they give reasons to frightened males to fear man-hating radical feminists. Their powers are just too much, and they abuse them profusely.

House of Cards goes even further. This series tantalizes us with a “what if”: what if there were, at last, a “woman president” in America, which has been the $10 million question since 2016. What if, indeed?!?

The new season picks up shortly after Frank Underwood, the Machiavellian president, had been impeached, and his wife, and vice-president, Claire Underwood, is the acting president.

The show then opens on the mysterious, and lethal, Claire Underwood, who is officially the “first woman president”, and we learn right away that her husband has just died, making her position secured, for a while. There is now a “Madam President”, these magic words PC America has so longed to hear. This “Madam President” previously killed a man while having sex with him and threatened a pregnant woman to let her “fetus rot and die in her womb”. This same “Madam President”, who may, or may not, have killed her devious husband, also becomes pregnant a few episodes into the series. Considering that this “Madam President” had had several abortions, had sought fertility treatments for her conceiving problems, and especially considering that she is no less than 40 or 45, if not actually 50 years of age, her pregnancy is nothing short of a miracle. She is basically the “Virgin Mary” of pre-, or full-menopausal women. What great hopes for the rest of us (me included) suffering from heat flashes, and other pleasantries of this phase of our life! This middle-aged “Madam President” parades her impeccable figure in tight-fitting, and elegant dresses, featuring the handsome and inspiring round bump of her still tight belly. Imagine Hilary with that bump… no don’t, it’s too disturbing…

We are offered the strange image of a “black-widow-femme-fatale” taking over the world and using her superpowers of “feminism and maternal love”. What a combo! Talk about super-girl-power! Cersei Lannister much?!?

As for the all-female cabinet, the scene where she opens the Oval Office’s door to unveil this “wonder” is just too ridiculous to be true. What point was to be made here? What’s the “not-so-well” hidden message? That women should dominate the world? Women of the world unite? (the variety of the cabinet is appropriately PC: all races, ages and sizes). And then what? Let’s cut all the balls? That’s gonna help with the sympathy of the common people who already feel that Affirmative Action is robbing them of their livelihood… Not to mention the fact that this pregnant “Madam President” almost pushes the A button (Atomic Bomb), something even her most reckless male predecessors had never dared. Interestingly, before hesitating to bring on nuclear apocalypse, “Madam President” gave an inspiring speech, to a crowd of hypnotized supporters, pointing at her big belly as the “reason why men don’t trust a woman with nuclear power control.” Was she planning to prove those phallocrats’ point by almost provoking WWWIII? Who knows? Her defiance is just jaw-dropping.

Along the dramatically challenged episodes, “Madam President” act in colder blood than her ex, kills quite a few people, while talking to the audience, eventually giving it the finger, in a ridiculous scene where she puts on her dead husband’s clan ring. Even Cersei dropping her cold, hard ass on the Iron Throne wasn’t as ruthless as this one! Her cold act is as credible as Little Red Riding Hood ass-kicking the Big Bad Woolf.

Mind you, she does all that while carrying a precious load, though not eating for two exactly since her figure remains as fit as a teenaged girl’s. She gets into strange alliances with suspicious patriarchal predators such as Doug, her husband’s faithful and murderous lieutenant, and Petrov, the Putin-lookalike Russian president who once grabbed her (yes in a “sexual misconduct/assault way). Her loyalties are divided, to say the least, and she is attacked by practically everyone, because, mainly, “she is a woman” (one particular scene is when Claire confront a female soldier, who asked why she was sent to fight in a distant country, with a “would you have asked this question if I were a man?”, personally I don’t see the relevance since she was, indeed, sending more troops to war… just like any of her male counterparts...).

I will pass on the blood trail of bodies, both male and female, along her epic way… The finale ends up on the disturbing image of Claire, now heavily pregnant, killing Doug in cold blood, cradling his head and saying, “no more pain”. I am not sure of the potential nurturing message of this message…

One thing the series got right though, is that it portraits women fighting each other with accurate ferocity. This is the most realistic trait of the production: a war among women is bloodier than any other, and, as Claire says when she swears the all-female cabinet in: “I solemnly swear to take no prisoners”. “Madam President”’ nemesis is another woman, the enigmatic Diane Lane as Annette Shepherd, a she-wolf as cruel and heartless as Cersei in Game of Thrones or the female rebel leaders in Westworld. For this is the catch: women don’t get along very well. It is a fact that has never changed, and no amount of pseudo-feminism and PC bullshit will ever change it. The “C-word” is dropped a couple of times, (C for Claire?, “Madam President” asks of the Twitter haters’ attacks). Claire uses it herself against her heartless, and “unwomanish” nemesis, but it’s because, well, she a woman… Their belligerence is vaguely reminiscent of schoolyard’s catfights, and they play dirty, using each other’s kids each other, for instance.

Competition is fierce among women, starting with looks. Robin Wright, although middle-aged, still looks like a million bucks, as do the other leading females of today’s television.

The problem is that these glamorous models are too beautiful to be true, in fact, they are as impossible to reach, in terms of beauty and charm standards, as fashion models. Neither Claire Underwood, nor Cersei, look remotely like Hilary of Angela Merkel. Yeah, I know, it’s entertainment, but their male counterparts are not always played by gorgeous studs. Spacey was certainly not a difficult standard to achieve in terms of looks and hotness. Ah, yes, he was a man, so his charm was in his wits and all…

So, women still need to look their best even when endowed with “great powers and great responsibilities”. What else is new then? Well, their reign doesn’t sound very peaceful in any case…

This “House of Cards” is clearly collapsing, and the Red Queens are ruining any chance for the whole “girl power” effort to be taken seriously.

I suppose the next season will open with an irresistible maternal portrait of a redeemed, and radiant new mother “Madam President” … what if there were a woman president in the White House of Trick Cards?… What if indeed?"<>""}

I was determined to not watch the new season of House of Cards for the simple reason that I wanted to boycott the series, following the firing and shaming of actor and producer Kevin Spacey. I found his eviction from the acclaimed TV drama, and the media lynching for “sexual misconduct”, or whatever, he had been submitted to, unfair, unjust and unjustified. As a target of the ≠Me Too movement, Spacey wasn’t given a realistic chance to defend himself, apart from a pathetic public apologetic letter which sounded as insincere as fabricated. The success of the show was certainly due to a lot of excellent reasons: good writing, perfect casting, charismatic actors, especially Spacey, who, along with Robin Wright, really carried the whole project (both were producing and writing, as well as performing). Without him, it would not be the same and I liked it the way it was before.

Then a student from my gender class wrote to me on WeChat, asking if I had seen the last season. He wanted to know what I thought about the new angle of the main plot: the woman president firing the patriarchal government to replace it by an all-female cabinet. The idea seemed to me at once intriguing, provocative, ridiculous and, really, hypocritical. So, I decided to watch it, only to see what the show’s take on this revolutionary idea was: women taking over the government of the most powerful country on the planet, in a word, the fantasy of gynocracy in a men’s world. I must say I was a bit speechless for a while, not knowing how to express in words what I had to grasp in this new “Girl Power” phenomenon.

Television has done its fair share of PC activism, especially in the muddy waters of gender discrimination and women valorizing. The recent seasons of Westworld and American Horror Story are based on a very clear, and fierce, gender war, where women are fighting with men over the domination of the world. Even the notorious, and unavoidable, Game of Thrones is hinting towards a “bitch-against-bitch” finale. I guess it is a little relief from the usual pissing contests of the usual all-male-heroes narratives. Strangely, even if the level of testosterones has significantly decreased, the incoherence of the scripts, and the lack of credibility of the characters terribly weakens the “strong woman” messages. In a word, these “gynocratic” dictators only show us that a woman’s world is every bit as authoritarian, cruel, and short-sighted as patriarchy. The fantasies of gynocracies these series show us are disturbingly doing the opposite of what they would be expected to do: they give reasons to frightened males to fear man-hating radical feminists. Their powers are just too much, and they abuse them profusely.

House of Cards goes even further. This series tantalizes us with a “what if”: what if there were, at last, a “woman president” in America, which has been the $10 million question since 2016. What if, indeed?!?

The new season picks up shortly after Frank Underwood, the Machiavellian president, had been impeached, and his wife, and vice-president, Claire Underwood, is the acting president.

The show then opens on the mysterious, and lethal, Claire Underwood, who is officially the “first woman president”, and we learn right away that her husband has just died, making her position secured, for a while. There is now a “Madam President”, these magic words PC America has so longed to hear. This “Madam President” previously killed a man while having sex with him and threatened a pregnant woman to let her “fetus rot and die in her womb”. This same “Madam President”, who may, or may not, have killed her devious husband, also becomes pregnant a few episodes into the series. Considering that this “Madam President” had had several abortions, had sought fertility treatments for her conceiving problems, and especially considering that she is no less than 40 or 45, if not actually 50 years of age, her pregnancy is nothing short of a miracle. She is basically the “Virgin Mary” of pre-, or full-menopausal women. What great hopes for the rest of us (me included) suffering from heat flashes, and other pleasantries of this phase of our life! This middle-aged “Madam President” parades her impeccable figure in tight-fitting, and elegant dresses, featuring the handsome and inspiring round bump of her still tight belly. Imagine Hilary with that bump… no don’t, it’s too disturbing…

We are offered the strange image of a “black-widow-femme-fatale” taking over the world and using her superpowers of “feminism and maternal love”. What a combo! Talk about super-girl-power! Cersei Lannister much?!?

As for the all-female cabinet, the scene where she opens the Oval Office’s door to unveil this “wonder” is just too ridiculous to be true. What point was to be made here? What’s the “not-so-well” hidden message? That women should dominate the world? Women of the world unite? (the variety of the cabinet is appropriately PC: all races, ages and sizes). And then what? Let’s cut all the balls? That’s gonna help with the sympathy of the common people who already feel that Affirmative Action is robbing them of their livelihood… Not to mention the fact that this pregnant “Madam President” almost pushes the A button (Atomic Bomb), something even her most reckless male predecessors had never dared. Interestingly, before hesitating to bring on nuclear apocalypse, “Madam President” gave an inspiring speech, to a crowd of hypnotized supporters, pointing at her big belly as the “reason why men don’t trust a woman with nuclear power control.” Was she planning to prove those phallocrats’ point by almost provoking WWWIII? Who knows? Her defiance is just jaw-dropping.

Along the dramatically challenged episodes, “Madam President” act in colder blood than her ex, kills quite a few people, while talking to the audience, eventually giving it the finger, in a ridiculous scene where she puts on her dead husband’s clan ring. Even Cersei dropping her cold, hard ass on the Iron Throne wasn’t as ruthless as this one! Her cold act is as credible as Little Red Riding Hood ass-kicking the Big Bad Woolf.

Mind you, she does all that while carrying a precious load, though not eating for two exactly since her figure remains as fit as a teenaged girl’s. She gets into strange alliances with suspicious patriarchal predators such as Doug, her husband’s faithful and murderous lieutenant, and Petrov, the Putin-lookalike Russian president who once grabbed her (yes in a “sexual misconduct/assault way). Her loyalties are divided, to say the least, and she is attacked by practically everyone, because, mainly, “she is a woman” (one particular scene is when Claire confront a female soldier, who asked why she was sent to fight in a distant country, with a “would you have asked this question if I were a man?”, personally I don’t see the relevance since she was, indeed, sending more troops to war… just like any of her male counterparts...).

I will pass on the blood trail of bodies, both male and female, along her epic way… The finale ends up on the disturbing image of Claire, now heavily pregnant, killing Doug in cold blood, cradling his head and saying, “no more pain”. I am not sure of the potential nurturing message of this message…

One thing the series got right though, is that it portraits women fighting each other with accurate ferocity. This is the most realistic trait of the production: a war among women is bloodier than any other, and, as Claire says when she swears the all-female cabinet in: “I solemnly swear to take no prisoners”. “Madam President”’ nemesis is another woman, the enigmatic Diane Lane as Annette Shepherd, a she-wolf as cruel and heartless as Cersei in Game of Thrones or the female rebel leaders in Westworld. For this is the catch: women don’t get along very well. It is a fact that has never changed, and no amount of pseudo-feminism and PC bullshit will ever change it. The “C-word” is dropped a couple of times, (C for Claire?, “Madam President” asks of the Twitter haters’ attacks). Claire uses it herself against her heartless, and “unwomanish” nemesis, but it’s because, well, she a woman… Their belligerence is vaguely reminiscent of schoolyard’s catfights, and they play dirty, using each other’s kids each other, for instance.

Competition is fierce among women, starting with looks. Robin Wright, although middle-aged, still looks like a million bucks, as do the other leading females of today’s television.

The problem is that these glamorous models are too beautiful to be true, in fact, they are as impossible to reach, in terms of beauty and charm standards, as fashion models. Neither Claire Underwood, nor Cersei, look remotely like Hilary of Angela Merkel. Yeah, I know, it’s entertainment, but their male counterparts are not always played by gorgeous studs. Spacey was certainly not a difficult standard to achieve in terms of looks and hotness. Ah, yes, he was a man, so his charm was in his wits and all…

So, women still need to look their best even when endowed with “great powers and great responsibilities”. What else is new then? Well, their reign doesn’t sound very peaceful in any case…

This “House of Cards” is clearly collapsing, and the Red Queens are ruining any chance for the whole “girl power” effort to be taken seriously.

I suppose the next season will open with an irresistible maternal portrait of a redeemed, and radiant new mother “Madam President” … what if there were a woman president in the White House of Trick Cards?… What if indeed?{else}Netflix宣布，《纸牌屋》第六季将于 年正式恢复拍摄。罗宾·怀特继续主演，应该就是主要聚焦于克莱尔这个角色了。不会有凯文·史派西，但是他饰演的下木总统如何处理还没有办法知道。跟以往每季13集的长度不同，第六季将缩短为只有8集。第六季也是这部Netflix旗舰剧的最后季了，具体回归日期待定。{end if}收起