Posted on 03/28/2015 4:36:38 PM PDT by St_Thomas_Aquinas
...[Writer Beau] Willimon, then in his 20s, became one of many young people to devote themselves to Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s Beltway-assaulting run for the 2004 Democratic nomination for president...
He was a student at Columbia in 1998, wilting in the New York heat while studying Greek classics at the uptown Ivy, when Carson -- coming off an internship with George Stephanopoulos -- tempted him with tales of his work on a Senate campaign. Congressman Chuck Schumer, a gregarious Democrat from Brooklyn, was a longshot in the party’s primary, but Stephanopolous assured Carson that he would win. Carson started out as an unpaid intern for Schumer and ultimately brought Willimon aboard....
In the midst of his studies, he joined his friend to work Hillary Clinton’s run for Senate in 2000 and then on Bill Bradley’s insurgent campaign for president that same year...
"Showing the system unto itself is the commentary. In that, it is very Wire-ish," he says, comparing House of Cards to the seminal HBO series about the twisted ecosystem of drug dealers and police in Baltimore. "It also treats the audience as mature in the sense of not having to hit you over the head with some sort of ideological message. In that way it is more "show" than "tell" -- that is, it is more effective in delivering a critique by illustrating the realities of the ugly political world rather than by having the characters make sententious speeches."...
Both Dean, who would go on to become the chair of the Democratic National Committee, and President Barack Obama, who Willimon and Carson call his successor as outsider candidate, became part of the establishment. In the same way, Carson has one foot in the biggest fundraising circles in the country and another in a show that exposes its more flagrant -- if extreme and outlier -- abuses. As such, it's best to claim fiction, even if Carson does admit to scanning Politico and other papers daily for stories to send to Willimon.
"If you know where to look in Washington, you can find countless incidents of drama that are worthy of the big screen," he leads, stopping short of providing any concrete example. And yet, there must be many, given the show's whirlwind writing process.
How could it be Insider stuff if the script is nearly identical to the BBC original?
Yep. The Founding Fathers knew all about the scum in government, and the media, for that matter.
A number of shows in this last season changed the theme from ‘House of Cards’ to “House of Homos”.
First time I heard it was an original stores, I had to laugh. I saw the bbc version the first time in the 90s. It was crazy good and awful at the same time.
I suspect the democrats and libs were furious that the show put any sort of bad light on democrats and the writer had to change his tune.
-— Also some of the politicians that Frank Underwood deals with cannot be as stupid as they are presented. “Gee Frank, you screwed me over 17 times in a row, so on the 18th go, I am going to still put my trust in you.” -—
I didn’t see that. When he is exposed, he manipulates people into cooperation by holding out a carrot —or a whip. We’ve all seen it happen.
The UK series was also very good - I enjoyed it. But then I like Machiavellian themes.
Well stated!
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