10 Problems With House Of Cards Nobody Wants To Admit
3. It's Not That Realistic
Compared to the liberal fantasy of The West Wing and...whatever the short-lived 1600 Penn was, House Of Cards is supposed to be a realistic portrayal of America's political world. Willimon's experience in that world, tones of real-life media personalities pop up playing themselves, and a load of research goes into producing each series. How close it actually gets to real-life politics is another thing, however. There are definitely events that House Of Cards closely mirrors, with particular scenes based off of things that really happened, famous images and the like. There's certainly been no shortage of sex scandals in Washington, either, so that's legit. Overall, though? Not only are their no politicians on record that have strangled dogs in the street or pushed people in front of trains (Nixon probably toyed with the idea, but would've got somebody else to do it for him), but the depiction of the day-to-day running of government is apparently not all that realistic either.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
