6. We Come To Realize The Deadly Nature Of Politics In The World
Shows like Homeland and The Americans have taken an especially interesting approach in how they consider the implications of domestic and foreign politics. Homeland sets its political stage in the presentin a fictionalized post-911, post-Iraq world that looks strikingly similar to our real post-911, post-Iraq world. War heroes, cunning CIA agents, fundamentalist terrorists, and corrupt and power-hungry politicians are the characters from the fictional world of Homeland that resonate with our own understandings of these characters' counterparts in the real world. The terrifying realization that we have from watching Homeland is the fidelity of the characters from the fictional world as we compare them with those of the real world. We come to see that the decisions of a few peoplewho very often are misguided, uninformed, egocentric, or plain crazyhave important and often terrible ramifications on many more people who often have little knowledge of the goings-on behind the scenes. In season 3, this is brought to clear realization in the police investigations of the Javadi murders. One of the officers, while questioning Peter Quinn, glibly asks him," Have you ever done anything but made things worse?"
Scott A. Lukas
Contributor
Scott A. Lukas has taught anthropology and sociology Lake Tahoe Community College for sixteen years and in 2013 was Visiting Professor of American Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. He has been recognized with the McGraw-Hill Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching of Anthropology by the American Anthropological Association (2005), the California Hayward Award for Excellence in Education (2003), and a Sierra Arts Foundation Artist Grant Program Award in Literary–Professional (2009). In 2006, he was a nominee to the California Community College Board of Governors. He is the author/editor of The Immersive Worlds Handbook (2012), Theme Park (2008), The Themed Space: Locating Culture, Nature, and Self (2007), Fear, Cultural Anxiety, and Transformation: Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy Films Remade, (co-edited with John Marmysz, 2009), Recent Developments in Criminological Theory (co-edited with Stuart Henry, 2009), and Strategies in Teaching Anthropology (2010). His book Theme Park was recently translated into Arabic. He appeared in the documentary The Nature of Existence and has provided interviews for To the Best of Our Knowledge, The Huffington Post UK, The Daily Beast, The Washington Post, and Caravan (India).
See more from
Scott