Antihero-by-Default

[Spoiler Alert: Discusses numerous aspects of seasons one and two of House of Cards and key plot points of Breaking Bad.]
“Some people say there’s too much pork in this town. I could not agree more.”
So says Frank Underwolf, Sesame Street’s parody of Frank Underwood from Netflix’s wildly popular political drama House of Cards. Frank Underwolf wants to live in the White Brick House, but first he must huff, puff, and blow down two houses made of straw and sticks. He succeeds, and the three little pigs of this common fable willingly let Underwolf overtake their brick house. The pigs, however, have a plan. They work together to dismantle the brick house, and Underwolf concedes, “Well, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. And this time, the cards were stacked against me.”
But in the real House of Cards, there are no pigs. There is only Frank Underwood.
It’s Underwood’s World
Underwood weaves a complex web of allies and enemies as he climbs Washington’s political power structure from House Majority Whip, to Vice President, and finally to President of the United States. Through blackmail and deception he manipulates an education reform bill, sabotages a trade deal between the United States and China, and uses FEMA money to fund his entitlement reform plan. But some moments are less political, less complex. In the season three opening scene of House of Cards, now-President Frank Underwood urinates on his father’s gravestone. And three episodes later, Underwood spits in the face of a statue of Jesus that hangs on a church cross. Although House of Cards has spent three seasons unfolding a complicated plot dotted with corrupt, unrelenting characters, these two instances tell us all we need to know about the series and its protagonist: they are vile.
Underwood’s house rests upon a tenuous foundation: the cards, it increasingly seems, will topple. Absent of nuance, creator and showrunner Beau Willimon routinely slaps us across the face with heavy-handed symbolism and manufactured melodrama. The show seeks respite in Kevin Spacey’s and Robin Wright’s Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated portrayals of Frank and Claire Underwood, but they cannot redeem characters steeped in self-indulgence. A character as ridiculous as Frank Underwood can only exist in such a ridiculous world of mindless treachery—a world Underwood has come to rule.
Congressman Frank Underwood’s slow march to the Oval Office has left some bloody footprints. He murdered innocent Congressman Peter Russo. He pushed reporter—and one of the show’s most developed characters—Zoe Barnes in front of a train. Executive Producer David Fincher is cynical, but surely he must believe in consequence. Instead of experiencing negative repercussions for his villainy, Underwood receives not one but two promotions. And even in Willimon’s twisted conception of Washington, Underwood’s antics amount to just that—villainy. But for some reason, Netflix viewers and political junkies obsess over Underwood. Eric Deggans of NPR rightly proclaims Underwood a villain. “But the scariest revelation of all,” writes Deggans, “is that we’re so excited by this antihero turned villain in the first place.” This revelation is less scary than it is telling of the show’s contrived antihero.
Rooting for a Villain
Walter White, the antihero of AMC’s drama Breaking Bad, might clue us in to the antihero’s appeal. In Vince Gilligan’s popular series, Walter White is the antiheroic protagonist, and we clearly understand why. At first, the high school chemistry teacher turns to cooking meth in order to pay for his cancer treatment. Although his motives evolve, Walter White’s antiheroic nature is never contrived because he gradually breaks bad and faces genuinely evil protagonists. We have no reason to consider meth distributor Gus Fring or drug kingpin Tuco Salamanca, for example, in sympathetic lights; both torture Walt and threaten his and his family’s lives. Although Walt’s DEA agent brother-in-law Hank acts as a primary antagonist to Walt throughout the series, by the time Hank faces his reckoning, we are expected to know that Walt has descended into abject villainy.
But in House of Cards, we have no choice but to root for Frank Underwood because he always wins. Although Walter White kills for his family, Underwood kills for himself. The only reason we want to see Underwood climb Washington’s power structure is because repeated viewing drives our enjoyment. There is no reason for us to root for Underwood besides our familiarity him. That’s what makes Walter White an antihero with an impetus, but Underwood an antihero-by-default.
Antiheroes with impetus warrant sympathy due to the nature of television viewership. Entertainment scholars often cite affective disposition theory (ADT) to explain why audiences identify with a character. According to ADT, we enjoy narratives based on characters’ likeability, their successes or failures, and our reconciliation of the narrative outcome with our own sense of morality. Communication scholars Daniel Shafer and Arthur Raney argue we must have a righteous and defensible reason to root for a character, or else we will experience cognitive dissonance. We are relieved when we watch morality unfold before us; we want the bad to be punished and the good rewarded. But like Walter White and Frank Underwood, not all characters are moral. Some protagonists do not conform to the traditional idea of the morally righteous hero, and these characters are called antiheroes. We know Walter White cooks meth to protect his family, and even though an element of selfishness motivates his drive for money and power, we have seen life trample all over Walt in his early characterization. He is, by all means, a pathetic man at the show’s start.
But Underwood is never pathetic. He always lies, cheats, and murders from a position of power and for purely selfish reasons, yet we return to House of Cards without reservation to binge watch the latest batch of episodes because we adapt to the antihero narrative over time. Moral disengagement allows us to disregard moral standards in light of our own imperfect morality, according to psychologist Albert Bandura. This, in combination with continual viewing, develops an antihero narrative schema. We desperately want to like Frank Underwood because he dominates screen time, so for the duration of the program we discard our unwarranted moral righteousness and delve into an hour or so of delightful but devilish affairs.
Here’s the problem: although moral disengagement explains why we root for antiheroes, both theories presuppose the antihero is one of impetus. However, the seemingly antiheroic Frank Underwood plays protagonist only by default, and an antihero-by-default can only be a villain. Antagonists in the series exist only relatively to Underwood, and they are often more complex, compelling characters. Consider Congressman Peter Russo. Underwood orchestrates Russo’s campaign for Pennsylvania Governor, and then he topples the campaign by exploiting Russo’s alcoholism and relationship with a prostitute. Underwood convinces Vice President Jim Matthews to run in Russo’s stead, opening a Frank-sized hole in the Office of the Vice President. Perceiving Russo as too much of a liability to his merciless quest for power, Underwood accordingly kills Russo. From any first-time viewer’s perspective, a villain has killed an innocent man. In another context, Russo, Barnes, and, in season three, Heather Dunbar and Jackie Sharp could each be the show’s protagonist. But through the warped House of Cards reality, the opposite has happened. Underwood’s character creates a blurred line between antagonist and protagonist that does not offer the show sophistication; rather, it is evidence of a show—and a character—without clear direction. With this in mind, Underwood seems to wander instead of walk, and his deviousness allows Willimon to drive the narrative continuously forward to no particular destination. Underwood’s motive—a search for power—is vague enough for Willimon to lead us on a march to nowhere.
The March to Nowhere
Our fascination with House of Cards is the result of a bait-and-switch. Willimon familiarizes us with Underwood, and Underwood often acknowledges us with one of his signature asides. We must either tolerate Underwood’s crimes or abandon the show altogether. We are taken with the conniving Frank Underwood, but this does not reveal some great truth about morality in the 21st century. Antiheroes are different, and we like them—just ask any college freshman who hangs an “I Am The Danger” quote poster in their dorm. Antiheroes like Walter White can challenge and have challenged television convention. The serial nature of television is prone to reliance on tropes, and antiheroes have helped the medium mature and overcome this reliance. But Frank Underwood serves only to parody these complex characters, and ultimately we will reject this antihero-by-default. Underwood’s show has dictated its own demise.
“Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose,” says Frank Underwolf, imparting a basic life lesson to child viewers. If the real Frank Underwood wins at the series’ end, House of Cards will collapse in on its glorification of an antihero-by-default—a villain. And its ending will suffer from the same contrived nature as Underwood’s antihero status because, throughout the series, no amount of power could satiate him. It would then end because it had to end, just as it continued because it had to continue. If Frank Underwood loses, House of Cards will struggle to explain how a villain so powerful could collapse. If an even greater act of debauchery than his previous two murders brings him down, then Underwood’s invincibility was always a shadow, and this would contradict the show’s premise. Underwood always outsmarts his enemies—always. Finally, if Underwood simply loses to something greater than him, then what is greater than him? Frank Underwood is God—or so he believes. Who could humble the man who pisses on his father’s grave and spits in the face of Providence? House of Cards manufactures drama for its own sake: it is like a desperate soap opera that continues, but does not develop.
Image Credit: Arealast, Wikimedia Commons, Cezary, Wikimedia Commons