Well-established scholars of media, political science, sociology, and film investigate the representation of Washington politics on U.S. television from the mid 2000s to the present. The book offers perspectives on representations of contemporary US politics, the role of government and the machinations often associated with politicians and governmental institutions.With close attention to issues of gender, race and class and offering studies from contemporary quality television, such as The West Wing, Veep, House of Cards, The Good Wife and Scandal, authors examine the ways in which televisual representations reveal changing attitudes towards Washington culture.

Betty Kaklamanidou is a Fulbright scholar and Assistant Professor in Film and Television History and Theory at Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece. She is the author of The 'Disguised' Political Film in Contemporary Hollywood: A Genre's Construction (forthcoming, 2016), Genre, Gender and the Effects of Neoliberalism: The New Millennium Hollywood Rom Com (2013) and two books in Greek on adaptation theory and the history of the Hollywood rom com. Betty is also the co-editor of The Millennials on Film and Television (2014), HBO's "Girls" (2014), and The 21st Century Superhero (2010). Betty's articles have appeared in Literature/Film Quarterly, Celebrity Studies and The Journal of Popular Romance Studies.

Margaret J. Tally is Professor of Social and Public Policy at the School of Graduate Studies at Empire State College, State University of New York, USA. She is the author of Television Culture and Women's Lives: Thirtysomething and the Contradictions of Gender, and co-editor of The Millennials on Film and Television: The Politics of Popular Culture and HBO's Girls: Questions of Gender, Politics, and Millennial Angst.

Notes on Contributors

Acknowledgements

Foreword: Television Criticism and Contemporary U.S. Politics

(Douglas Kellner)

Introduction: American Television in the 2010s

(Betty Kaklamanidou and Margaret Tally)

The Political TV Shows of the 2010s: Showrunners, Reality and Gender

(Betty Kaklamanidou and Margaret Tally)

"The Last Hurrah": The West Wing and the Future of American Politics after 9/11'

(Ian Scott)

"Stand Up, Fight Back": Race and Policing in The Good Wife and Scandal

(Caryn Murphy)

The Leader of the Free World? Representing the Declining Presidency in Film and Television

(Gregory Frame)

Would Niccolò Machiavelli Endorse House of Cards' Frank Underwood?

(Anthony Petros Spanakos)

House of Cards - House of Power: Political Narratives and The Cult of Serial Sociopaths in Narrative Politics in American Quality Dramas in the Digital Age

(Elena Pilipets & Rainer Winter)

The Cold War (Re)-visited in House of Cards and The Americans

(Betty Kaklamanidou)

"Call it The Hillary Effect": Charting the Imaginary of "Hillary-Esque" Fictional Narratives

(Margaret Tally)

Veep's Poetics of Omnishambles

(Marc Edward Shaw)

Index