Abstract
This contribution offers a fresh analysis of Homeland, a popular TV series distributed by Showtime, based on the perspective of contemporary philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Carlo Ginzburg. According to the author, the new Hollywoodian hero, who breaks the rules to achieve a greater good, embodies the morals of the first decade of the War on terror launched by the US after 9/11. The chapter analyzes Homeland by highlighting the separation between rule and exception drawn by Machiavelli and examining it in the frame of modern political thinking.
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Notes
- 1.
Particularly, Clint Eastwood’s movies perfectly represent a popular epic in which an exceptional situation defines an ethical dilemma: despite the opposition of superiors and institutions, the hero must break the conventions in order to obtain an upright end. A child with a grenade launcher, a plane crash over New York, a terrorist on a train: Eastwood’s heroes make the right decision despite being considered the wrong one, despite having been trained, instructed, educated, to decide otherwise in those exceptional situations.
- 2.
For a detailed reconstruction, see Ralph (2013).
- 3.
Although almost unanimously praised for its technical quality, Homeland received mixed responses about its political view; for a summary and a critique of its alleged controversial aspects see Castonguay (2015).
- 4.
- 5.
See for instance Machiavelli (2016, 18): “A prince, and particularly a new prince, (…) does not deviate from the good, when that is possible; but he knows how to do evil when necessary.”
- 6.
In fact, The Prince is very clear about it, Machiavelli (2016, 15, 85): “Hence it is necessary for a prince, if he wishes to maintain himself to learn to be able to be not good, and to use this faculty, and not to use it, according to necessity.”
- 7.
A reaction heavily based on Huntington 1996.
- 8.
Lost (2004–2010) was perhaps the first to focus on this blurred limit, followed by other very popular shows such as Dexter (2006-2013) and Breaking Bad (2008-2013).
- 9.
The images composing the opening credits vary from season to season; however, recurrent figures are Carrie, Brody, Saul, and Quinn, as well as George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.
- 10.
“I missed something once before and I don’t want this happens again,” Carrie says referring to the possibility of Brody being a terrorist instead of a war hero. This sentence is included in the opening credits of several seasons, proving its importance to the framing of the fictional narrative in relation to actual historical events. This “something” clearly recalls the famous President’s Daily Brief “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US”, prepared by the CIA on Monday, August 6, 2001; there, the agency warned the Presidency about “patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for a hijacking” of a US aircraft, that were however overlooked.
- 11.
However, in the last episode of the show Carrie will dedicate her book exposing CIA’s secrets written in Russia to Franny, leaving a room for a potential, future reunification.
- 12.
Besides Huntington’s Clash of Civilization , see the more recent Flynn and Ledeen 2016.
- 13.
This expression has been made famous by Agamben 2005.
- 14.
As it happens, for instance, in House of Cards (2013–2018), the political saga depicting the machinations for the taking and maintaining of power by the unscrupulous Francis Underwood and his wife. At the end of Season 6, Homeland seems to turn towards this framework to depict the events following the election of the first female POTUS. This season is set during the period between election day and inauguration day and represents the struggles by Carrie and Saul to secure the legitimacy of the President-elect before the inauguration of her Presidency. After inauguration, despite the promises, she removes from their positions or even imprisons several intelligence officers to ensure her power. However, this framework will be discarded in the following two seasons.
- 15.
On the concept of immunization as a biopolitical implication in the construction of the community, see Esposito 2011.
- 16.
On these two paradigms see Senellart (1989), that describes the shift—in the modern conception of the State—from the necessity (necessitas) of the war to establish a new state upon civic virtues (the preeminence of the political element in Machiavelli) to the rationality of the government to maintain the state against those forces that could lead to its dissolution (the economical dimension that presides over human activity in Botero).
- 17.
A new paradigm “in which (i) the mediatization of war (ii) makes possible more diffuse causal relation between action and effect, (iii) creating greater uncertainty for policymakers in the conduct of war” (Hoskins and O’Loughlin 2010, 3).
- 18.
Secondary identification is the possibility for the viewers to identify themselves with one of the characters of a given story; see Metz (1986).
- 19.
For a comprehensive outline of the history of this shift and its moral and philosophical implication, see Kaag and Kreps (2014).
- 20.
- 21.
This risk has been pointed out by Italian philosopher Pietro Montani in some of his works, particularly Montani 2007. Montani argues that the extensive use of technical devices can have a twofold consequence on our experience of the outer world: on the one hand, enhancing the possibilities of our imagination through an interactive relationship that truly augments reality; on the other hand, narrowing the scope of this relationship by programming and controlling external reality indulging our desires (for instance, by removing potential threats or disturbing elements). For Montani, this is the peculiar aesthetic answer to risk as a specific condition of modernity as described in Beck (1992).
- 22.
See Boyle (2020, 17): “The problem with this arguments is that they derive from the myth that drones eliminate risks, or at least radically reduce it. In reality, drones do not eliminate risk but rather redistribute it”.
- 23.
A critical perspective on this topic is developed by Chamayou (2015, particularly 106–124).
- 24.
As Mittel (2015, 345) states referring to Brody’s video confession at the end of Season 1 and the following appearances in Season 2: “The serial succession of characters viewing the video invokes Homeland ’s reflexive impulse as established in early episodes, in which viewers saw themselves mirrored in Carrie’s video surveillance of Brody, emphasizing the central role that the act of watching characters watch other characters in their most intimate and unguarded moments plays in Homeland; regular viewers learn that such scenes depicting one character watching another on a screen matter”.
- 25.
On this proximity see for instance Mansfield (2017).
- 26.
The relevance of the idea of “crisis” in the present discourses and for the present world is part of a broad investigation by French anthropologist Didier Fassin. Fassin is the first social scientist to be the recipient of the “NOMIS Distinguished Scientist and Scholar Award” “which will allow him to conduct a multi-sited project exploring the ubiquitous notion of crisis and its multiple meanings from a global perspective”, as stated in the website of the project Crisis. A Global Inquiry into the Contemporary Moment. A first outcome will be the forthcoming volume edited by Das and Fassin 2021.
- 27.
Ginzburg 2018b, 21–28. Ginzburg shows evidence of how the young Machiavelli was reading in the same period D’Andrea’s book and Tito Livio’s Decades, therefore suggesting the importance of these two texts of Machiavelli’s later works.
- 28.
Mormando 1995, 80. Here, Bernardino of Siena is quoting Gerardo of Siena, who in turn recalls the authority of Giovanni D’Andrea on this matter.
- 29.
- 30.
Jacoviello and Sbriccoli 2012. Creolization is the process of fusing together diverse identity and value features to give birth to a community that is not immunized by the contact with otherness, but rather is open to it.
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Tagliani, G. (2021). Invisible Ends Justify Secret Means: Homeland, Machiavelli, and the Least of All Possible Evils. In: Polegato, A., Benincasa, F. (eds) Machiavelli in Contemporary Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73823-5_6
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