I’ve been re-watching House of Cards in anticipation of season 4. The show, like Kevin Spacey’s accent, is silly and unrealistic, but undeniably entertaining. It’s a soap opera, but its fantasy is also consistent and compelling. In this way, I see it as a 21st century Hamlet. There are several ways I can think of, off the top of my head, in which this Netflix binge-streamer is heavily influenced by Shakespeare’s 1603 masterpiece; both have:
- a realistic backdrop/setting that is mysterious to most audiences, which allows the more unrealistic aspects of its fantasy to better play out.
- main characters who are powerful & affluent but behave as petty & self-interested as a person can behave.
- insights into human nature seen through an exaggerated, pessimistic, and existential bias or point of view.
- a plot based on nothing but a struggle for power.
- over the top actions taken by characters in that struggle.
- a lot of overly dramatic asides that include theatrical monologues.
- loose reflections on real life events that dramatize real-life political cultures driven largely by greed.
- and, of course, dialogue that is delivered in a constant deluge of metaphors.
A lot of these items can be seen as recurring themes in many works of Western literature over the past 400 years, but this internet show doesn’t just show them, it fully functions on them, playing on the imagination of the audience at theater or the viewer at home, and it’s unabashedly aware that it is doing so. What does all this mean to the average viewer? Same thing that it did 400 years ago- a hell of a fun time. – markolius 
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