Polityka demoniczna versus polityka trudnych kompromisów. „House of Cards” i „Borgen” jako political fiction

Abstract

Relationships between politics and popular culture are long-term and diverse, yet only in the recent decade or two have they been submitted to the scholarly research. They can be examined from two perspectives: the use of popular culture by the politicians to achieve their goals, and the depiction of politics in the culture itself. The article does focus on the latter, as it is centred around the political tv series being the elements of the phenomenon of the representation and negotiation of politics in the entertainment genres that can be termed politicotainment. Political tv series as depicted here do not usually attempt the dramatization of the real events, yet they do, to some relevant extent, represent the observations and experiences of their creators, thus being inspired by the real people and the real events. The article outlines typology of political fi lms and tv series, discusses the ways of presenting politics in political fi ction drama, as well ss the reason for their popularity. In order to highlight the complexity of the analysed phenomenon, two popular and signifi cantly different series are used as a reference: Netflix’s “House of Cards” and Danish “Borgen”.