In The diplomatWe follow the trip of Kate Wyler, American ambassador to the United Kingdom, when she finds it difficult to find who is responsible for an “ attack under false flag ” against a warship in the United Kingdom, adapts to her new role and to the suggestions that she could be the next American vice-president. Based on the broader sub-discipline of popular culture and global policy, the starting point for this article is that popular culture is political, and television programs are a space where security practices are made significant, legitimized and re-represented to the public. The diplomat It is somewhere that the public interprets their relationship with the United Kingdom and the United States at a time after the war against terrorism, forging often tacit ideas on gender, nationality and security.
As I have argued elsewhere, “who are our heroes and enemies tell us about the broader cultural and political context from which they emerge, and they are therefore linked to threat, / security and defense constructions.” Is it therefore a feminist spectacle throwing a doubt about the violent accepted practice of international diplomacy and the reference, or a captivating story of realistic IR with a secondary order of Natty One-Liners and a lot of time talking about hairstyles? Unpack The diplomat Represents an ambassador in the post-war period on terror, the post-Iraq moment and Afghanistan is worthy of learned attention. It allows us to explore how we negotiate our security and our national identities in the post-move.
The concept of “house” in a story can symbolize or represent the fatherland. Essentially, the story of the story can serve as a metaphor for the broader idea of the national state. In The diplomatKate’s house and the British homeland were shaken by American violence. That being said, The diplomat is part of a wider turn in security television programs to offer a more complicated and apparently ambivalent report on the place of the United States as a world hegemony and the actions of the war against terrorism. He also presents a female protagonist as a competent international actor. However, in this play, I suggest that these apparently critical gestures often re -register ideas on masculinity and femininity in global policy and the file of the importance of actually acting in a fundamentally anarchic world order.
Kate Wyler is positioned as an attentive and careful international actor. In negotiations with the Chief of the White House, she says Iranian American relations: “It is a fragile network of relations. But sometimes he does not tear it away. Do not be an infinitely voracious American. ” One of the rockets between herself and her husband concerns her authorization for the secret use of force in Lebanon. His sensitivity is underlined when a member of his team dies in a car Bomb and she finds it difficult to move on.
And yet, through the two seasons, Kate is more and more disciplined in the role, her naivety and her exposed delimitation for violence exposed as at the best idealistic and at worst naive. It begins as a critical voice against violence but makes (although uncomfortably) part of the institution which justifies and orders these actions. She says of the vice -president – accused of being behind the attack on the British warship who killed 43 naval staff – “I understand” and later, “she should not lose her job for making a decision that had to be made”.
In this narrative arch, we see two things that I may suggest as reaffirming America as the good guy, but in a much more nuanced way than the GUNG-Ho representation in the Bush JR war against terrorism and the popular cultural articulation of this position (think 24,, Collateral damage). The first is the general acceptance that violence is, although indicable, necessary to achieve a geopolitical advantage. The second is Kate’s representation as an idealized American security director. Rather than the male logic of central protection of war against terrorism, we now see a maternal protection logic. Security, vigilance and strength are always important, but they are re -articulated by a female face, emphasizing the humanitarian, attentive and relational experiences of international policy. According to Kate’s own words: “My staff is like my children. I have to protect them.” In this tense and complex relationship, Kate confirms that she is always on the side of America which, according to her, is “overall … do good”.
This corresponds to a broader decision to have female tracks in security stories that have been asserted to re-articulate American or British foreign policy and counter-terrorist activities. An Eisenstein movement criticized as “war against terrorism with a white female face”, or on which I wrote in relation to Country As the public’s distancing from the often protected violence of war against terrorism, but also reproducing the essential nature of counter-terrorist operations.
And while Kate learns to take a more masculinized realistic political position, she is also cajolée to adopt a more female and more kempt political character. The series stresses that there was only one United States ambassador to the United Kingdom. Seeing a strong female protagonist in a space where women have been both figurative and literally excluded seems to be a positive step. The same goes for Special additional requirements have put Kate to wear the right clothes and look in the right direction. It is not only an inclusion of women, but recognition of how gender stereotypes account for the conduct of political actors.
Similarly, this representation of Kate revisits a Ten Trope of the Tendon Gatée in which the female characters present features and behaviors traditionally associated with boys, as being adventurous, independent and rejecting conventional roles and activities. This trope generally implies that these characteristics contrast with the pretty and openly feminine villain. The ambassador is considered to be actively rejecting her female characteristics – she does not want to brush her hair, is uncomfortable in the dresses and it was not until the end of season 2 that she agreed to her power hairstyle with a low and tidy bread. His reluctance to be feminine is presented as a personality trait rather than an answer formed to taking seriously in an industry dominated by men. In personal and professional spheres, she is disciplined to comply with the respectable and accepted standards of sexospific – female behavior in the composure, but male in driving, grace and guts.
In short, The diplomat Offers a nuanced representation of the genre and security in popular culture, exposing traditional stories while simultaneously strengthening certain stereotypes. Kate Wyler’s journey in a critical voice against violence to a reluctant participant in the very system that she calls into question allows the public to cross his own relationship with American sanctioned violence. The series highlights the persistent need for strength and vigilance in a chaotic world order, but through a more humanitarian and relational lens which shrinks rather than reworking our understanding of America as a good guy. By positioning a female protagonist in a domain traditionally dominated by men, The diplomat seems to criticize but often reaffirms the sexospecific dynamics of international security. And all this is supported by a plot that involves the Russians … but it is for another time.
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