If you haven’t seen the show House of Cards, I recommend you put it in the queue. It’s an incredibly well-done series that you can’t see on TV. The fourth episode of Season 2 of the hit Netflix series involves the events of one particular day in Washington where the now VP Frank Underwood (aka Kevin Spacey or the villain from that one Call of Duty) is scheduled to have an interview with his wife Claire (Robin Wright). However, Frank is quarantined at the Capitol due to a chemical threat and Claire has to go at the interview alone. Claire and Frank have a few skeletons in the closet and Claire is unnerved at whether or not one will pop up in the interview. The main subject of concern for Claire, Frank and the plot of the episode is around their stances on children—Frank not wanting one and Claire reluctantly agreeing to do as he wishes.
The interview starts off normally: Claire and the CNN reporter talk about Frank and the shared political aspirations that the couple have. Then, Claire starts being asked about why they do not have any children. Claire answers by saying that Frank was not a fan of kids and did not want one interfering with his political life. However, Claire cannot skate by with this answer as the reporter than grills abut medical records of the couple having an abortion recently come to the attention of the press. As a vice president, it would be hard for Frank to gain political influence if it was found that this report would be true due to the intense emotion and controversy surrounding abortions especially in politics. Well, turns out it’s true, just one of the many skeletons in the Underwood closet mentioned earlier. All Frank can do is sit in the small Capitol office and watch in horror as his wife can expose a part of their life they’ve spent decades hiding. Claire admits to the abortion which comes at a shock to the news crew in the room and to Frank but it is what comes afterwards that shocks more: she says the reason was because she was raped by a recently promoted Army general. This absolves herself and Claire from the public and political shame of the abortion and in fact makes her a hero in the eyes of women to have the courage to nationally admit her sexual assault and it leads to other allegations against the same man and he is eventually relieved.
Now, both the abortion and the assault are true. The problem: they have no coincidence. These events occurred separately and the abortion was Frank’s choice to avoid having a child of his own. A big moral conflict in the episode for Claire is if this is actually worth saying and going forward with? She is taking a horrible man out of power but is in fact lying about an abortion to bring it into the public eye. She doesn’t see herself as a hero when the public does. That allows the topic of gender roles to arise pertaining to not only Claire’s actions but the relationship with her and her husband.
Claire is seen to be a fairly independent and strong woman to the public—with her short, cropped haircut and suit to match. She is the head of a Clean Water Initiative in Washington and makes some ruthless business decisions as a boss. To her employees, she is like a monarch and her word is law in her office, very similar to her husband’s mindset. Speaking of her husband, throughout the House of Cards series, that strong role model for the nation’s women is subjected to a much more domesticated role as the submissive party in the couple instead of an equal force. The work of Frank as a strong-willed politician has influenced many of the couple’s and especially Claire’s actions throughout the series as Frank has risen himself up in the political circle through nefarious ways. While Claire is perceived as a tough, no-nonsense personality, to the viewer she shows weakness and sacrifices happiness for a chance at power and influence (such as staying with Frank despite being deeply in love with and having an affair with an independent photographer). Her actions in this episode further present this sacrifice and submission with the difference between her perception by the national viewers of her bold interview and the audience of her mental struggle with her lies and her life. Frank could not be more powerless in the situation he was in—a strange feeling for the Vice President. Quarantined in the Capitol, potentially full of anthrax or other terrorist disease that could kill him off within the day, not able to control his wife from the chair next to her, only watching. No power for him, no consequence for his wife. She could run away to her fantasies. Yet Frank still controls her. With all that going for her, she lives the lie once more. She continues to appease her husband just as she did with the abortion which caused this whole debacle to present itself. Even when she is seen as a brave woman to the feminist and female equality groups as well as assault victims, she is no ground-breaking female. No matter how she is perceived her actions spoke louder in this episode than the words of lies she spewed to the national media. Her want for power and control subdue her independent self: in her hasty marriage, her withdrawal from her lover, her avoidance from children against her own desires. In the patriarchal nature of politics, her actions as the wife can grab headlines and cause attention but, in reality, the viewer sees who the true power was held by—and he wasn’t even in the spotlight. Power is a main weapon and influence for Frank in the entire series and he uses it well to keep his wife in place: a heroic figurehead to the public, a pawn in his game.
The control and influence Claire experiences is relatable to the force of men, especially powerful ones, over the actions of many women in society. As a woman in society, power is not impossible but difficult to achieve so their solution is to be married to power. No matter how they are treated, power makes them subdued and controls their actions to be more favorable to the male’s wants. While the physical assault by the general is much more physically harmful to Claire, it is the mental assault on her by her husband that seems much more heartbreaking to you as the viewer.