Tom and I are back again with another Homeland review show. This week we begin by exploring Homeland’s blatant sexism and misogny. We focus first on Carrie and her characters return to bi-polar nymphomaniac, and how the show has routinely made Carrie into an awful female character that we all hate. Tom and I discuss our theories for why the producers have continued to make Carrie into a monster and how this translates into a larger picture of how we view the CIA through Carrie. We also discuss how Quinn has fast become our favorite character despite the fact that he represents some of the worst aspects of the CIA. Later we break down the hacker character Newman and explore the notion that he is a “Reel Bad Arab.” We round out the conversation by diving into the geopolitical topics explored in this episode including: CIA coup in Syria, Snowden selling secrets to Russia, and Israel’s role in the Syrian War. We finish by discussing the recent story about several street artists “hacking” the Homeland set.
Continuing our review series of the 5th season of Homeland Pearse joined me to discuss the second episode. We dwelt on the coinciding of real news events and storylines and dialogue in Homeland, asking how the show manages to pull this off so consistently. This episode establishes that former CIA black operations officer John MacGaffin is still working on the show, and we expanded on many of the topics from episode 1 – Syria, ISIS, Laura Poitras, the Snowden affair – showing how each real life topic is an explicit inspiration for this fictional series. The conversation also touched on the concept of hyperreality which is as relevant to Homeland as it is to any other TV show out there. We wrap up by asking for more of your comments and predictions for this new season.
In honor of our favorite CIA television show, Homeland, Tom Secker and I have decided to cover every single episode with a separate podcast. We’ll be switching off hosting duties every other week.
In this inaugural episode, we take a brief look back to where all of our favorite characters left off at the end of season 4. Jumping ahead two and a half years, we see that Carrie has left the CIA, Saul has been promoted, and Quinn seems as crazy as ever. Tom and I discuss the new setting of this season, Berlin, and the implications of locating it in Western Europe. We also get into some of the major plot themes being laid out including: Edward Snowden, mass surveillance, ISIS and the threat of Islamic sleeper cells all over Europe. We break down how this season seems geared towards more of a niche audience immersed in the intelligence world, and round out this episode with our predictions for the rest of the season.
“Once more my good friend Pearse Redmond of Porkins Policy Radio joined me to discuss the latest series of Homeland, the CIA’s pet TV project. We looked at how the show has been rebooted in this season, with a much more aggressive and ambitious purpose both in mythologizing past events and predicting future ones. From 9/11 to the ISIS beheadings to drone strikes to The Lone Gladio, this is typically wide ranging conversation on one of the most important shows currently on TV.”
This week I am joined once again by Tom Secker and Jon Ryman for a roundtable discussion about white female terrorists. We take a look at how white female terrorists have been portrayed in Hollywood movies and TV shows, and examine how these cartoonish representations mimic real life white female terrorists. We, of course, take a look at one of our favorite white female terrorists, Samantha Lewthwaite, as well as the less known, but equally important, “Jihad Jane.” We discuss the celebrity status of the white female terrorist in Western society, and how this meme really represents the coming together of several different aspects of the war on terror. We also speak more broadly about the ever-evolving synthetic War on Terror and how all these pieces fit together.
We are finally back! On today’s episode we take a look at the recent release of American POW Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for 5 Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. Instead of focusing on the various theories as to why he left, and what he was actually doing, we dive into the psy-op that has been carefully constructed for us. We discuss the predictive programing elements, how the alt media has been fooled yet again, as well as what this means in terms of the evolving war on our reality. The Bowe Bergdahl saga represents a new stage of the blurring of reality and fiction and therefore deserves our attention.
This episode was a little rough to record due to the long gap in the podcasting schedule so my apologies if it seems a bit all over the place. Rest assured we will be returning to a normal schedule and much tighter episodes in the near future.
I recently had the great pleasure of joining our friend Tom Secker again on ClandesTime to time to talk about the CIA-sponsored T.V. show Homeland. We had a detailed talk about the Agency’s links to the production of the show, its critical success, the meaning behind the title, characters, themes, and its possible predictive-programing elements. Me and Tom also explored the world views and values that the show pushes on a global audience.
Porkins Policy Review 