What is the main promotional image of House of Cards trying to portray?
The main promotional image of Netflix's House of Cards shows Kevin Spacy's character of Frank Underwood sitting in place of Lincoln on the Lincoln Monument against a silvery background:
What kind of message is this image trying to portray about Underwood and the series as a whole?
Best Answer
From dear Wikipedia
House of Cards is the story of Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), a Democrat from South Carolina's 5th congressional district and the House Majority Whip, who, after getting passed over for promotion to Secretary of State, decides to exact his revenge on those who betrayed him.
The Lincoln monument helps convey the political subject matter and the Washington DC setting.
Spacey's knuckles are bloody, as if he has been punching people -- helping the image tie in with the "exact his revenge" bit.
The upside-down US flag perhaps suggests the show is set at a time of crisis (upside-down flag is a sign for distress at sea, as troubled boats turn their flags upside-down) -- or perhaps that Spacey's character is using his position in US government toward twisted ends.
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Why is House of Cards Popular?
The success of "House of Cards" helped legitimize Netflix and proved consumers were hungry for shows with shorter seasons (many Netflix shows have just 8-13 episodes) that they could view in a few sittings -- a term we now all know as binge watching.Where is the set of House of Cards?
Most of the interior scenes in House of Cards are filmed in a large industrial warehouse, which is located in Joppa, Maryland, also in Harford County, which is about 17 miles (27 km) northeast of Baltimore.Frank Underwood Presidential Portrait Unveiling - House of Cards | Smithsonian NPG | Netflix
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Answer 2
The issue of the upside-down flag has been answered elsewhere, so to expand Shiz Z.'s answer on the Lincoln Memorial reference, I would say that the blood in Underwood's hand suggests that he's a ruthless, maybe violent character. He's in the place of a former United States president, so he probably wants to be the president himself.
Lincoln symbolizes (as do the statue and the Memorial themselves) important values of American politics like democracy, freedom, and civil rights. Underwood in place of Lincoln could be a comparison in positive or negative/opposing aspects. The blood in his hands and over the statue indicates the second case, so Underwood seems to be the opposite of Lincoln: autocratic and having little respect for democratic values. Also, it may be an optical illusion (caused by the color of his clothes), but Underwood seems relatively small sitting in Lincoln's chair, as if he would be a lesser person/president than Lincoln.
Besides that, replacing Lincoln in the Memorial statue has been used before to provoke surprise and reflections about the importance of some characters in the history of a nation – remarkably, in The Planet of the Apes from 2001:
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