USA Network’s Mr. Robot: I Hack, Therefore I Am – or Am I?

By Mario Rader

Picture found here

American fiction is replete with signature openings. “All this happened, more or less” from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five is a case in point; “I am an invisible man” jump-starting Ralph Ellison’s eponymous novel is another. And what about that most iconic of introductions “Call me Ishmael,” as featured in Moby Dick? All three lines attract our attention since they break with the aesthetic illusion and the conventional semantics generally associated with storytelling. It is in this line of tradition that we are introduced to what is arguably the biggest televisual happening of the year:

"Hello, friend. Hello, friend? That’s lame. Maybe I should give you a name. But that’s a slippery slope. You’re only in my head. We have to remember that."

The Peculiar Case of Carrie Mathison, Or: Be That Woman or Die Trying

With the upcoming season premiere of my all-time favorite binge watching delights, Showtime's Homeland, I'm already hyped for the return of one of the most fully fledged, nuanced and refreshing female protagonist that contemporary US-American prime time drama has to offer: Carrie Mathison.

Many of you, my dear readers, might agree (like this commentary), while even more will differ (see here and here), in particular because the character of Carrie seems to lend itself so perfectly to be read as both a feminist role model and the worst thing that has happened to the televisual portrayal of women since the neoliberal, post-feminist fantasy of Sex and the City.

So, what to make of bi-polar, single mother, CIA agent Carrie Mathison, played by Claire Danes? Which one shall it be - Yay, she's a feminist? Nay, she's so not?

Picture: Showtime