Abstract
Schwanebeck’s chapter addresses the underlying phallic nature of the body politic and examines how the political arena depends on drastic proofs of virile masculinity, whilst at the same insisting on its celibacy. By focusing both on the history of the body politic motif (starting with the ancients) and on the recent British TV series The Thick of It (and its spin-off film, In the Loop), Schwanebeck draws connections between a time-honored tradition of political rhetoric and the contemporary political scene. In the process, he highlights the underlying conceptualization of phallic-aggressive manhood, which becomes manifest in the show’s characteristic idiom, particularly in the foul-mouthed rhetoric of its central character, spin doctor Malcolm Tucker.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
On some of the bizarre consequences which this division occasionally yielded (cases such as that of King Charles I, on whose authority as sovereign the parliament acted in order to attack his body natural), see Kantorowicz 3–4 and 21.
- 2.
Benjamin Bertram discusses the example of Shakespeare’s beloved drunkard Falstaff, whose demeanor subverts this image. With Falstaff, “circulation is driven by the anarchic energy of pleasure that disrupts the centripetal political force of corporeal metaphors” (313).
- 3.
Horst Bredekamp addresses the controversial question of who exactly drew the Leviathan, for the attribution to Abraham Bosse only came to be accepted recently (2006, 31–55).
- 4.
On the choice of the Biblical sea monster as an allusion to England’s mighty fleet cf. Bredekamp 2006, 23.
- 5.
I give short references to individual episode numbers in my subsequent discussion (e.g., 3.5 for series 3, episode 5), and use abbreviations for the two specials (SL for Spinners and Losers, RN for Rise of the Nutters) and for the film (IL for In the Loop), which features some of the series’s characters but is, according to the director’s audio commentary, set “in a parallel universe to The Thick of It” (3.5).
- 6.
The Scottish roots of The Thick of It’s political power players (Tucker and his colleague Jamie Macdonald) also mark an important shift in Westminster’s political elite, for it is the Oxbridge-bred public school type, represented by young Olly Reeder (Chris Addison), that used to be in charge and is now subject to regular humiliation on behalf of “the Caledonian mafia” (2.1), that is, the new bullies further up the food chain.
- 7.
Series writer Jesse Armstrong contributed a number of “election briefings” in Tucker’s name for The Guardian.
- 8.
Film critic Mark Kermode invited Campbell to a screening of In the Loop and asked for his comments. In the subsequent discussion, which can be watched on YouTube, Campbell admits to swearing a lot and to having coined some of the phrases Tucker uses; neither does he contradict when Kermode suggests Tucker be read as a cipher of him.
- 9.
In 1996, Blair allegedly got into an argument with Campbell over the fact that the latter wanted Blair’s children to attend a regular comprehensive school, which the Prime Minister rejected on the grounds that the children “had enough to put up with as it was” (Blair 88). This storyline was turned into the first episode of the third series, as was the power struggle between Blair and Gordon Brown in the two series specials. Furthermore, Campbell played a major role in the release of the two dossiers that served as the main justification of the Iraq invasion. In the film, Tucker manages to tip a United Nations vote in favor of the Americans and the British by forging intel on weapons of mass destruction. The fact that Tucker is mocked as a “little poodlefucker” at one point provides a clear reference to Tony Blair’s dubious reputation as “Bush’s poodle”.
- 10.
Other examples include Spin City (1996–2002), Wag the Dog (1997), The West Wing (1999–2006), Borgen (2010–2013), and Our Brand Is Crisis (2015).
- 11.
The manufacturing of pottery with images of “victorious soldiers with erect penises getting ready to rape the losers” was a common practice in Athens (Ducat 2004, 7), as was the production of Herma statues (later also found in Rome); sculptures initially dedicated to the Gods to celebrate their reproductive powers, but later also to outstanding men, such as politicians and war heroes. The Hermae merely consisted of heads and torso-like stone pillars on which genitals (mostly fully erect penises) had been carved. According to ancient historian Thucydides (2009), nothing ever shattered the national body in Greece as much as the sheer act of vandalism that occurred around 415 BC, when all the Hermae in Athens were castrated overnight, just as the mighty fleet was preparing its invasion of Sicily. In the sixth book of his History of the Peleponnesian War, Thucydides recounts that the mutilation of the Hermae was seen by some as part of “a scheme to overthrow the democracy”. I am indebted to PD Dr. Michael Groneberg for drawing my attention to the Hermae.
- 12.
How arbitrary it is to draw a link between the exhibition of brutality on the one hand and virility or masculinity on the other, is suggested in an exchange between General Miller and Assistant Secretary of State, Karen Clark (Mimi Kennedy), for she accuses Miller of having no balls when he decides to go to war instead of opposing it.
- 13.
The most well-known example would be the ‘Iron Lady’ Margaret Thatcher, the epitome of what Stephen J. Ducat calls the phallic woman in his case study of Hillary Rodham Clinton (cf. 129–149).
- 14.
Amongst the show’s opponents is the aforementioned Alistair Campbell, who voices some criticism in his conversation with Mark Kermode, arguing that In the Loop reduces the political process to a cartoon.
- 15.
Similarly, Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), In the Loop’s protagonist, is advised to keep his crush on Keira Knightley to himself during interviews: “Pervert. Sex. Minister. People don’t want to know.”
Works Cited
Bertram, Benjamin. “Falstaff’s Body, the Body Politic, and the Body of Trade.” Exemplaria 21.3 (2009): 296–318.
Blair, Tony. A Journey. London: Hutchinson, 2010.
Bredekamp, Horst. “Leviathan und Internet.” Schnittstelle: Medien und Kulturwissenschaften. Eds. Georg Stanitzek and Wilhelm Voßkamp. Köln: DuMont, 2001. 223–231.
——— Thomas Hobbes’ Der Leviathan. Das Urbild des modernen Staates und seine Gegenbilder, 1651–2001. Berlin: Akademie, 2006.
Brittan, Arthur. Masculinity and Power. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
Cicero. “Pro Murena.” In Catilinam I–IV, Pro Murena, Pro Sulla, Pro Flacco. Trans. C. MacDonald. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1977. 167–299.
Cicero. Letters to Friends. Ed. and trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001.
Connell, R.W. Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity P, 1996.
Derrida, Jacques. The Beast and the Sovereign. Eds. Michel Lisse, Marie-Louise Mallet, and Ginette Michaud. Trans. Geoffrey Bennington. Vol. 1. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2009.
Ducat, Stephen J. The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity. Boston: Beacon P, 2004.
Fairman, Christopher M. “Fuck.” Bepress Legal Series. The Berkeley Electronic P, 2006. Web. 29 March 2016. <http://works.bepress.com/christopher_fairman/12/>.
Haggard, H. Rider. King Solomon’s Mines. 1885. Ed. Dennis Butts. Oxford: OUP, 2008.
Halberstam, Judith. “An Introduction to Female Masculinity: Masculinity Without Men.” The Masculinity Studies Reader. Eds. Rachel Adams and David Savran. Malden: Blackwell, 1998. 355–374.
Harris, Jonathan Gil. Foreign Bodies and the Body Politic: Discourses of Social Pathology in Early Modern England. Cambridge: CUP, 1998.
Harrison, James R. Paul and the Imperial Authorities at Thessalonica and Rome: A Study in the Conflict of Ideology. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011.
Harvey, A. D. Body Politic: Political Metaphor and Political Violence. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2007.
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. 1651. Ed. J. C. A. Gaskin. Oxford: OUP, 1996.
Horlacher, Stefan. “Zur Frage der Präsenz ‘starker Frauen’ und der Dekonstruktion des Patriarchats in der englischen Renaissancetragödie unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von John Websters The Duchess of Malfi.” Anglia 128.2 (2010): 246–272.
Iannucci, Armando, et al. The Thick of It: The Missing DoSAC Files. London: Faber, 2010.
In the Loop. Dir. Armando Iannucci. Optimum, 2009.
Kantorowicz, Ernst H. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology. Princeton: PUP, 1957.
Lacan, Jacques. “The Significance of the Phallus.” The Routledge Language and Cultural Theory Reader. Eds. Lucy Burke, Tony Crowley, and Alan Girvin. London: Routledge, 2000. 132–138.
Lee, Jonathan Scott. Jacques Lacan. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1990.
Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. Trans. W. K. Marriott. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1990.
Pateman, Carol. “The Fraternal Social Contract.” The Masculinity Studies Reader. Eds. Rachel Adams and David Savran. Malden: Blackwell, 2002. 119–134.
Poole, Ralph J. “‘I Am the Worst Thing since Elvis Presley’. J T LeRoy, Eminem, and the Art of Hate Speech.” Twenty-First Century Fiction: Readings, Essays, Conversations. Ed. Christoph Ribbat. Heidelberg: Winter, 2005. 171–198.
Reeser, Todd W. Masculinities in Theory: An Introduction. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Rutherford, Jonathan. Men’s Silences: Predicaments in Masculinity. London: Routledge, 1992.
Schwanebeck, Wieland. “‘Lovers, Not Fighters’: The Body Politic and Its Restrained Libido.” A Man’s World? Political Masculinities in Literature and Culture. Eds. Kathleen Starck and Birgit Sauer. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2014. 141–154.
Seneca. “To Nero—On Mercy. [Ad Neronem—De Clementia].” Moral and Political Essays. Eds. and trans. John M. Cooper and J. F. Procopé. Cambridge: CUP, 1995. 117–164.
Shakespeare, William. Coriolanus. Ed. Lee Bliss. Cambridge: CUP, 2010.
Smith, David. “Jacob Zuma Goes to Court Over Painting Depicting His Genitals.” Guardian. 21 May 2012. Web. 29 March 2016. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/21/jacob-zuma-court-painting-genitals>.
“Thatcher-Doodle-Do: How Former PM Kept Sketches Made by Ronald Reagan During Meeting of World’s Seven Richest Countries.” Daily Mail. 17 Mar. 2012. Web. 29 March 2016. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2116284/Margaret-Thatcher-kept-sketches-drawn-Ronald-Reagan.html>.
Theweleit, Klaus. Male Fantasies, Vol. I: Women, Floods, Bodies, History. Trans. Stephen Conway, Erica Carter, and Chris Turner. Cambridge: Polity P, 1987.
The Thick of It: Complete Collection. Dir. Armando Iannucci. 2entertain, 2012a.
The Thick of It: Series 4. Dir. Natalie Bailey et al. 2entertain, 2012b.
Thucydides. The History of the Peleponnesian War. Trans. Richard Crawley. The Internet Classics Archive. Web Atomics, 2009. Web. 12 Nov. 2012. <http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.6.sixth.html>.
Williams, Tim. “Silvio Berlusconi’s Restoration Work is No Cock-Up.” Guardian. 22 Nov. 2010. Web. 29 March 2016. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/22/silvio-berlusconi-penis-statue>.
Wood, Neal. “Thomas Hobbes and the Crisis of the English Aristocracy.” Thomas Hobbes: Critical Assessments. Ed. Preston King. London: Routledge, 1993. 314–329.
Žižek, Slavoj. “Afterword: Lenin’s Choice.” V.I. Lenin: Revolution at the Gates. A Selection of Writings from February to October 1917. Ed. Slavoj Žižek. London: Verso, 2011. 165–312.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schwanebeck, W. (2017). Does the Body Politic Have No Genitals? The Thick of It and the Phallic Nature of the Political Arena . In: Horlacher, S., Floyd, K. (eds) Contemporary Masculinities in the UK and the US. Global Masculinities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50820-7_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50820-7_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-50819-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-50820-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)