{"id":955,"date":"2025-09-16T10:32:29","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T09:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/statesofculturalanalysis\/?page_id=955"},"modified":"2025-11-08T11:51:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T11:51:20","slug":"melodrama-the-political-promiscuity-of-high-emotion","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/statesofculturalanalysis\/melodrama-the-political-promiscuity-of-high-emotion\/","title":{"rendered":"Melodrama: The Political Promiscuity of High Emotion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
The Cultural Location of fascism<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

By Sita Balani<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Since the mid 2010s, analyses of the cultural politics of the far right have focussed on irony, humour, trolling, and other nihilistic or deflationary habits of online cultures. The \u2018manosphere\u2019 has been a prominent object of concern, with 2014\u2019s \u2018Gamergate\u2019 acting as an inflection point, bringing the aggression and misogyny incubating in gamer culture into mainstream awareness. More recent interventions, in particular those made by Richard Seymour, capture the ways in which the resentments of these digital worlds find realisation in the libidinal currents of networked mob violence: in the tempo of what Seymour calls \u2018disaster nationalism,\u2019 moments of elation are punctuated by melancholic or depressive episodes.1<\/a><\/sup> While ressentiment, conspiracism, and hallucinatory obsessions may dominate far right online cultures, authoritarian projects make highly effective use of other vectors of emotion, particularly when attempting to speak to a broader base and via the still-powerful domains of legacy media. I propose that we need to give greater attention to sincere, high emotion of the kind we associate with melodrama in order to grasp the full cultural range of the right more effectively, not least for its capacity to communicate across gender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further, in thinking about melodrama, we should attend to its slippery political promiscuity. While suffering is certainly not a sufficient basis for left politics, its recognition is nonetheless a necessary component: as Gargi Bhattacharyya observes in their meditation on heartbreak, \u2018brokenheartedness thins our skins so we become open to others.\u20192<\/a><\/sup> In their capacity to generate this openness, narratives of suffering are not only available to liberatory politics but essential to the development of left wing movements. Screen melodramas may provide the cultural resources for left politics through their use of the \u2018double gesture\u2019 which both polarises and offers the possibility of reconnection or affirmation.3<\/a><\/sup> While melodrama can simply turn on the exclusion of the villain, in other iterations of the genre, the possibility of reconciliation is built into the narrative structure, thus gesturing towards a horizon of social transformation. When used to tell stories from below, melodrama may have a distinctive capacity to channel the \u2018heartbreak\u2019 that Bhattacharyya observes as the \u2018class consciousness of racial capitalism.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dominance of Bollywood films in India, telenovelas across Latin America, and the international popularity of South Korea\u2019s \u2018K-dramas\u2019 attest to the global purchase of melodrama as a genre which focuses on family stories. The regional variations on this global meta-genre are particularly notable given the ways in which family stories function as national allegories. The persistence of dynastic politics in the Global South is well documented (the Marcoses in the Philippines, the Gandhis in India), and echoed in North America (the Trudeaus in Canada; the Clintons and Bush families in the USA). Indeed, the involvement of Trump\u2019s children in American politics suggests a new political dynasty may be in the making. Though beyond this short essay, there is scope for a comparative analysis of how melodrama as a mode operates in the theatre of nationalism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To elaborate on this distinction between genre and mode: As a genre, melodrama emerges post-Enlightenment, seeking to make moral principles legible within secular narrative. It is in film and television, however, that the mass political use of melodrama can be grasped. Drawing on Peter Brooks, we can see that \u2018melodrama becomes particularly important at historical junctures in which marked ideological conflicts must be resolved, and it does so by defining a system of values which achieve a quasi-religious significance: the \u201cmoral occult.\u201d\u20194<\/a><\/sup> Narratives focus on the sufferings of intimate, domestic, and family life subjected to the pressures of \u2018evil\u2019 \u2013 whether embodied by a character or social force. Melodrama as a mode, however, is more diffuse, developed across media portrayals, speeches, rallies, YouTube videos, reality television appearances, and interviews that construct a Manichean world of victims and perpetrators, innocents and wrongdoers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genre and mode can work together in authoritarian regimes. In Europe\u2019s twentieth century fascisms, for example, film melodrama was a key technology: indeed, Nazi Germany made ten times as many melodramas as they did war films. In the Philippines, melodrama played a key role in securing authoritarian rule through \u2018the melodramatic story of how Marcos rose to power by creating a national family, a political fantasy that was both seductive and treacherous in its claims to transform the nation into a postcolonial utopia via a dictatorship of love.\u20195<\/a><\/sup> This political fantasy was propelled by the clever use of film. The 1965 film Iginuhit ng Tadhana<\/em> (Drawn by Destiny<\/em>) was key to Ferdinand Marcos\u2019 presidential campaign: his love story with Imelda was presented as his romantic destiny, and the rule of this glamorous, powerful couple was then the destiny of the nation. Their cinematic portrayal could then be naturalised by other forms of political communication. A concerted campaign to rebrand the Marcos family and pave the way for their return to power in the twenty-first century has been equally reliant on melodrama, with the telenovela acting as the generic source material through which BongBong Marcos has crafted his image as the underdog protagonist (or bida<\/em>, in the idiom of the telenovela) in the national drama.6<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, however, I want to focus on American political aesthetics. An example from Trump\u2019s first presidency is instructive. Following his appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, several women, including Christine Blasey Ford who had met Kavanaugh as a teenager, accused him of sexual assault. Ford\u2019s testimony, given at a televised Senate judiciary committee, was a key inflection point in Trump\u2019s first term in office. Her testimony mirrors a conventional narrative structure from film melodrama in which the plot turns on rape committed by an aristocratic villain. While Trump went on to mock and belittle Ford, his initial response tells us something more complex: \u2018\u2018I think her testimony was very compelling. She looks like a very fine woman to me\u2026 a very fine woman. And I thought that Brett\u2019s testimony, likewise, was really something that I haven\u2019t seen before. It was incredible, an incredible moment in the history of our country. But that certainly she was a very credible witness, very good in many respects.\u2019 In this \u2018review\u2019 given on television news, Trump models an audience\u2019s response to film melodrama. In these more sympathetic comments on Ford (overshadowed by the later sneering) we catch a glimpse of an underlying cultural logic which channels melodrama\u2019s high emotion, domestic setting, eroticisation of sexual violence, and personalisation of political conflict into the theatre of political communications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sense of high sentiment is also expressed in Trump\u2019s verbal ticks (Sad! Beautiful!). While he is often considered as a \u2018strong man,\u2019 channelling rage and ressentiment, equally we might view his style as eschewing the sobriety of the statesman in favour of one that privileges intimacy, emotion, and intensity. This dimension of right wing repertoires of masculinity can be seen in the appeal of Jordan Peterson, whose tremulous voice often gives way to sobs when he speaks about the suffering of boys and men. In an extended interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored<\/em> (which boasts over 4 million YouTube subscribers), Peterson asserts through his tears that what moves him is the \u2018paradoxical combination of depth of suffering and ease of rectification.\u2019 Arguably, this description could apply to melodrama, which insists on a certain moral clarity in which the viewer\u2019s compassion is heightened by the wanton, avoidable nature of a character\u2019s pain. Morgan\u2019s response to Peterson is also instructive. Like Trump, he offers a kind of review: \u2018I think this has been our best interview.\u2019 His praise for Peterson\u2019s performance turns on its authenticity: \u2018the fact it moves you so much [\u2026] says it all. If you didn’t genuinely care you wouldn’t get emotional talking about this stuff.\u20197<\/a><\/sup> As in melodrama, the claim of moral simplicity is tied to the experience of high emotion: sincerity acts as a guarantor of truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can trace the thread of melodrama through seemingly disparate cultural sites. Critics have rightly identified the sports entertainment franchise WWE as a key part of Trump\u2019s ascendency, not only through his participation (as performer and as financial backer), but also in the way he draws from its narrative playbook (alternating between being a \u2018face\u2019 and a \u2018heel\u2019; always remaining \u2018in character\u2019 as per the practice of \u2018kayfabe\u2019). If we consider melodrama as a mode rather than a genre, we can detach it from its coding as women\u2019s cinema, and see how professional wrestling \u2018describes conflict in a polemical manner, avoiding elaboration of the low-contrast shades of facts and details.\u20198<\/a><\/sup> A proposed incest storyline in WWE (in which the franchiser owner Vince McMahon was to father his daughter\u2019s child) bears an uncanny resemblance to Trump\u2019s own disturbing remarks (\u201cIf Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her”). However tawdry, the appeal of these plot lines goes beyond the particular sexual aggression incubating in these high-profile families and draws on older and more established narrative currents. Where in Greek tragedy, the fate of the realm is at stake, in these sleazy small screen narratives, the blunt narrativisation of incestuous desire only reveals a kind of shamelessness. While we may watch in rapt fascination, we feel neither implicated nor indignant: these are just rich, famous people that know no limits and can be held to no moral or social standard. As Cecilia Lero observes in the Filipino context, \u2018the image of politics as exclusive to elite families\u2019 has a demobilizing effect.9<\/a><\/sup> We are invited not to judge, which would imply some relationship of parity, but to spectate, cementing the position of subordination to power that fascistic politics requires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, I want to insist screen melodrama has no determinate or inevitable relationship with hard right politics. Indeed, I would argue that its potency can be used to more progressive ends, for example in the work of Barry Jenkins (Moonlight<\/em>, 2016; If Beale Street Could Talk<\/em>, 2018), in the longstanding BBC drama, Call the Midwife<\/em>, and the recent A. V. Rockwell film A Thousand and One<\/em> (2023). The latter is particularly instructive. Set in New York between 1994 and 2005, the film follows Inez, a young woman leaving Rikers Island aged 22, carrying the weight of a life lived in the care system, on the streets, and in prison. Returning to Brooklyn, she is searching for Terry, the child she left behind. Unable to bear the thought of his likely suffering as a ward of the state, Inez takes Terry, and the two escape to Harlem. Later, Inez\u2019 lover (though not the father of Terry) also returns from prison, and the three of them forge a family in the teeth of criminalisation, gentrification, and poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the characters bear the deep wounds of abandonment, they seek \u2013 and sometimes find \u2013 sanctuary in each other. The film allows only brief moments of respite for Inez, Terry, and Lucky \u2013 so too for the viewer. More often, we see their bids for connection fail or falter, as each character finds it easier to express affection and desire through anger. Yet though the sequences of joy or intimacy are limited, they act as the film\u2019s core, sustaining its forays into more melodramatic territory. Crucially, however, unlike in authoritarian melodrama, the limits the characters encounter are not attributed to an individual \u2018villain\u2019 but a broader set of forces. Gary Gunn\u2019s languid score is punctuated by real audio clips of New York Mayors, Rudi Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, setting out their neoliberal, socially cleansed vision of New York. The characters through which their agenda is enacted \u2013 the landlords, teachers, and social workers \u2013 are menacing but not \u2018evil\u2019. In its use of the double gesture, the film implies that the villains too are products of circumstances \u2013 they too could be redeemed. Crucially, the protagonist is no innocent victim: rather, the film\u2019s moral clarity is generated by the complexity of Inez, who Teyana Taylor plays as defiant, ruthless, quick to criticise and even use violence, as well as determined, resourceful, and loyal. She is not always likeable, but we are under no illusions as to why she might have developed a hard exterior, a sharp tongue, and a disdain for authority. As the narrative hurtles towards a devastating revelation, moral clarity is found not in the innocence of the characters but in the abjection, cruelty, and absurdity of the system that condemns them. Watching A Thousand and One<\/em> as Zohran Mamdani sets out his own vision of urban life \u2013 with a programme that would reclaim New York City for Inez, Lucky, and Terry \u2013 the film\u2019s political critique is sharpened by the possibility of its activation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The risk for us, however, is that, even from below, melodrama may invite spectatorship. We are asked to assess the authenticity of another\u2019s tears, to review their pain, to make political judgements based on a performance of emotional depth. Strong feeling is neither inherently communal (as affect theorists insist) nor entirely individualising (as Enlightenment thinking warned). Rather, compassion for suffering pulls in both directions, albeit unevenly. This is less a problem for the right, who largely seek supine spectators. But if one hopes for a left political subject \u2013 a subject capable of collective action \u2013 we can neither afford to rely on high emotion, nor to avoid it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Previous<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Next<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
  1. Richard Seymour, Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilization<\/em> (London: Verso Books, 2024) \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  2. Gargi Bhattacharyya, \u201cWe, the heartbroken,\u201d Pluto Press (blog)<\/em>, posted 2020, accessed September 5, 2025, Pluto Press<\/em>, https:\/\/www.plutobooks.com\/blog\/we-the-heartbroken<\/a> \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  3. Scott Peeples and Alexandra Schneider, \u201cMelodrama and the Double Gesture,\u201d Journal of Film and Media Studies<\/em> 12, no. 2 (2024): 130. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  4. Laura Julia Heins, \u201cThe Domestic War: Film Melodrama and German Fascism\u201d (PhD diss., Yale University, 2005). \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  5. Talitha Espiritu, Passionate Revolutions: The Media and the Rise and Fall of the Marcos Regime<\/em> (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2017). \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  6. Cecilia Lero, \u201cWhy Philippine Politics Resembles a Modern-Day Telenovela,\u201d Journal of Democracy<\/em>, Online Exclusive, July 2024, accessed September 5, 2025, Journal of Democracy<\/em>, https:\/\/www.journalofdemocracy.org\/online-exclusive\/why-philippine-politics-resembles-a-modern-day-telenovela\/<\/a> \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  7. \u201cJordan Peterson in Tears During Piers Morgan Interview,\u201d Piers Morgan Uncensored<\/em>, YouTube video, 2023, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=V2EGmmoCxro&t=4145s \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  8. Heins \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  9. Lero \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Sita Balani Since the mid 2010s, analyses of the cultural politics of the far right have focussed on irony, humour, trolling, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"[{\"id\":\"71c6fc76-eb92-4445-b98f-bdb54862757f\",\"content\":\"Richard Seymour, Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilization<\\\/em> (London: Verso Books, 2024)\"},{\"id\":\"7fa64f1f-1dc7-4049-ba24-a29656a59960\",\"content\":\"Gargi Bhattacharyya, \\u201cWe, the heartbroken,\\u201d Pluto Press (blog)<\\\/em>, posted 2020, accessed September 5, 2025, Pluto Press<\\\/em>, https:\\\/\\\/www.plutobooks.com\\\/blog\\\/we-the-heartbroken<\\\/a>\"},{\"id\":\"f77c9fae-30a8-4771-ad7f-4af798b0a68e\",\"content\":\"Scott Peeples and Alexandra Schneider, \\u201cMelodrama and the Double Gesture,\\u201d Journal of Film and Media Studies<\\\/em> 12, no. 2 (2024): 130.\"},{\"id\":\"4dcb9b37-6832-406b-a958-066e61e8748f\",\"content\":\"Laura Julia Heins, \\u201cThe Domestic War: Film Melodrama and German Fascism\\u201d (PhD diss., Yale University, 2005).\"},{\"id\":\"9418c3e0-2a52-499e-a83a-5563b11a7b01\",\"content\":\"Talitha Espiritu, Passionate Revolutions: The Media and the Rise and Fall of the Marcos Regime<\\\/em> (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2017).\"},{\"id\":\"ad46be98-8754-4768-a24c-843d44eb6c6c\",\"content\":\"Cecilia Lero, \\u201cWhy Philippine Politics Resembles a Modern-Day Telenovela,\\u201d Journal of Democracy<\\\/em>, Online Exclusive, July 2024, accessed September 5, 2025, Journal of Democracy<\\\/em>, https:\\\/\\\/www.journalofdemocracy.org\\\/online-exclusive\\\/why-philippine-politics-resembles-a-modern-day-telenovela\\\/<\\\/a>\"},{\"id\":\"751c853d-1aca-4d40-9fba-3a04c7886606\",\"content\":\"\\u201cJordan Peterson in Tears During Piers Morgan Interview,\\u201d Piers Morgan Uncensored<\\\/em>, YouTube video, 2023, https:\\\/\\\/www.youtube.com\\\/watch?v=V2EGmmoCxro&t=4145s\"},{\"id\":\"fb7c1bf2-87fc-468d-916e-197e8e375b10\",\"content\":\"Heins\"},{\"id\":\"28dde0d7-c540-4ba0-9b5d-ba51bd04e176\",\"content\":\"Lero\"}]"},"class_list":["post-955","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/statesofculturalanalysis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/statesofculturalanalysis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/statesofculturalanalysis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/statesofculturalanalysis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/statesofculturalanalysis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/statesofculturalanalysis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1315,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/statesofculturalanalysis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/955\/revisions\/1315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/statesofculturalanalysis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}