The Victim In the White Castle
How It Could’ve Been So Much Worse
A previous version of this article actually argued the opposite viewpoint. In re-watching the series I’ve decided to reverse course.
I read The Man in the High Castle a few years ago, and found it very hard to finish. I suppose I’d have been more forgiving had someone told me it was written in 1962, and that the author was Philip K. Dick, who also wrote Blade Runner. It wasn’t the fact that High Castle was less science fiction and more philosophical — a fact that disappointed many others — but the fact that it reeked of this simpering need for White America to always play the scrappy, victimized, rebel underdog.
Then the show was released on Amazon, and I had no interest whatsoever in watching it. But after re-watching Parks and Recreation for the third time, I was running out of things to watch. (Yes, the seventh season was a mistake).
In a political climate where it’s becoming increasingly easier to cater to polarized and politicized (read: idiotic) viewpoints, High Castle has managed to actually produce something progressive and deeply thought-provoking.
And, before I go on, let me just mention that I love the show’s very thoroughly thought-through set designs (well, except for the swaststikas being everywhere), great photography, and all-around excellent production values. While the first season suffered from a bit of a slow plot and constipated character development, a lot of this was remedied in a much fresher second season, for an overall fantastic show that’s quite original and impressive.
And, if it wasn’t obvious yet: major spoilers ahead.
So, I guess what I’m applauding High Castle for is for not doing something. Which, is not as empty as it sounds. Okay, here goes:
The issue stems from a larger cultural issue specific to Americans. There’s no denying America is an empire, the more-or-less unchallenged superpower of the world. Yet, American culture seems strangely unable to admit this. What we love about our history are the scrappy, down-to-earth types that stand up fer what’s right and don’ let nobody tell ’em otherwise.
Consider The Patriot. Was the main character the upper-class, educated,George Washington? Nope. It was just an honest farmer-type, retired from fighting (because all American god-hero types are some type of military serviceman), who adopted an isolationist, mind-my-own-business policy until some British dicks came along and popped some holes in his son. And of course, this gives the Patriotic Benjamin Martin all the moral justification needed to start slaughtering redcoats, which he does, roughly 5 minutes later, for the next 90 minutes. The whole film was just a redneck wet dream, a fantasy. Our revolution was led by the same uppity types we think we actually hate.
Something about our American psyche refuses to let us believe that we’re a country of rich, upper-class, imperialists. That role is relegated to the British. We’d rather be an empire while pretending we’re still the good guys.
Isn’t that why we’re also obsessed with 300? That travesty gets its own article, but the takeaway here is that we love the struggle of the hardy underdog against the proud, vastly more numerous (and racially browner) enemy.
There’s a tense discomfort about the American identity: we’re not the underdog. We’re the top dog. And we are not acting like a nice top dog should. We’re hypocrites. We overthrow democratic governments, build military bases in countless sovereign nations, and ignore pretty much everything the United Nations has to say. And I haven’t even started on how we’re doing on the domestic front.
So there’s two major (bad) reactions we can choose, when confronting this contradiction. The first is to embrace our hypocrisy; You know, ‘Murica, guns, balls on trucks, and all that. Just rolling around in our privilege and insisting we’re the best country in the world because freedom. Joking that we export democracy to other countries by occupying them. Ha, ha. Hilarious.
The other reaction is to stay in denial, insisting and promoting this image that we are in fact not an empire and are in fact, the victims.
So how do we restore the American underdog spirit? Easy: force us under the yoke of an indisputably evil power, so we can relive our fantasy of being gun-toting freedom fighters.
So, where does The Man in the High Castle come in?
Well, an America occupied by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan seems like the perfect backdrop for creating a sad American populace. “Boo-hoo, we’re being trampled on for being racially and socially inferior. Look at how much suffering we have to go through. This certainly calls for us to grab our guns and shoot for justice and freedom.”
This is not to say that sentiment does not show up.
And, you know, really getting under our cultural skins by posing racial sex threats to the White Woman, the ultimate prize.
In the first season, there’s quite a bit of over-the-top “we lost the war so now we can’t be free” dialogue, which is sort of grating. It’s not to say that we wouldn’t be treated like dog shit if we’d lost the war, but it’s too prescient, leaking too much of our real-world cultural sensibilities in (which, I know, is sort of the theme but not in this regard). But the rest of the show is much more nuanced. Take, for example, Childan, the slimy antique dealer, who has a weirdly fetishistic obsession for the Japanese, rooted in his own racial inferiority complex, juxtaposed against the Japanese upper-class fetishistic obsession with American historical antiques.
It’s a very thought-provoking exploration of this historical what-if scenario. It isn’t a black-and-white, “they’re the enemy, we’re the good guys” take.
The far more powerful example of this is Obergruppenführer Smith.
The show already stretches the red-blooded, American superiority psyche by plastering swastikas on the Star-spangled banner, the Statue of Liberty, military uniforms, New York City, and TV shows. It’s daring, and also a bit over the top.
But far more incisive, I think, is the fact that Smith is initially introduced as the epitome of evil — An American who wears the swastika proudly, tortures fellow Americans, and salutes the Führer — and then, they start revealing his personal life.
He represents and upholds almost everything we think of as good, strong, American values. The nuclear family, hard work, patriotism, a nice quiet suburban life, and even the pressed suit and tie.
He’s even got the nice, chiseled face, the raspy, down-to-earth voice, broad shoulders, and everything we imagine in our ideal image of the loyal American soldier. Because he was one.
In a show that could’ve easily featured a cast of White freedom fighters slowly and righteously taking down the evil foreign fascist tyrants and re-establishing ‘Murica, High Castle chose instead to question who we as Americans really are, and if our values mean anything at all. Everyone started this show rooting for the Resistance to bring down the Nazis and “Nips”. But the Resistance turned out to be morally bankrupt, as the reality of what it takes to run a guerrilla war actually sank in, aka, becoming terrorists. And then we all found ourselves nauseated, because we were actually rooting for Smith and his efforts to preserve the Reich.
That moment where you actually were happy for Himmler? Yeah, that’s some seriously messed up TV. Well-written TV. But seriously. Messed up.
I haven’t even covered the Japanese part of all this, but I think you should just watch the show. I heartily recommend it.
