Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
So I actually had to read into the history of political thrillers to answer this, because how they've changed before is kind of the biggest hint. All The President's Men is around that old, and while of course it was based on real events, it's pretty modern in the other ways. Technologies, settings and the inspiring fears might change (like all the terrorism-related plots after 9/11), but it could be that not much else does.
The other people mentioning it might not be allowed have a point. House Of Cards was huge in China, and it's been suggested that that was due to the total impossibility of any depicting any remotely cynical take on politics in Chinese productions. A lot can happen in 50 years, but it's good to guess that the authoritarian countries won't be the exact same ones as today.
Edit: A lot of the earlier yet examples Wikipedia gives are really more like spy or adventure stories. That might not be a coincidence; it's not just China that does self- and official censorship.
For me, a political thriller just has to be about internal struggles within institutions. That's bound to have elements of truth, since competition and personal advancement never goes out of style, but powerful people using existing institutions for personal advancement is also scandalous as hell. Or, at least is in modern times when we believe institutions aren't meant for that. Depicting it explicitly, as opposed to "in a dystopian future" or in disguise, is a pretty high watermark for media freedom, and media freedom was just not as strong in the 60's and earlier.