Domestic Violence: The Narrative Architectures of Michael Haneke's "Funny Games"

• Published in: Journal of narrative theory Vol. 47; no. 2; pp. 197 - 223
• Main Author: Pattison, Dale
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ypsilanti Eastern Michigan University 01.07.2017; Eastern Michigan University, Department of English Language and Literature
• Subjects: Apathy; Archetypes (Psychology); Audiences; Authorship; Culture; Domestic violence; German language; Haneke, Michael (1942- ); Heroism & heroes; Ideology; Literary characters; Literary devices; Logic; Narrative structure; Narrative techniques; Narratives; Narratology; National security; Plot (Narrative); Politics; Presidents; Remakes & sequels; Speeches; State of the Union Address; Terrorism; United States > US
• ISSN: 1549-0815; 1548-9248; 1548-9248
• DOI: 10.1353/jnt.2017.0008

("The President's State of the Union Address") The administration's framing of homeland security as a positive force in shaping American civic life came to fruition in this address. The frequent use of the home as a site of political intervention in the two Presidential addresses above reveals the complex engagement with domesticity that undergirds the project of homeland security.2 While the rhetorical figuring of the homeland as a domestic space was critical to how the state shaped public opinion, representations of the home in popular media also contributed significantly to advancing the politics of homeland security. [...]while performing domesticity offers Americans opportunities for reaffirming their national allegiance, it likewise enables potentially harmful intrusions by the state on Americans' private lives. By choosing actors like Tim Roth and Naomi Watts, whom American audiences would recognize from their roles in mainstream Hollywood films, along with an aggressive marketing campaign that targeted art-house audiences, Haneke made the American version of Funny Games into a project specifically devoted to accessing and deconstructing an American culture of violence.3 More than this, the American remake of the film deconstructs cultures of violence emerging from the post-9/11 political milieu, and Haneke is attentive throughout Funny Games to the politics of domesticity and the seemingly ubiquitous threat of violence that characterized everyday life during that