The Eerie Familiarity of "Man in the High Castle"

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

PRX

Arts

4.6 • 675 Ratings

🗓️ 26 December 2016

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Man in the High Castle, the Emmy Award winning TV series, imagines a world in which the Nazi’s won WWII. Set in the 1960s, the show blends actual pop cultural imagery and artifacts with fictional interpretations of an alternative ending to the war.

When its first season debuted, the show’s ad campaign in New York City subways hit a little too close to home. And the show’s second season, which dropped last week, is resonating in a similar way, although this time not so intentionally, just as white nationalists gain exposure in the lead-up to the Trump presidency. “But if it would be hyperbole to treat the series like a documentary, it would be denial to say it plays no differently now than it did before,” says James Poniewozik the chief television critic for The New York Times. He joined Kurt in the studio to talk about his most recent article on the series which points to the parallels between fiction and reality.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From PRX.
0:06.4	Studio 360.
0:14.4	Philip K. Dick was one of the great American science fiction writers.
0:19.2	His stories have been turned into movies like Blade Runner and Total Recall and Minority Report.
0:25.0	But one of his best-known novels is only partly sci-fi and isn't about the future.
0:32.1	It is set in the early 1960s when it came out.
0:35.7	The premise is that Germany and Japan won World War II, and they
0:40.5	split the spoils. Japan got Western America and the Nazis got the east. It's called The Man in the
0:46.8	High Castle, and it is now a terrific TV series on Amazon. The first season appeared last fall,
0:53.1	and I happily binged it. Since I was a little kid
0:57.9	when it takes place in the early 60s, it has an eerie familiarity for me. The second season is just out,
1:05.5	just as the real America suddenly seems kind of unfamiliar to me.
1:11.8	With me to talk about this is James Panoazik, the chief television critic for the New York Times.
1:17.3	His recent article on Man in the High Castle is called An Alternative America Hits Home.
1:23.6	Hello, Jim. Thanks.
1:24.6	Hey, thank you.
1:25.3	So in your article about this new season, you say, quote,
1:30.6	it would be denial to say it plays no differently now than it did before a year ago.
1:36.3	Because why?
1:38.2	Because there are actual real Nazis out there who are pretty psyched right now.
1:46.0	You know, ramping on social media, on, on Reddit, cheering on Donald Trump, maybe not
1:52.7	overtly encouraged by Donald Trump, retweeted by him, not really vigorously refuted by him.
	...

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