Narrative pleasure in Homeland: The competing femininities of “rogue agents” and “terror wives”

Since the 2011 US assassination of Osama Bin Laden, the register in the rhetoric surrounding the war on terror has changed. The death of Bin Laden was presented—for the purposes of US electioneering—as a just conclusion to the nebulous war ignited by 9/11. However, despite this apparent endpoint, this phase of global conflict has led to an open use of many types of unpalatable practice (of illegal warfare, of extra-judicial process, of violence and repression) as allegedly necessary evils for the maintenance of state security (Meeropol 2005). Here I explore the way this shift in what is deemed acceptable and defensible in the conduct of “war,” and the accompanying adaptation in understandings of what constitutes “war” (Bhatt 2012), is supported and complemented by popular media representations, including those referencing versions of feminism.