Warring and Whoring: Mamet Performs for Television

By retracing Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist David Mamet's complex relation with the television medium this article seeks to establish the principles of "warring" and "whoring" as two unlikely allies. Concretely, it will be argued that neither TV-drama, nor warfare are uniformly wasteful by highlighting the parallels between, on the one hand, an unmistakable trend towards "integrated hybridism" through "flexi-narrative", and on the other hand the paradoxical celebration in David Mamet's television series The Unit of war and humility alike. At stake, ultimately, is the formulation of a more constructive posture towards both war and television, and this despite their evident wastefulness.