Orleans and American Exceptionalism in Treme
May 2019
Arin Keeble
This chapter examines George W. Bush-era American exceptionalism in David Simon and Eric Overmyer’s television series, Treme (2009–2013). Treme was set between late 2005, three months after the Katrina catastrophe and early 2009, during the first phase of the Obama administration. This chapter begins by assessing an unlikely convergence in the defiant rhetoric of Treme’s protagonists who refuse to “bow” in the face of post-Katrina hardship and trauma, and that of the program’s key offscreen villains, the Bush administration and American federal government whose post-9/11 defiance is well-documented. However, Simon and Overmyer’s vision of post-Katrina New Orleans exceptionalism critically comments on the strident strain of post-9/11 American exceptionalism and attendant nationalism. This chapter also examines Treme’s extended explorations of Bush-era multiculturalism, which pose a sustained challenge to one of the prevailing cornerstones of American exceptionalism: the melting pot myth. Finally, I argue that its depiction of neoliberal practices in New Orleans provides a vantage point through which it is able to comment on the post-9/11 acceleration of neoliberal policy more broadly.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/296336333_Won't_bow_Don't_know_how_Treme_New_Orleans_and_American_exceptionalism