funny how
Game of Drones
Just watched the opening episodes of Game of Thrones. Until recently I imagined it was a video game: a world all but invisible to me. Turns out it’s a television series.
Melodrama. It’s a kingdom of sighs, and costume. I’ve never seen such a celebration of unthinking brutality. Well, not since A Clockwork Orange. It doesn’t just document, it glories: beheadings, rapes, all filmed in lingering detail. A small boy is pushed out of a window off-handedly. The script is littered with casual misogyny. A man wakes up among his dogs and his enemy sneers, “Better-looking than the bitches you’re usually with.” “Soon enough that child will spread her legs and start breeding.” “Thank the gods for Bessie, and her tits.”
The kingdom is populated entirely by supermodels. There’s a lot of modern slang and the bad characters and good characters have neon signs above their heads. The good have an edge of self-pitying martyrdom, the bad have sensation instead of feeling. If there ever is a dystopian future in which this kind of glamorized yet boring reconstruction of some imagined medieval past holds sway, people like me will either be queens or court jesters or we won’t last very long.
8 comments on “Game of Drones”
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Hmm, so are movies like Platoon which portray the horrors of war and rape of civilians misogynist? Just because the characters in a work are misogynist, doesn’t mean the message is, I’d say. These kinds of stories are meant as cautionary tales.
Game of Thrones is a very intelligent show, with some of the most compelling storytelling and dialogue you can find on television. And, Martin is certainly not a misogynist. He, like some other fantasy and sci-fi writers such as Joss Whedon, is known for consistently featuring strong women in his stories. From the way the story is playing out in the show, it seems as if the most powerful and influential characters will be mostly women.
I agree that television shouldn’t always be filled with the most conventionally attractive actors, i.e. supermodels, but this is no fault of Martin’s or his stories.
Also, have you watched Game of Thrones thoroughly? I’m referring to the bad characters and good characters remark. Because, there’s hardly a television show out there whose characters are more morally ambiguous.
tbh I didn’t read it as saying “don’t be historically accurate” but rather, “always be historically accurate, not just when it involves sexual exploitation of women”. And I suppose, don’t be overly gratuitous about it, use the degree necessary for your message and target audience.
I was disappointed when it showed the women with hairless legs arms and pubic region!!!! And wearing modern soled boots and shoes and belts? Women would not be shaving during treks, imprisonment etc Put me off watching and the timing of many of the show’s storylines was out
GoT depicts a lot of truly awful stuff, but I really do love watching the show. It’s compelling, elaborate and energetic. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
I haven’t seen it on TV but it was a good read apart from all the standard radical shocking ingredients assembled for it to be a popular story.
I thought I was the only one who hated this show… I agree with you Cathoel, and have heard the arguments for this show being inteliigently written and not really glorifying the horrors etc and yes maybe I missed something there… but I felt sick watching it, viscerally, and thought it was a huge step backwards… maybe further down the track it gets better (and one character does end up with ore power and respect than she started off with, Danaerys I think it was) but it didnt make me want to watch any more…
Thanks for speaking about it xx
I thought I was the only one who hated this show… I agree with you Cathoel, and have heard the arguments for this show being inteliigently written and not really glorifying the horrors etc and yes maybe I missed something there… but I felt sick watching it, viscerally, and thought it was a huge step backwards… maybe further down the track it gets better (and one character does end up with ore power and respect than she started off with, Danerys I think it was) but it didnt make me want to watch any more…
Thanks for speaking out about it xx
It is full of violence of terrible things, but I don’t get that it is misogynist. I mean, terrible, terrible things happen to just about every character, but possibly the worst things happen to a male character. I love your writing, but if you believe that the good and bad characters are obvious and simplistic, then I think maybe you have not watched many episodes. One of the definiting things about that show (and, so I’m told, the books—though I am way too whimpy to read them) is that fact that there is no good and bad, Aside from a few genuinely crazy and terrible characters, all of the evil is done in the name of family lineage, As Dustin said, the characters are so morally ambiguous. The hairlessness is annoying—really annoying—but you can hardly single this show out for having better than average looking actors.