Game of Thrones 1x07
May. 30th, 2011 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bennet_7I realise that "it's not TV, it's HBO" but the number, length, and intent of the sex scenes/scenes featuring nudity in Game of Thrones is really making me uncomfortable. I know that HBO has its own set of content rules that allows for more graphic, sex, violence, and language but, god damn, just because they can doesn't mean they should.
It would be a different matter if the characters' actions during sex were actually telling us something about the characters - like in the first episode with Khal Drogo's rape of Dany. We saw that Drogo wasn't sadistic but that he did have absolute control of the situation while Dany was powerless. The way it was portrayed taught us something about both of them and set up an arc where Dany began to take control and Drogo came to respect her for it.
But the scene in this latest episode which featured a fully clothed Peter Littlefinger monologuing while he ordered two naked women (because he owned them) to fuck each other struck me as being completely gratuitous. His little analogy about how he was going to fuck his enemies did not seem to me to be enough justification to have that prolonged scene. I couldn't actually watch all of it, it made me so uncomfortable. Those women weren't characters, they were devices for exposition and I found it really denigrating towards women. One of them didn't even speak.
(I think Littlefinger's monologue was a narrative mistake to begin with as it deprived the viewer of any suspense from his feigned alliance with Ned. And combining it with that sex scene only took attention away from the actor's performance.)
The "character" of Ros has so far featured more heavily in this series than she has in the books but every single time she has sexually serviced a male character as a way for us to find out more about him. I mean, what the hell was that scene in the last episode where she and Theon said good bye and he paid her to flash him her crotch? It's not like we were in anyway invested in that relationship or had been given cause to think that there was more to it than the exchange of money for sex. We aren't encouraged by the text to care about her as an individual.
So, yeah, Game of Thrones portrayal of sex and nude females is really problematic for me. I hope they stop this trend of "exposition in a sex scene" (as opposed to exposition through a sex scene which is what the Dany/Drogo rape scene was) because otherwise I'm quite enjoying the series now. I understand that exposition can sometimes be dry but just adding naked-women-without-power-in-the-narrative to the background of scenes doesn't really liven up them up for me. I'd like more tense scenes like the one between Tywin and Jaime Lannister - now that was some well-handled exposition! Charles Dance got it done and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau reacted to it beautifully.
Be better Game of Thrones. I know you can be.
It would be a different matter if the characters' actions during sex were actually telling us something about the characters - like in the first episode with Khal Drogo's rape of Dany. We saw that Drogo wasn't sadistic but that he did have absolute control of the situation while Dany was powerless. The way it was portrayed taught us something about both of them and set up an arc where Dany began to take control and Drogo came to respect her for it.
But the scene in this latest episode which featured a fully clothed Peter Littlefinger monologuing while he ordered two naked women (because he owned them) to fuck each other struck me as being completely gratuitous. His little analogy about how he was going to fuck his enemies did not seem to me to be enough justification to have that prolonged scene. I couldn't actually watch all of it, it made me so uncomfortable. Those women weren't characters, they were devices for exposition and I found it really denigrating towards women. One of them didn't even speak.
(I think Littlefinger's monologue was a narrative mistake to begin with as it deprived the viewer of any suspense from his feigned alliance with Ned. And combining it with that sex scene only took attention away from the actor's performance.)
The "character" of Ros has so far featured more heavily in this series than she has in the books but every single time she has sexually serviced a male character as a way for us to find out more about him. I mean, what the hell was that scene in the last episode where she and Theon said good bye and he paid her to flash him her crotch? It's not like we were in anyway invested in that relationship or had been given cause to think that there was more to it than the exchange of money for sex. We aren't encouraged by the text to care about her as an individual.
So, yeah, Game of Thrones portrayal of sex and nude females is really problematic for me. I hope they stop this trend of "exposition in a sex scene" (as opposed to exposition through a sex scene which is what the Dany/Drogo rape scene was) because otherwise I'm quite enjoying the series now. I understand that exposition can sometimes be dry but just adding naked-women-without-power-in-the-narrative to the background of scenes doesn't really liven up them up for me. I'd like more tense scenes like the one between Tywin and Jaime Lannister - now that was some well-handled exposition! Charles Dance got it done and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau reacted to it beautifully.
Be better Game of Thrones. I know you can be.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-31 09:33 pm (UTC)OMG, it was so outrageously gratuitous it made me laugh at first! But then it went on FOREVER.
just adding naked-women-without-power-in-the-narrative to the background of scenes doesn't really liven up them up for me.
Apart from anything else, it's really tacky! It reminds me of nothing so much as "sexy slavegirls" on Star Trek or other dodgy sci-fi. Except this is HBO, so of course it's way more explicit.
I know that HBO has its own set of content rules that allows for more graphic, sex, violence, and language but, god damn, just because they can doesn't mean they should.
ITA, and why not do interesting things with the new freedom the writers have re. nudity and language on cable? The way things are done on GoT it's clearly for the titillation of straight guys, as the nudity and sex isn't gender balanced AT ALL. And they overused the doggy style position in the sex scenes in first few episodes to the point where I started to wonder if it was like, a visual motif or something, lol! Why did Jaime/Cersei in the tower look like Drogo raping Dany? Stupidity caused by testosterone poisoning in the writers' room, is my guess. ;)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-02 05:51 am (UTC)Yeah, I mightn't be so bothered if we got more shirtless scenes with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau but at the moment there is so much objectification of the women than the men. Not fair!
It is interesting to compare the male/male scene with the female/female. The action in the male/male scene was framed out of shot but with the women it's full frontal and in your face. HBO: Ok with lesbian porn but not so much with gay guys!
And they overused the doggy style position in the sex scenes in first few episodes to the point where I started to wonder if it was like, a visual motif or something, lol! Why did Jaime/Cersei in the tower look like Drogo raping Dany?
Yeah, considering that Jaime/Cersei is supposed to be way more loving (and in the books I think they were completely nude) that would have been the one time were a big sex scene would have been justified by the story. But no, we get them entirely covered and doggy style. Weird. Maybe the actor's all have different contract agreements for nudity?
Gah. Need to go hang out with Leslie "My stripper name would be 'Equality'" Knope and co.