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GoT Finale (no spoilers)
May. 19th, 2019 08:01 pmMy roommate is watching the GoT finale down the hall and I'm reminded once more that if there's one thing we can all agree on, book fans, show fans, critics, haters, the exhausted, the weary, the justifiably angry ... that score is a damn masterpiece.
GoT has spurred a lot of mainstream recognition of fantasy media. It's shone a light on other properties that otherwise would have been neglected, forgotten, not greenlit.
I just wish it had been better. I wish it hadn't been so cruel to women, so callous in depicting PoC. More women should have been behind the scenes. Directing an episode of GoT, especially earlier seasons, would look great on someone's resume. Same with writing.
I can't forget the years of imitators this show has inspired, the mimicry of the worst the show had to offer: the brutalization of sex workers, shock deaths, casual misogyny, rape plotlines for titillation masquerading as character development.
My hope is that in the wake of this mega show, this cultural landmark, the imitators learn the right lessons. Complex characters, moral dilemmas, epic locations, badass music, women as political forces in their own right. I hope they learn what people don't want: Rape as Drama, shock deaths over and over, power always corrupting women and turning them "crazy," Rape as Titillation, white feminism, standard fantasy racism.
Like it or not we're going to be living in a post-GoT world for at least a few years, as networks chase that zeitgeist. Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time, The Witcher, The Kingkiller Chronicle ... the list goes on and on.
Fun fact the reason I dove so hard into Critical Role is because I found it about a year after I'd quit GoT, and was delighted by a piece of fantasy media where there was all this rape NOT happening. That's how desperate GoT made me. That was how low the bar was. I really cannot overstate that enough. This show's legacy, for many people, even former fans like myself ... was rape. A lot of rape. Rape of women coded as underage. Rape of a character whose actress had just turned 18. Consensual scenes from the books turned into rape scenes. I have my issues with GRRM's writing and the books themselves. But the showrunners put in a lot more rape scenes than were in the books. They added them. They cut POV characters, whole plots, swathes of time ... but they found the time to add in a lot of rape.
I hope whoever is out there now, showrunning an upcoming fantasy show, or about to get tapped to showrun a big fantasy show ... they think about this. I hope they're thinking about this a lot.
GoT has spurred a lot of mainstream recognition of fantasy media. It's shone a light on other properties that otherwise would have been neglected, forgotten, not greenlit.
I just wish it had been better. I wish it hadn't been so cruel to women, so callous in depicting PoC. More women should have been behind the scenes. Directing an episode of GoT, especially earlier seasons, would look great on someone's resume. Same with writing.
I can't forget the years of imitators this show has inspired, the mimicry of the worst the show had to offer: the brutalization of sex workers, shock deaths, casual misogyny, rape plotlines for titillation masquerading as character development.
My hope is that in the wake of this mega show, this cultural landmark, the imitators learn the right lessons. Complex characters, moral dilemmas, epic locations, badass music, women as political forces in their own right. I hope they learn what people don't want: Rape as Drama, shock deaths over and over, power always corrupting women and turning them "crazy," Rape as Titillation, white feminism, standard fantasy racism.
Like it or not we're going to be living in a post-GoT world for at least a few years, as networks chase that zeitgeist. Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time, The Witcher, The Kingkiller Chronicle ... the list goes on and on.
Fun fact the reason I dove so hard into Critical Role is because I found it about a year after I'd quit GoT, and was delighted by a piece of fantasy media where there was all this rape NOT happening. That's how desperate GoT made me. That was how low the bar was. I really cannot overstate that enough. This show's legacy, for many people, even former fans like myself ... was rape. A lot of rape. Rape of women coded as underage. Rape of a character whose actress had just turned 18. Consensual scenes from the books turned into rape scenes. I have my issues with GRRM's writing and the books themselves. But the showrunners put in a lot more rape scenes than were in the books. They added them. They cut POV characters, whole plots, swathes of time ... but they found the time to add in a lot of rape.
I hope whoever is out there now, showrunning an upcoming fantasy show, or about to get tapped to showrun a big fantasy show ... they think about this. I hope they're thinking about this a lot.
