It's all about the perverted sex -_-

[dragonimp]

The show has been elaborately made to the point that producers turned to a professional at something called the Language Creation Society to design a vocabulary for the savage Dothraki nomads who provide some of the more Playboy-TV-style plot points and who are forced to speak in subtitles. Like “The Tudors” and “The Borgias” on Showtime and the “Spartacus” series on Starz, “Game of Thrones,” is a costume-drama sexual hopscotch, even if it is more sophisticated than its predecessors. It says something about current American attitudes toward sex that with the exception of the lurid and awful “Californication,” nearly all eroticism on television is past tense. The imagined historical universe of “Game of Thrones” gives license for unhindered bed-jumping — here sibling intimacy is hardly confined to emotional exchange.

The true perversion, though, is the sense you get that all of this illicitness has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first. “Game of Thrones” is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half.

From here.

:|
As a woman who's been reading fantasy since she discovered reading, I ... don't really know what to say to that. So many wrong assumptions I don't even know where to start.

Comments

[militsa.livejournal.com]

Wow, fuck her, seriously.

How can she say such dismissive things about women's reading tastes? I personally know more women who like fantasy over Lorrie Moore. Women who prefer not to read "Oprah" books don't join book clubs (I don't). This really makes me angry enough to sign into my NYTimes account and make a comment.

[binaryalchemist.livejournal.com]

Load of bollocks, isn't it? I love fantasy and most of the seriously intelligent women I know--and I know a LOT of them--prefer not to read the "Oprah" offerings and dive into books with depth and bite to them--and the "Song of Ice and Fire" series, from which "Game of Thrones" is the first volume, is outstanding storytelling by anybody's standards--providing HBO doesn't ruin it..

[dragonimp.livejournal.com]

It kinda makes me wish I had a NYTimes account. Except right now I can't seem to get past an indignant what the hell so it's probably good that I can't comment.

[binaryalchemist.livejournal.com]

Have you read the books yet? I've read all but the last in the series and have loved them--they are riveting and has more than its share of strong female characters, especially Arya Stark and Danerys Tagaryen...and plenty of honorable male characters like Eddard Stark and Jon Snow. I am hoping that HBO does not fuck it up.

[militsa.livejournal.com]

I totally agree that Martin writes strong female characters; it's one of the things I like so much about Ice and Fire.

I'm totally fine with that reviewer saying the production is confusing and dense, it may well be, I haven't seen it yet, and that's a valid opinion-- but I am still seething about her statement that basically women should not like this because it's based on a fantasy series, which is for guys. Grrr.

I left a comment by the way but the Times seems to be screening them first, there are no comments posted. However, the fact that the article's review button has it rated 1.5/5 with 48 hits gives us a clue.

[dragonimp.livejournal.com]

And on top of that, the implication that the sex was only put in there to appeal to "the ladies" - because, no, it really, really wasn't.

[militsa.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's utterly ridiculous. She just comes across as someone who hates the genre, and that comment was gratuitous.

[dragonimp.livejournal.com]

I've read up through A Storm of Swords and I thought they were great. Heavy reading, but wonderful books. (Which is why this reviewer annoys me by calling it a "male fantasy" that "no woman alive would watch" if it weren't for the sex. Uh, no.) I hope HBO doesn't screw it up, either, but I am glad it's being turned into a mini-series instead of trying to squash it into a box office movie. Though I'm going to have to wait for it to be out on DVD.

[eve_n_furter]

This smells like projection: big, big issues with sex, identity and womanhood. She also kicks in all directions without making much sense. Is she indignant because it has too much sex, or that people enjoy it in the wrong way or what?

[dragonimp.livejournal.com]

That might be it. "I don't get the appeal - so it must only appeal to men! I don't see the need for the sex, so it must've been thrown in to appeal to women!" But yeah, I wasn't really sure what the takeaway message of the review was, either, except that the reviewer didn't like it.

[shawk.livejournal.com]

???!!!

Maybe they made the series more about sex than I remember the books being, but I didn't read the books because of the sex, thanks. Nor did I read the many other fantasy books I have read solely because the author threw in some sex so my poor little lady brain wouldn't get bored of all the politics and swords and complicated stuff (or.. whatever her point was). I don't even know how to respond because the underlying assumptions are just... wrong.

[dragonimp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm still kinda stuck at "what - no." "Boy fiction"? Really? "Patronizing"? If anyone's being patronizing, it's her and her "I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s". And I'm sorry but, when I think "gee, I want to read some sex," A Song of Ice and Fire is NOT what comes to mind, because the sex in those books was really not written to be sexy.

[shawk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I find the sex in Martin's series kind of interesting, actually, but not in the "oooh, sex-ay" kind of way, because really, generally the sex is not written to be romance-y and in the next scene, someone's brain gets bashed out their ear or something and that would kill whatever mood might have been set. However, the way that Tyrion experiences sex and the language Martin uses is totally different than when Cersei is having sex or Dany is having sex, etc., which is definitely deliberate and reveals something about the character.

I just watched the first installment, since my free HBO runs through the end of the month, and there were like two sex scenes... one is necessary to Dany's plot and one is necessary to, well, the plot in general (poor Bran!). Not sure how that leads to the conclusion that the sex must have been put in just for the ladies who are oh so bored by fantasy otherwise, or whatever.

BTW, Sean Bean is really good as Eddard, but I can't help resenting that once again he's a doomed character. ;)

[dragonimp.livejournal.com]

I saw who Sean Bean was cast as and kinda went, "what, is 'dies well and nobly' part of his resume now?" XD

[shawk.livejournal.com]

I guess it's better than being the go-to baddie, which he was for a long time? Kinda?

The critic wrote a blog in "response" to the criticism of her "review." She still doesn't get it-- and still has yet to review the show, rather than the people she supposes like fantasy. Can I be a NYT TV critic? I'm pretty sure I could manage to actually, you know, review shows, even if I don't especially care for the genre.

[zwickygirl.livejournal.com]

(I tried to comment but I don't think it worked? Trying again.)

There's a pretty funny response to the NY Times article here:
http://io9.com/#!5792574/really-why-would-men-ever-want-to-watch-game-of-thrones

The thing that stuck with me after reading the Song of Ice and Fire books wasn't the sex - it was the fact that every time I started to like a character they ended up dead in some horrible way. Not good books for bed time reading, but excellent otherwise.

[dragonimp.livejournal.com]

XD I think I love the person who wrote that rant. It's a lot more articulate than than my "what - no" reaction, for one.

Whenever I rec these books, I always feel the need to warn people "be careful who you get attached to" because, yeah, oy ^^;