Bonus 10 - Game of Thrones and Rape by JJ Leath

Bonus 10

            I have not watched the show Game of Thrones, but I have read the books. The books are brutally violent, and there is a good amount of sexual violence. I have never gotten the notion that Martin was using this violence for cheap shock thrills, however. As Martin said in the quote given, these books show realistic depictions of human travesty against other humans. I think that this is the main theme in Game of Thrones. There are monsters and supernatural enemies, but the acts of terrible villainy are done by humans. This is important social commentary that Martin is making, and I agree with Martin’s use of it in the books. However, I disagree with the film adaptation’s likening of these acts to pornography.

            If you compare Game of Thrones to The Lord of the Rings, I think that Martin’s social commentary really shines through. At the surface, Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings are very similar series. The message is vastly different, however. The violence in The Lord of the Rings is minimal in comparison to Martin’s epic. There is absolutely no sexual violence at all. Humans are the “good guys”. To quote Martin, “orcs and dark lords” are the bad guys. The Lord of the Rings is a story about the human spirit (or Hobbit Spirit, but for all intents and purposes, Hobbits were analogous to humans). It is a story about how the goodness of Man can overcome any evil. It is a feel-good story that largely romanticizes war.

            Game of Thrones, however, does not romanticize war. All of the retched things that have plagued humanity’s history are graphically depicted. People do horrible things to other people. But this is exactly the point – monsters are not found in fairy tales, they are found inside us and are entrenched in human history. To exclude sexual violence would be to inaccurately describe war, and the commentary on the human condition would be diminished.  As my only experience with the series has been the books, I can speak for the books that the sexual violence is used for a deeper purpose than cheap tricks or titillation.  However, from what I know about the show, it seems like it does use the brutality for cheap tricks and it does sound like it exploits the actresses to simply use their bodies to attract a heterosexual male gaze. 

            The film adaptation of the series has perverted many of story lines from the book in my opinion. The gruesome acts done in the books, the disturbing incest, and the sexual violence against women has seemingly been turned into soft-core pornography. From the articles, it seems like one of the most highly sexualized characters is Daenerys, who in the books is a child. That is definitely concerning. I think that this is just further commentary on humanity. We might not be as evolved as we think. 

Bonus 10- It's Not Okay ~~Dianesa Sanon

I've written and rewritten this response but I think i've settled with this as an answer: why is r*** inserted into the story? How in depth is it is it described and how long does it run in the story? I was getting ready to say that writing in rape into stories is wrong no matter the premise but I think of the book The Lovely Bones and think that without it it wouldn't be as powerful as it was without, God forgive me, the r**ing of the little girl. In that book it creates a monster image for her killer and we loathe him. The book makes you want the pig to be found out and locked away. You get the chance to sympathize with the little girl. On the other hand, r***, more likely than not, doesn't need to be given a stage. I remember watching a movie on Netflix and the main lead was handcuffed to bed in a cabin far from any nearby town while her husband was dead on the floor after suffering a viagra induced heartattack (no, I will not be explaining further). The women crashes into a nervous breakdown after a hungry dog starts eating her late husband and the serial killer stalks the outside window and because that wasn't fucked up enough the writer includes a r*** that she was supressing from her childhood and hinted at it right before the husband died via attempted marital r***. I was super uncomfotable watching it. It wasn't needed. The story was messed up beyond all hell and the addition of r*** in the mix felt as though the author just wanted it to write it in just because. Yes, r*** is a big part of history but its something that shouldn't have to be relived constantly. People don't constantly write about mass genocides. If anything, writing about r*** is done because the author knows that there is always going to be a large majority of, mostly men, who want to see a woman struggle and taken against her will. Hardly ever will you see a screenplay of a grown man r**ing a child because thats a taboo line to cross. R*** is written in for the pleasure of the people who enjoy that kind of twisted thing and to simply put it: as long as there are consumers there are producers.