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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

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Original poster

Game of Thrones

43 replies

teetering13 · 12/07/2013 14:15

So, I have finished watching the Walking Dead and I'm suffering from WD withdrawal depression ..

I asked my son what I should watch .. a good series that'll get me hooked and make me forget WD

Game of Thrones, he says ....

Thing is, I watched the first episode of GOT a while ago .. in it the men were powerful and the women had to sleep with them to get anything .. I slated it to the person that recommended it ... 'what a load of shite' etc etc and forgot about it ...

So, Game of Thrones watchers .... did I judge too soon? ... Is it watchable without wanting to scream 'ffs!' all the way through it ...

Shall I give it a 2nd chance?

OP posts:

lissieloo · 12/07/2013 20:02

Melissandre, theres another.

RhondaJean · 12/07/2013 20:09

Dany is my absolute favourite female on tv ever. Growing from being terrified of her brother into a strong and powerful woman.

Arya is pretty cool and Catelyn stark isnt too bad.

Sansa is a drip, and theres all the prostitution but overall I think there are very good strong female characters in it. But you need to stick with it.

lissieloo · 12/07/2013 20:34

I think sansa has a long way to go. She's still so naïve.

WhentheRed · 12/07/2013 23:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

chunkymonkeybaby · 13/07/2013 00:48

I absolutely love GoT and I actually disagree about the portrayal of women being particularly negative from a feminist POV; it's medieval fantasy isn't it, so for the time in which it's set the treatment of women is fairly accurate maybe. And there are so many strong female characters. Arya, Daenerys, Catelyn, Brienne, Sansa, Cersei, Ygritte, Osha and Yara. All strong and/or intelligent intelligent in their way. I think in lots of ways they are portrayed favourably to the men, weak evil Joffrey, drunken Robert Baratheon, even Robb Stark and the errors he makes. Theon Greyjoy, his sister is way stronger than him! And Stannis Baratheon does whatever Melisandre says really.

Anyway I love it. And Jon Snow is beautiful

moreyear · 13/07/2013 00:53

Season two is absolutely dreadful - the male gaze is just so overwhelming it's vomitous but season 3 was quite good. So maybe watch season one, then season two on fastfoward and settle down to season 3.

LadyIsabellaWrotham · 13/07/2013 00:56

It's got a lot going for it in terms of sheer number of great female characters - good, bad, weak, strong - just like the men (except rather more of them are prostitutes).

For me there's a huge problem with the use of nude female actors as set-dressing and titillation. It does improve after series 1, but in the first series it's pretty indefensible - I watch despite it, but I can't deny that it's dire.

chunkymonkeybaby · 13/07/2013 00:59

Agree too much female nudity which does nothing in terms of plot or storyline.

sashh · 13/07/2013 08:26

The women don't really get going until series two.

The plot of series 1 very closely follows the book but series 3 is quite different.

Watch it for Arya, who is basically a 10 year old feminist, wants to play with swords and not marry someone and have princes and princesses for children.

ZacharyQuack · 13/07/2013 12:03

The Walking Dead is not a great example of feminist TV either. Most of the female characters are feeble and dependent on the men. With the exception of Michonne obviously.

muppetthecow · 13/07/2013 12:16

I read the books and loved them, largely because of the huge range of interesting female characters. I couldn't get on with the tv series though; they just went way too far in expanding the nudity/sex scenes to up the ratings. Sex is something that happens fairly frequently in the books but seemed to be exploited in the tv series (if that makes sense?). I think I'm going to give it another go though after reading here that it lessens later...

turkeyboots · 13/07/2013 12:26

I Love GOT and Deadwood, but surely they are as bad as each other feminist-viewpoint-wise? Loads of prostitution and sex in Deadwood too - its just an awful lot less pretty.

LittleSporksBigSpork · 13/07/2013 12:37

Agree ZacharyQuark - the Walking Dead TV's treatment of the women (and pretty much anyone not young enough, male, white) is awful, even Michonne is incredibly problematic as they've taken away pretty much all her personality from the original comic to serve as a trope. I had to stop watching it.

Game of Thrones is quite problematic in multiple ways - a lot more nudity and sex than in the books, pretty much all for the male gaze, and the only groups of people who aren't White have been enslaved that do nothing for themselves (which, if we're going to debate that a book with dragons and magic fits a time a period, would be inaccurate as slave rebellions did more to free themselves than any White Saviouress and in the middle ages there would be far more people from Africa and Asia around trading in the region and the slavery would be more based on debt and war than the highly racialized scenes we've seen so far). Daenerys has strength, but has a large saviour chip on her shoulder, which I will enjoy when it comes to bite her in the ass. There is a scene where her ability to speak the language is called into question, showing a glimpse that her point of view (which everything about her at this point is written from) isn't as reliable as she, or the audience, thinks it is. Good foreshadowing there, but the imagery so far is questionable.

Personally, I like both the Stark girls, they both show different ways of being strong women and deal with their situations as best they can. Sad that they took Sansa's small rebellion from the book away (she does not kneel), but her ability to survive has been a real strength in a situation that has made so many others crack.

I'm trying to think of anything to recommend to you that would be much better but sadly nothing really comes to mind. Currently watching the old show Andromeda which is a bit more refreshing, but that's about it. Sadly, things are currently getting worse really, a real negative rut in media representation.

kalidasa · 13/07/2013 13:55

turkeyboots for me there is a big difference between GoT and Deadwood - as you say the sex in the latter is not pretty, and there is much much less pervasive "male gaze" going on. Also - and this makes a big difference for me - Deadwood is almost universally very well acted and the scripts are great. GoT was very weak in both those respects in my opinion (although some of the child actors are very good, and I admit we never reached the third series). As LittleSporks says, GoT is also eye-wateringly racist is its set-up and the point of view from which the action is told and seen - "white gaze" I suppose. The characters in Deadwood are very racist but the set up and the perspective of the narration is much more sophisticated.

We haven't tried the Walking Dead. Should we?

LittleSporksBigSpork · 13/07/2013 14:20

Kalidasa - Read the comics, very good. TV show isn't worth much (other than Steve Yeun is amazing in it).

lissieloo · 13/07/2013 18:32

See, I think the acting in GOT is the best that I have seen in a long time. Every character is very "real" noone is cut and dried. The worst characters are clear psychopaths, but every other character are stuck in grey areas. None are all good or all bad.

Original poster

teetering13 · 13/07/2013 19:58

Arrh see now the women characters in walking dead I thought would be pretty much how it'd be if that happened in RL .. you get Lori who totally backs down and lets her husband take over the role as leader and becomes quite meek (and hugely annoying to watch) but you then get the likes of Andrea who desperately wants to be on the hunt and not become someone like Lori .. then Carol who is finding out how strong she is since her abusive husband died ... maggie .. strong .. and of course michonne (who I love) kicks ass!

OP posts:

LittleSporksBigSpork · 13/07/2013 21:34

Lori pretends to be meek while messing with the emotions of two men to fight for her, yells at Andrea that laundry is more important for a woman than keeping guard, and in the end comes across as really deranged and is killed off early for Rick's manpain. We're meant to identify with her as a mother but pretty much every episode on the farm she's shouting 'where's carl?' and doing very little with him. For me, she was the most painful character to watch.

Andrea and the Governor was a total mess and they seemed to have messed with her storyline for just for the fun of it as they've also done to Carol having killed off their main sources of interaction early more for shock than plot. Michonne's may be physically kick ass, but while her actress is great, they've pretty much gave her nothing to say and pretty much pegged her into the 'strong black woman that needs nobody' trope and ripped out all real personality and interaction from her to fit that. What they did to her pretty much killed watching the TV show for me.

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