I can’t seem to gin up the expected outrage about Game of Thrones’ most recent controversial rape scene. From Senator Claire McCaskill’s tweet that “Gratuitous rape scenes are disgusting and unacceptable” to Joanna Robinson’s article “Game of Thrones Absolutely Did Not Need to Go There with Sansa Stark,” many are angry over the nature of the scene. The outrage is to some extent understandable: a beloved main character is raped by a man who was already clearly in the “bad guy” camp. The scene altered the plot line in the book, making Sansa rather than Jeyne Poole the victim. The camera leaves the viewer with Theon’s miserable face, a fact to which Sarah Ditman responded “Apparently violence against a woman counts for more if it distresses a man.” That said, the bulk of my reaction to these critics can be summed up in Amanda Marcotte’s fabulously patient, clear delineation of the flaws in each objection. She does, however, neglect one major point that made me appreciate the scene in an unexpected way—we as viewers are asked to identify with—or empathize with—the right character given the viewership. Before I clarify that argument, let me pace out a few questions in terms of fiction and real-life correlates.
What constitutes a “gratuitous” rape scene? Dividing rape scenes between “justified” and “unjustified” already seems to be treading into very hazy moral territory. While I’m talking about works of fiction, much of the fan resentment is centered around the fact that many women in the non-fictional universe are raped, and that when rape is depicted in film, television, or literature, it should be done in such a way that:
- Does not make rape “sexy.”
- Makes sense in terms of what came before in the plot
- Focuses on the victim character.
I’m not entirely convinced that demanding that rape scenes adhere to a certain set of rules necessarily serves the audience’s best interests. Rape in real life is often as confusing as it is terrifying, and rape in fiction should better reflect the complexities of the crime. In Sapphire’s Push, the incestuous rape scene that opens the novel also includes the victim feeling sexual pleasure in spite of her fear, anger, and confusion. When I first read that scene, I was appalled. In retrospect, given what follows, this depiction makes sense in terms of carefully crafting the utter lack of clarity in the main character’s world. Of course, this was a novel that resisted identification at every turn.
The second parameter insists that the rape be a legible, understandable outcome of previous plot points. I find this to be the weirdest expectation. Rape in real life tends to happen unexpectedly. Retroactive attempts to impose meaning or narrative arc on the events leading up to a rape generally focus on how the victim could have made different choices and thus avoided the rape—which, of course, is the type of victim-blaming we don’t want to see in relation to rape cases. Furthermore, claiming a desire for understanding why it happened tends to also naturalize rape as a logical outcome of some series of events, rather than a grotesque violation.
Why can rape only be included in a work when it “drives the plot forward”? The question of plot works both prior to the rape scene and after the rape scene. The rape scene must have meaning, some argue, and it must be a transformative experience that later results in the character who was victimized having more agency and a stronger sense of self. Well, yes, that would be ideal, but it neglects the fact that rape doesn’t always bring about a radical transformation of a character, and that the expectation of this transformation is… creepy. After all, this isn’t exactly what we’d like to see modeled as a “rite of passage” for young women.
It’s true that the rape of a woman has too often been used as a device to galvanize male characters into action (see Gail Simon’s Women in Refrigerators). But it also remains true that rape doesn’t only affect the victim. Sexual violence is a poison that affects society. While it disproportionately directly affects women, the effects of sexual violence are as far-reaching as its prevalence, and it’s worth considering that when we speak out against rape. Rape damages at physical and psychological levels, and those wounds reach out like skeins of telephone wire, transmitting pain and fear and confusion wherever they land. While I do not mean to argue “but what about the menz?!”, anecdotally, I’ve seen many men care more about the sexual violence visited upon women when it happens in some social proximity. In addition, because they are so often given scripts of vengeance for the violation of “their” woman, they find themselves impotent in the face of a society that tends to frown upon vigilantism, no matter how warranted.
At the level of fiction, men are capable of investing in female characters (although the evidence points towards the fact that most of us identify less with female than male characters). And for me, this is the site of the brilliance of this particular representation of rape in Game of Thrones. The assumed audience is male. While the viewership skews slightly male, it’s considerably more evenly divided than one might expect given the subject matter. With that said, even female audience members—in light of the data—are more likely to judge female characters (and real women in their lives) harshly, an attitude that extends to sexual violence.
Rather than focusing on the sadistic Ramsey, which would have repulsed the audience, or co-opting Sansa’s point-of-view, which would have allowed viewers to vicariously adopt the mantel of “victim-heroine,” they instead chose to focus on Theon. This choice is absolutely essential to the ethical project of the show because it subtly indicts the viewer (assumed male, but also assumed to judge female characters) for standing idly by while the rape epidemic unfolds—quite obviously—all around them.
Kate Polack is certainly correct to ask what the particular effect of this particular scene is, rather than evaluating it based on how it does or doesn’t effect the overall plot, etc.
But I would say the ethical project of Game of Thrones, insofar as it has one, is basically pro-rape and pro-brutality in general. (Thesis: Tolkien, or T. H. White, or whoever, said people are like that, but they’re really like this, and anybody who expects them to act differently, and any society that tries to make them act differently, is in denial.)
As for indicting the audience, I would say in practice this almost always means making the audience feel good about themselves for feeling bad about themselves.
Yeah…my sense from the first episode I saw was that the show was presenting itself as fantasy for adults by ramping up the sex and violence (implication being, other fantasy was naive, and that it’s adult to be violent.) And I’d agree with Graham that the aggressive supposedly factual statement, “the world is a horrible place, violence is inevitable” is pretty much indistinguishable from a normative statement that violence should be accepted and even celebrated. That’s why I stopped watching; my patience for that sort of thing is pretty low.
Nothing I’ve heard about the show since has made me question that take.
Like, Watchmen sort of does some of the same things (superheroes—violent, sexual and dangerous!) but it also undercuts them with flat out ridiculous fantasy aspects—and also repeatedly takes a stand that love and relationships are really important, and that the pragmatists who resort to violence are the supervillains. Maybe Game of Thrones complicates things in that way, but I’ve never seen anything that suggests that it does.
As far as comic book analogies to Game of Thrones, I’d say The Dark Knight Returns fits perfectly. Watchmen is, yes, a more complicated case. (Stop the presses, Alan Moore is more interesting than Frank Miller!) As Noah says, it’s far less comfortable with the idea of ruthless violence as a means toward a greater good. But maybe the most important difference is the general affect. Game of Thrones (like everything by Miller) is basically a happy story: it exults at its own courage and audacity in showing you the truth, after all those old stories lied to you. Watchmen is profoundly sad: the characters are depressed by the fact that the old superhero mythos – by extension, the whole Greatest Generation social contract – was a lie, which they can neither live up to nor replace with anything better, because it’s given them nothing valid on which to build.
Yes! I feel like the, yay, everything is shit, isn’t that great, narrative is one of the defaults for the golden age of television. Certainly there in Breaking Bad.
Frank Miller is really goofy, is the thing. It loves its pulp hard boiled tropes, as well as its geekery. It’s definitely a joyful book, but the joy isn’t exactly in spitting on its predecessors, the way that GofT does.
“Frank Miller is really goofy, is the thing.” Good point.
And ugh, don’t even get me started on HBO’s “It’s genre, but it’s serious art because everybody’s a sociopath” (okay, I guess I just started).
“Yes! I feel like the, yay, everything is shit, isn’t that great, narrative is one of the defaults for the golden age of television. Certainly there in Breaking Bad.” –
But we like it in The Wire?
“But we like it in The Wire?”
Based on what I’ve seen of GoT and Breaking Bad, the difference is that in The Wire, everything might be bad, but it doesn’t have to be… That is, The Wire (generally speaking) did a good job of showing how any given state of affairs is a historical contingency as opposed to a natural inevitability.
@eric b.
I don’t! (Though as Nate A. says, The Wire is at least smarter than Breaking Bad.)
Graham Clark, see, I think that the idea of GoT being pro-rape is undercut by the way it’s handled. I’m bracketing Cersei and Jaime for the moment, but in terms of Danerys, her wedding night was brutal. However, she wound up using her victimization as a springboard for power and agency.
In a different vein, when Joffrey forces one prostitute to violently rape the other with a rod, the camera lingers on his delight rather than titillating the viewer.
In terms of Theon, we’ve already developed sympathy for him (or at least pity), so I think GoT’s move was savvy as it doesn’t allow us to co-opt victim experience, nor does it demand we are in the repulsive position of looking at Ramsay’s delight.
I think there are pro-rape television shows, but I think depicting rape and being pro-rape are different.
And see, Noah, I disagree that ““the world is a horrible place, violence is inevitable” is pretty much indistinguishable from a normative statement that violence should be accepted and even celebrated.”
Identifying the objective reality of the place–that it is horrible and certain types of violence are inevitable–is to me indistinguishable from saying “Black men are more likely to serve time in prison than white men” or “women are more likely to have been raped by men.” It’s a big step between making a statement of fact–that certain things happen and continue to happen–and accepting it.
As to Watchmen, while I agree, I could also argue that snow zombies and dragons are effective at undercutting the violence in the show, and that Watchmen was actually a pro-rape graphic novel because it advocates forgiveness of the rapist. It’s not my interpretation of the work, but that interpretation is not only available, it’s completely reasonable.
By the way, GoT is *not* a happy, exulting story, at least not in my read. Maybe that’s an angle of vision thing, but I can’t think of one scene aside from a couple with Tyrion that legitimately made me smile or feel anything positive.
Eric, I think the critique does apply to The Wire, though as Nate says, The Wire is an explicitly political show in a way that GofT and Breaking Bad aren’t, which I think changes the inflection at least to some degree.
“a pro-rape graphic novel because it advocates forgiveness of the rapist”
It doesn’t though, does it? He’s not forgiven, and you’re not supposed to forgive him.
I’ve really only seen very little bits of GofT, so can’t match your knowledge. I do think there’s a difference between saying, “this injustice exists” and saying, “the world is a terrible place.” They’re both normative statements; the first says, “you should change the injustice”, the second says, “the smart people are those who realize it’s not worth trying to change anything.”
I do think there’s a difference between saying, “this injustice exists” and saying, “the world is a terrible place.” They’re both normative statements; the first says, “you should change the injustice”, the second says, “the smart people are those who realize it’s not worth trying to change anything.”
I think this is right, and Game Of Thrones is trying to show that a middle course is necessary. It seems so me to celebrate the characters who value love and compassion and makes the totally cynical characters repulsive. However, it also shows that adherence to an overly rigid moral code or sense of honour, is sometimes a liability in a world where honorable people aren’t protected by fantasy cliches.
The straightforwardly cynical characters, like Ramsay or Littlefinger are a little pathetic as well as unlikeable. Ned Stark, the Stoic, Manly action hero and Robb, the romantic hero are both killed and made to look foolish but the show doesn’t scoff at heroism. Brienne, a likeable knightly heroine, is beginning to have some success now that she’s willing to use subterfuge in situations where blunt physical force is innapropriate. Daenaerys is beginning to accept that while some institutions in Essos, like slavery, are so repugnant as to be morally unacceptable she cannot force her morality on another culture entirely. She freed the slaves but will make compromises on other points to prevent civil war. The plot looks like it’s pushing Jon Snow towards breaking an oath and compromising his honour if it means he can liberate the North from a cruel tyranny.
@Kate Polak
Thank you for the replies!
“Identifying the objective reality of the place–that it is horrible and certain types of violence are inevitable–is to me indistinguishable from saying “Black men are more likely to serve time in prison than white men” –
Well, it depends on how you say it. e.g. When the broker in Twelve Angry Men says “Slums are breeding grounds for crime,” the words are technically correct, as far as they go, but the tone is wrong – implying that there’s just something wrong with people who live in slums, not that they are victims of an unjust situation – and the juror who grew up in a slum rightly takes exception.
In Game of Thrones, in basically every scene we have characters in situations familiar from traditional fantasy, but acting worse, or acting like traditional fantasy characters, only to be revealed as naïve for having done so. There’s no context for why, in this or that particular situation, the morality of traditional fantasy didn’t apply. The implication is people are just inherently like that.
“I think there are pro-rape television shows, but I think depicting rape and being pro-rape are different.”
I agree. I think Game of Thrones is in the last category.
“and that Watchmen was actually a pro-rape graphic novel because it advocates forgiveness of the rapist.”
I’ll agree with that. (One can argue about what counts as forgiveness, but at the very least, the fact that his victim fell in love with him is treated as positive particularly because he did rape her.)
However, Dr. Manhattan’s epiphany is maybe the single weakest moment in the whole book. (And there’s plenty of competition! – with Rorsach’s revelation of how he became Rorsach as a close second. Maybe epiphanies aren’t Moore’s specialty.) In Game of Thrones I don’t find the strongest scenes to be any less excited about brutality than the weaker ones.
“but I can’t think of one scene aside from a couple with Tyrion that legitimately made me smile or feel anything positive.”
Well, Game of Thrones is telling you, basically, that you’re smarter than your parents. That’s a positive feeling. (Watchmen tells you you’re exactly as clueless as your parents, because they lied to you until it was too late for you to learn better.)
@El
Showing “that a middle course is necessary” is what buddy cop movies do (the uptight one becomes less uptight, the laid back one becomes more reliable). It’s a cop out (sorry), but at least it generally doesn’t pretend to be saying anything very incisive.
What Game of Thrones does is more like tearing a straw man to pieces, then sticking one strand behind its ear, and calling that a synthesis.
noah: “I feel like the, yay, everything is shit, isn’t that great, narrative is one of the defaults for the golden age of television. Certainly there in Breaking Bad.”
i’m amazed you could get that from breaking bad.
“…the camera lingers on his delight rather than titillating the viewer.”
But you have to admit that the show runners are pretty invested in their audience’s titillation right? Never have so many naked prostitutes and lesbians been shown for so little reason (apart from Starz TV of course). At least Penny Dreadful deigned to show us a naked penis.
The real reason to stop watching GoT is that it has become more badly written (in general) than ever. And it has even worse fight scenes (and Noah thought DareDevil sucked)!
So is the only way to assert our morality vis á vis this show, what with its ongoing moral project which indicts us for watching all its transgressive material which can be construed as taking part in what it is criticizing, to not watch it?
That seems an odd way for the makers of a show to interact with people but I’m in.
@ Graham,
Thanks for a lively discussion! I think you’re absolutely correct about tone, and I think in the case of GoT, we’re reading the tone differently. Part of my love of GoT is its violations of the conventions of the genre–or, at least, it’s violations of the present-day conventions of the genre. After all, one of the original Grimm’s tales ended with “And he threw sheep’s eyes at her until she went away and married another man.” Not exactly in line with our contemporary expectations of narrative arc in the fairy tale and frankly bizarre, even in the context of the story.
I think that violation of the conventions–coupled with an absolute disregard for fan preference for characters–is what I enjoyed about both the books and the show (although perish the thought I ever conflate them–I think Martin’s work is *painfully* reductive when writing female subjectivities).
In terms of telling us we’re smarter than our parents, I’d like to hear more about that–what are the key features that lead you to this?
@El, thanks for the fantastic breakdown. I absolutely agree.
Adam: Perhaps they’ve been reading interviews with Michael Haneke. Here’s him on Funny Games:
“If someone genuinely thought the film was shit and left the cinema, I would shake his hand and say, Congratulations, well done, your are completely right. I would’ve walked out, too, you know.”
But somehow, I kinda doubt that this is the effect the Game of Thrones people are after…
@Ng Suat Tong, oh, I don’t deny they’re invested in titillating viewers. That was actually one of the areas in the essay I wasn’t quite ready to broach because I’m still trying to figure out how to get across what I’m trying to say without accidentally wading into an area of the debate that I feel has been better covered by others.
Basically, I think the titillation in terms of sex, violence, and sexual violence takes place for different reasons. The sex and the violence are fairly obvious, but the sexual violence is more complicated, and I think leverages the titillation of the former two categories in order to estrange the viewer from his/her own arousal.
When we watch GoT, at this point, there’s an expectation of both artfully contrived sex and graphic, brutal violence. If you’re still watching, you’re probably–at minimum–not repulsed by those. But the inclusion of those two elements together changes the dynamic.
@Adam, indeed. Of course, I think the real hallmark of works like this (and there are others that employ this strategy) is that, in turning away, you’re not so much making a moral stand against the universe of the show as ignoring what it is–in this moment–critiquing.
I’m fond of works that repulse the audience, in part because that repulsion generally reveals something about what people like to ignore in daily life.
I thought the Daredevil fight scenes were okay. I’ve been watching Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan films with my son recently, though, and they do tend to underline just how little we’re willing to accept from action movie choreography at this point.
“Thesis: Tolkien, or T. H. White, or whoever, said people are like that, but they’re really like this, and anybody who expects them to act differently, and any society that tries to make them act differently, is in denial.) ”
Graham, I ‘m currently reading Jack Vance’s Undying Earth (Published in 1950). And like when I read Wizard of Earthsea, after having already read Terry Pratchett I’m like “Oh that’s possibly where Terry Pratchett got this bit he parodied in Discworld or that bit he parodied in Discworld”)
Anyway, Vance’s book is basically post apocalyptic fantasy, with wizards going around raping and pillaging. I haven’t seen game of thrones but I just googled George Martin and Jack Vance and turned up a quote of Martin saying “[Vance] had a huge influence on me and my work, and for the past fifty-some years has ranked among my very favorite writers. ”
So… while I haven’t seen Game of Thrones it appears Game of Thrones is not a response to T.H. White or Tolkien. And fantasy is a bigger genre than T.H. White and Tolkien.
To be fair, just about any action scene is going to look bad next to Jackie Chan. Still, it’s striking how few of those superhero things are directed by anyone with any action chops, or even just visual flair.
@Kate Polak “In terms of telling us we’re smarter than our parents, I’d like to hear more about that–what are the key features that lead you to this?” As you say, the most characteristic thing about Game of Thrones is its “violation of the present-day conventions of the genre” – that is, the conventions we inherited from our parents. (Or rather, that’s what it was when George R.R. Martin began writing the books in the 1990s. Now, in the 2010s, such violations of convention are the new convention – see Frozen, Once Upon a Time.)
It is possible, of course, for story based on violating old genre conventions to imply something more than “The older generation’s version of this story was naïve, but this version is more sophisticated; by extension, you, the audience enjoying this version, are more sophisticated than the audience who only knew the old version.” The example of Watchmen has already been discussed, and I’ll take this excuse to mention the magnificent feminist-queer deconstructed fairy tale that is the 1997 anime television series Revolutionary Girl Utena. But then you have to go further than merely violating the conventions, and I don’t think Game of Thrones does that.
@ pallas “So… while I haven’t seen Game of Thrones it appears Game of Thrones is not a response to T.H. White or Tolkien.” Why, because Martin claimed Jack Vance as an influence?
“And fantasy is a bigger genre than T.H. White and Tolkien.” Yeah, and the High Renaissance is more than Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael, but they still make for a useful shorthand.
[Insert obligatory Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles joke here.]
@ Jones
I would add, it’s striking how few (like, zero) actors cast in superhero movies have any particular talent for fighting.
“Why, because Martin claimed Jack Vance as an influence? ”
Sure. My point is brutality in fantasy isn’t some modern HBO era trend inspired by authors rebelling against Tolkien. Vance was publishing stories where humans are raping and pillaging each other before Lord of the Rings came out.
It’s not just that Game of Thrones is violent. Three examples off the top of my head:
– The spy master Varys tells the noble dope Ned Stark “Your mercy killed the king.”
– Snooty what’s-her-name in charge of the mountain country tells Bronn the mercenary, who’s just won a trial by combat by tricky means, “You do not fight with honor.” “No,” he agrees, and continues, indicating the corpse of his opponent, “he did.”
– Tyrion the dwarf gravely informs his men before leading them in a sally “Those are brave men out there.” Then, matter of factly, “Let’s kill them.”
The books and show don’t merely decline to conform to the classic fantasy ideals, they constantly bring them up in order to spit on them.
More broadly, you’re correct that the graphic violence and pessimism that’s a novelty in today’s television and big budget films was already being done in genre books and short stories in the 1950s – which just goes to show how cautious television and big budget films tend to be.
Jones…right, but…Jackie Chan is still out there. Avengers has an infinite budget. Why not dump some of it on Jackie Chan and say, hey, choreograph our fight scenes for us?
The obvious answers is that the people in charge don’t care, and/or can’t tell the difference. Which is embarrassing for everyone.
And yet, The Simpsons can be far more painful than Jack Vance (if not Philip K. Dick), which goes to show that the books, movies tv programs, and so on that make a big, ostentatious point of being pessimistic aren’t always the ones whose pessimism runs deepest (surprise, surprise).
This is the dynamic for the awful Azzarello/Chiang Wonder Woman too. The whole story is basically, “Marston and Peter were naive fools, because feminism and love and peace are stupid; the real world is bloody patriarchy all the way down and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar.”
There’s a recent anime called Fate Zero that has a character bring up the point that people who believe in honor are often violent, dangerous barbarians.
I’m not exactly sure why Lord of the Rings, which seemingly advocates genocide against sentient life forms (surely the only good orc is a dead orc) is being held as the moral standard we’ve fallen from.
Well, maybe, but then people who make a point of not believing in honor are fascists, and fascists do all the bad things barbarians do, except more effectively.
Honor cultures are definitely violent cultures. However, societies that advocate the eugenic survival of the fittest as a moral/pragmatic good have, as Graham suggests, been perhaps the most spectacularly violent cultures ever to deface modernity.
I wrote about the genocide of the orcs. I think Tokien’s moral world is complicated and often a mess. However, he (and C.S. Lewis) engaged seriously with issues of morality. It’s possible to critique Tolkien’s treatment of the orcs from within the context of his own work; the failure to give the orcs moral standing is a betrayal of Frodo’s pacifist commitments at the end of the trilogy, for example. Once you’ve asserted that all honor and morality are foolishness, though, it’s hard to find any purchase to make any kind of moral judgement. Which I think is bad. And also stupid.
By the way, the Orcs aren’t a genos, they’re a class. Urban working class English, to be precise.
The foreign races – the Dunlendings, the Haradrim, the Easterlings, the wild men – are of course supposed to submit to the whites, but they are real men, unlike the Cockney scum, capable of admirable courage and entitled to mercy if they ask for it. (Of course nobody ever refuses an Orc’s plea for mercy. One assumes they generally don’t get around to asking.)
Nobody said Tolkien was a model moralist! (Though as Noah points out, he at least admits possibility of morality, which is prerequisite for moral critique.) He had his vices, but that doesn’t make our vices okay.
“Why not dump some of it on Jackie Chan and say, hey, choreograph our fight scenes for us?”
This has nothing to do with the post above but this is one occasion where we can praise the intelligence of Hollywood types (the less Jackie Chan the better). Don’t forget Yuen Wo Ping (they did actually listen to your advice).
Googling the issue it looks like Martin has also talked about Orc Genocide, so it could be Graham’s right that Tolkien was also on his mind to some extent when writing Game of Thrones:
“And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?
In real life, real-life kings had real-life problems to deal with. Just being a good guy was not the answer.”
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/george-r-r-martin-the-rolling-stone-interview-20140423#ixzz3b1TmBCBm
Oh, right; forgot you didn’t like Jackie Chan! And people say I’m heartless…
Graham, I think the orcs can of course be seen as various different kinds of metaphors. I tend to see them more as about race, but I’m interested in the class reading…
Well and good, except that in his own work Martin’s idea of “real-life problems” is pulp cloak and dagger intrigue.
(Admittedly, we do get some actual real life problems in the fourth and fifth books. with the economic complications of Daenyrs’ mass manumission and the author’s apparent sudden realization that the masses actually cared about religion in the Middle Ages. Maybe not coincidentally, the vast majority of fans agree that the fourth and fifth books are worse by far than the first three.)
I’ve mentioned this before, but I need to re-read Joel Rosenberg’s fantasy series, which starts out as D&D goof; role players end up in a fantasy world. By the end of the first book, though, the people from our world have decided that their mission is not to get treasure and experience, but to free all the fantasy world’s slaves. And that’s what they try to do for the next umpty-ump books. The main point of view character dies a martyrs death in the battle against slavery.
I never see them talked about, and they weren’t super well written or anything (though decently written, if I remember right.) But they’re really unusual in their moral commitments, for a fantasy story. Like, there’s no brooding overarching evil. Just this horrible social practice that they’ve committed themselves to abolishing.
Ah, here’s the inevitable wikipedia page.
@ Noah
I was of course being flippant in stating it as a matter of fact, but I’m also serious.
1. Tolkien certainly finds the Orcs repulsive. But his response to non-white humans in The Lord of the Rings is invariably condescension, not repulsion.
2. The Orcs always speak in unrefined but perfectly idiomatic English. (When the Hobbit collaborators with Saruman speak in a similar way at the end, Sam calls it “Orc talk”; but evidently those Hobbits are still redeemable; they’re still basically honest country folk, who’ve only begun to come under the evil influence of the modern city.) The low ranking Orcs actually speak in faux Cockney. The Orcs never sound like foreigners (that’s reserved for the wild men). (The movies sure changed that, though!)
3. Judging by his fiction and by his other writings, Tolkien doesn’t seem to have been worried about foreign contamination. (Different in this respect from G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis, predecessor and successor in middlebrow Christian popularizing.) His hatred is reserved for modernity itself, and particularly for industrialization – nowhere more indigenous than England – maybe extending, maybe unconsciously, to the urban working class created by industrialization.
4. In the Silmarillion (I think? Either there or somewhere else in his unpublished work.) Tolkien speculates that Morgoth may have created the Orcs by torturing Elves – so, the Orcs are not a primitive race, nor white people degraded by interbreeding with non-whites, but rather white people forcibly transformed into something inferior by those Dark Satanic Mill operators, Morgoth and Sauron. (Apparently unsalvageable. Tolkien evinces pity for the Orcs, but he never seems to have any hopes for them.)
Though, on the other hand, there is Saruman’s possible interbreeding of humans and Orcs being regarded as an abomination.
“white people forcibly transformed into something inferior by those Dark Satanic Mill operators”
I’m not convinced that accomplishes what you think it does. In European old fashioned renaissance art, I believe Adam and Even and angels are white. I don’t see how the origin of orcs as altered white people goes against European art in terms of how it depicts race.
Who said it “accomplishes” anything? Hating the urban worker class instead of non-white people would only be an accomplishment if… well, if hating the urban working class were better than hating non-white people.
I’m not sure what your point is in the rest of your comment.
Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought you were saying the orcs weren’t a race because they were altered white people, but I was pointing out that European art shows the first people were white, thus people of other races are altered white people.
When I said “accomplishment” I just meant your argument didn’t work for me in terms of the orcs no being a race.
@ Noah, re Joel Rosenberger – the secret inspiration for Hermione Granger’s House Elf Liberation Front?
@ pallas
Thank you for clarifying. Add as many real world theories of racial hierarchy as you want to the list of things the Orcs aren’t (the descendants of cursed Ham; victims of the debilitating effects of tropical climates). It’s not just that they used to be white, it’s also that they became what they are because they were made that way by, essentially, evil modern industrialists.
But his response to non-white humans in The Lord of the Rings is invariably condescension, not repulsion.
Oops, never mind, forgot about the black enemy soldiers in Return of the King being described as resembling trolls.
Orcs as debased products of industrailization works. It’s an interesting reading.
Every fantasy fight scene looks bad, Noah. Watch Rashomon and decide which fight scene is the real one…
No one on planet earth hates fantasy more than I do. I started watching Game of Thrones because, as Kate put it, the series violated the conventions of the genre. Unfortunately Suat is right: it’s gone from bad to worse. This is so because they can’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs and must go on and on and on… ad nauseam…
“No one on planet earth hates fantasy more than I do.”
I hope you don’t include Borges, Kafka or Gogol in that hate?
I’m sure Domingos means fantasy genre, not magical realist fiction.
Though that does raise an interesting question: If fantasy sucks (a proposition I’m open to), what does this say about high art that’s parasitic on fantasy?
I don’t have strong feelings about Sansa’s rape (IMO the way the show handled Daenerys was way worse), but it strikes me as unfair and uncharitable to portray those who object to it as “demanding that rape scenes adhere to a certain set of rules.” First of all none of these objectors are not just referring to that rape as gratuitous in itself; they are considering it within the broader context of the show and its relationship to the original text. Sansa’s rape is the latest in a series of three that never occurred in the books. For a lot of people, it seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
You also need to consider the broader context of prestige television, and the way in which it uses rape as a narrative device. From Cersei to Mellie Grant to Elizabeth Jennings, the quickest way to make an inscrutable bitch more sympathetic is to shoehorn a rape into her storyline. Forget women in refrigerators. We’re in a new narrative era wherein rape is not just used to galvanize male characters; it’s now used in service of making female characters more complicated. Nothing gives a female character instant depth and dimension like a harrowing rape scene. We come to understand these women, not through vibrant portrayals of their interior lives, but because of the ways in which men have mistreated them. It’s progress, I guess? And it’s certainly handled better on some shows than others. But broadly speaking, rape storylines currently perpetuate real gender disparities on television, and it’s surely possible to object to that without being painted as a fascist who evaluates each rape scene with a checklist in hand.
Your theory about using Theon’s pov to indict the audience is compelling, but it gives the show way too much credit. Was it also indicting the audience that time Robb’s pregnant wife got stabbed in the stomach? Or was that simply a way to heighten our feelings for the death of a character who was otherwise poorly developed?
I don’t think Kafka’s parasitic on genre fantasy. Genre fantasy is a pretty specific thing; Kafka doesn’t use any of the tropes. Borges is a little more complicated, perhaps. I’m willing to go out on a limb and say Borges is significantly better than Game of Thrones, though.
Kafka has nothing to do with genre fantasy, agreed.
Yes, I include magical realism fiction. I definitely do.
What about Hoffmann, Ariosto and Lucian?
Look, this is my thing. I don’t know why people assume that I’m making some old fashioned universal value judgment. I’m even more inclined to admit that it’s a blind spot of mine. I accept fantasy if it’s a figure of speech (or a figure of image) of some sort, of course… I don’t accept some far-fetched (over)interpretations easily though.
“I don’t know why people assume that I’m making some old fashioned universal value judgment”
I expect it’s because you’re wont to make such judgements, Domingos, and we can’t tell the difference.
Dragonlance Legends Volume 2: War of the Twins 4 life, yo.
Ack, Dragonlance. Those are truly terrible books.
Really? By Jove!… I’m known for being misunderstood (sarcasm alert!), but never this much…
@Kim, I don’t think there’s anything uncharitable or unfair about identifying that audiences have certain expectations about the way sensitive subject matter will be handled. In fact, it’s really just an outgrowth of genre–when we have a particular arrangement of characters in particular circumstances, there are generic rules that tend to be adhered to–we were talking above about how GoT violates some of those conventions of genre, and it’s also violating some of the conventions of how rape is “supposed” to be depicted. People like to bandy about “fascist” and “censorship” at this suggestion that there are expectations, but it’s really just a fact of representation in various forms. Those expectations can be problematized, in part because they can be as painfully reductive as Godwin’s Law.
As to Sansa’s rape, one of the things film and television tend to do with longer literary works is trim and combine characters–rather than introducing Jeyne Poole, they used Sansa.
I’ve actually considered the representation of rape in literature, comics, television, and film at some length–it’s one of the main subject areas of my dissertation and my scholarly research. With that said, I don’t agree in Cersei’s case. The rape didn’t make her more sympathetic (if it was indeed a rape, which many have objected to–I think it was, but that’s besides the point). The rape was–in the show–an outgrowth of the pathological relationship between her and Jaime, and in my opinion, the least convincing and useful use of rape in the television series. Cersei’s actually considerably more sympathetic when she’s battling with her father, because it exposes some of the power structures that restrict her. And in the books, we get the nuance of her subjective experience of these strictures, which we don’t get in the tv series.
I can’t speak to Mellie Grant or Elizabeth Jennings, because I watch neither of those series, but I can say that I’m a lot more worried about rape being underrepresented in creative works than over-represented. In addition, it’s much more honest, ethical, and valuable, to individually and carefully evaluate each instance of the depiction of rape.
Of course rape storylines perpetuate real gender disparities on television and elsewhere–so does rape. But do they expose those disparities or do they support them? Depicting something isn’t necessarily endorsing it.
And finally, authorial intent doesn’t necessarily matter in this–or any–case. What matters is the product. I don’t see why I would be giving the show too much credit; I’m working off of the same images everyone else watched. Whether or not the creators/director/actors intended that reading is besides the point.
Why would it also be that in the case of Robb Stark’s wife? Did they use the same visual arrangement to promote the same effect? No, they really didn’t. We see her get stabbed, we see all of the violence in that scene. The final image, if I remember correctly, is Catelyn Stark’s throat being cut. It’s not a very good comparison, because the visual elements of the scene really treat Catelyn’s death as more important than any of the others, and we’ve already been heavily prompted to sympathize with her.
By the way, here’s an interesting take on the comparison between the show and the books:
http://tafkarfanfic.tumblr.com/post/119770640640/rape-in-asoiaf-vs-game-of-thrones-a-statistical
@Kate: “Depicting something isn’t necessarily endorsing it.”
You’re absolutely right. And by the same token, observing that GoT uses rape as a cheap device is a far cry from deeming it pro-rape or demanding that every sexual assault on television adhere to a set of rules.
“I can’t speak to Mellie Grant or Elizabeth Jennings, because I watch neither of those series, but I can say that I’m a lot more worried about rape being underrepresented in creative works than over-represented. In addition, it’s much more honest, ethical, and valuable, to individually and carefully evaluate each instance of the depiction of rape.”
I don’t think it’s dishonest, unethical, or invaluable to consider trends in the ways in which women are depicted, whether it’s on a single show or on prestige television in general. When I said that rape storylines perpetuate gender disparities on television, I wasn’t referring to power differentials. The disparity is in the way in which the characters are crafted–their relative roundness and how we come to understand their actions and their inner lives.
@ Kim, I just don’t think it always uses it as a cheap device. Plenty of shows do, and my point here wasn’t to exonerate every instance of the use of rape in GoT, but only this one.
Nor do I think it’s dishonest or unethical to consider trends–that wasn’t my project here, but I’d love to see your take on it. I was thinking since writing the reply this morning of prestige television more generally, and while I’m not familiar with the shows you cite, I have a few other examples worth considering. There’s Joan’s rape by her husband in Mad Men, which I thought was both a useful depiction in the broad cultural sense and wasn’t necessarily undermining her character. I haven’t finished the series, though, so I don’t know–last time I checked in, she left her husband. There’s also the rape in Downton Abbey, which was (in my opinion) so grotesquely useless and problematic that I stopped watching the show. I’m open to other interpretations and arguments, but that particular scene irked me at the class level (servant-on-servant rape was much less likely than superior-on-servant rape), the gender level (oh, let’s violate the “pure” character), and the character level.
Once again, trends aren’t what I’m speaking to in the essay above–close reading has as much value as trends, and is in fact essential to support trend pieces. With that said, write up the piece on the trends you’re seeing, because I’d like to read it!
One issue I have with much of the Game of Thrones discussion is highlighted by Marcotte’s supposedly “fabulously patient, clear delineation of the flaws in each objection”, encapsulated by this conclusion:
“Being challenged or upset by stuff is not a reason to be against it. It often means you need to slow your roll and think about things harder. Plus, bad arguments makes it easier for anti-feminists to paint feminists as a bunch of overly emotional, thoughtless and censorious creatures. Don’t give them that.”
In just two sentences Marcotte:
1. dismisses any disagreement with her preferred interpretation of an artwork as “overly emotional, thoughtless and censorious”.
2. Echos bog-standard anti-PC rhetoric equating critiquing flaws in a work with being against it.
3. Implies critics are not only stupid and weak (“slow your roll and think about things harder”), but also bad feminists acting like the hysterical girls sexist think they are.
The final point is the most annoying, as Marcotte invokes “anti-feminists” for her own ad hominem handwaving of criticism. It’s hardly “fabulously patient” – it’s exasperated and condescending.
It pretends there’s one correct reading of the art – hers – and other opinions aren’t just unconvincing, but morally weak, like a conservative’s “bullshit rationales for thoughtless reactions” to issues like abortion. The entire essay is a dubious appeal to objectivity, “debunking” arguments as if it was climate change rather than if an intentionally shocking scene on a TV show worked. Worse, many of the debunked arguments were strawman distortions of actual criticisms – a tactic Marcotte has derided when others do it.
That art can intend one thing and do another instead or at the same time, that a TV show can have feminist and sexist moments, that a shocking scene can make sense yet fail in execution, that people can appreciate gritty material yet find specific choices gratuitous, that certain content functions differently in a very long text than on TV, is not permitted by this “with it or against it” dynamic.
Which, to me, is a rather purile approach to art and analysis, particularly series television which is vastly collaborative and involves multiple texts and contexts no matter what singular vision is involved.
Marcotte ends up echoing the sort of touchy fanboy she has often dissected, invested in a work to the point it discussions of its flaws is conflated with the rightness of their own taste and values. Which ends up making one’s arguments less persuasive and more like telling haters to shut up.
@ Rambling That’s not what “ad hominem” means.
Is it “ad hominem” to try to make someone look stupid for using a word wrong instead of responding to the content of their (really good, IMO) argument? Or is that just regular being a dick.
Who says I’m trying to make Rambling look stupid?
Ad hominem means attacking someone’s character as a means of dismissing their arguments. Equating those who object to the scene by saying it’s the same mental process as lazy right-wing bullshit arguments about abortion is attacking the critic rather than the content.
Yes, that’s what it means, but Marcotte is doing the opposite. She’s saying her targets look “overly emotional, etc” because their arguments are bad.
Addendum on Tolkien – So, besides the aforementioned passage on black people, there’s this charmer:
“In one of the windows he caught a glimpse of a sallow face with sly, slanting eyes; but it vanished at once.
‘So that’s where that southerner is hiding!’ he thought. ‘He looks more than half like a goblin.'”
I suppose the obvious conclusion is that Tolkien in fact has a racial hierarchy, Europeans at the top, of course (interestingly including Jews, whom he explicitly identifies with his Dwarves), then Middle Easterners and whatever the “Easterlings” are supposed to be (either Eastern Europeans or some kind of Aryans from the steppe), and Eastern Asians and blacks at the bottom – and that the Orcs simultaneously stand for the industrial working class and for the lowest races. (Implication: Industrialism makes white people as bad as Chinese or Africans, and worse than Arabs.)