Sexist review from the NYTimes: A Fantasy World of Strange Feuding Kingdoms

[XemaSab]

With the amount of money apparently spent on “Game of Thrones,” the fantasy epic set in a quasi-medieval somewhereland beginning Sunday on HBO, a show like “Mad Men” might have the financing to continue into the second term of a Malia Obama presidency. “Game of Thrones” is a cast-of-at-least-many-hundreds production, with sweeping “Braveheart” shots of warrior hordes. Keeping track of the principals alone feels as though it requires the focused memory of someone who can play bridge at a Warren Buffett level of adeptness. In a sense the series, which will span 10 episodes, ought to come with a warning like, “If you can’t count cards, please return to reruns of ‘Sex and the City.’ ”

Shot largely on location in the fields and hills of Northern Ireland and Malta, “Game of Thrones” is green and ripe and good-looking. Here the term green carries double meaning as both visual descriptive and allegory. Embedded in the narrative is a vague global-warming horror story. Rival dynasties vie for control over the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros — a territory where summers are measured in years, not months, and where winters can extend for decades.

How did this come to pass? We are in the universe of dwarfs, armor, wenches, braids, loincloth. The strange temperatures clearly are not the fault of a reliance on inefficient HVAC systems. Given the bizarre climate of the landmass at the center of the bloody disputes — and the series rejects no opportunity to showcase a beheading or to offer a slashed throat close-up — you have to wonder what all the fuss is about. We are not talking about Palm Beach.

(snip)

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.

http://tv.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/arts/television/game-of-thrones-begins-sunday-on-hbo-review.html

[supernova]

1. Wow. Someone really doesn't *get* fantasy

at all.

As for the sexist part. There really aren't that many female characters in LOTR, yet we still love it. I do.

GoT is an improvement on that score, I think.

[XemaSab]

4. I think GoT is totally chick-friendly

I know that my own thoughts about it are sorta sexist, but I LOVE how the entire plot is driven by who-screwed-whom and who has been harboring an unrequited love for whom and who has been nurturing a dark hatred for whom and so forth. I also think that he's very fair with the women in the story, and even though they're not swashbuckling (except for Brienne and Arya) they're making things work in their own way.

I didn't care for LOTR just because I thought the characters were not compelling. To wit: Tyrion goes from being the butt of the joke to being one of the most powerful players in the game, while Gimli just sort of dwarfs along. :shrug:

[anneboleyn]

8. My thoughts exactly. As a woman who happens to love and have published on fantasy fiction

I am irritated by the argument that "women" don't like to watch or read fantasy as only "geeky men" appreciate the genre. This is of course offensive to women as readers or viewers since we are imagined to be so limited that we can only identify with certain types of stories ("realism") or characters. I also find the sarcasm about "quasi-medieval" settings etc. irritating (I am a medievalist by training). Tolkien for example was one of the top Oxford medievalists of his generation, a generation that included his close friend C. S. Lewis.

Alas, Tolkien published less scholarship that many of us would have liked but what he did publish is absolutely tops. He was a brilliant medievalist, and this expert knowledge of medieval cultures and languages is clear throughout his fiction. Fantasy can be a perfectly sophisticated form of fiction or film, and this a priori denigration of an entire genre says far more about the critic than the genre. Not to mention the fact that many famous fantasy writers are women and that women writers have long found a space for their writing in the fantasy genre (the lais of Marie de France of the medieval period (12th c.) and Christina Rossetti's gorgeous and haunting "Goblin Market" (19th c.) come to mind as two of many examples...)!

From what I have read so far, Game of Thrones is said to be very well-filmed and exceptionally detailed in terms of both plot and character development. The novels are apparently very intricate, so HBO is being lauded for bringing such a complex narrative to the television screen, and trusting its audience with a complex story. Critics have been very positive about it to this point (unless they just don't like fantasy as a genre and even ridicule it, then why bother with a "review" just to belittle an entire genre and its audience?)

[XemaSab]

10. You should read the books

Yeah, they're all huge, but if you like them then that's more to enjoy, no? :D

[Supply Side Jesus]

14. Crack on paper

once you start, prepare to read during your sleeping hour!

the bigger the better, as long as it's good

[Confusious]

26. You work at a national laboratory AND like fantasy?

A geek's (me) dream girl.

I hope you don't take offense.

[XemaSab]

27. Last I checked

I didn't work for a national laboratory.

Sorry to disappoint. ;)

[Confusious]

28. Well, still

We can't get everything we want, can we? Some things are just icing on the cake, and I can take or leave the icing.

[XemaSab]

29. .

:D

[and-justice-for-all]

2. I did not think Game Of Thrones looked bad at all...

from the previews. I have seen all of the first season of SPARTACUS: Blood and Sand; it fucking rocks!!

[Supply Side Jesus]

3. cuz women can't identify with Cat, Arya, Sansa.....

some real nutty reviews out there regarding GoT. The lack of intellectualism among some of these reviews is mind blowing.

[XemaSab]

5. Cercei, Brienne

Daenerys...

[Supply Side Jesus]

11. how could I forget Brienne...

still wonder what the word she screamed was at the end of AFFC, hopefully ADOD covers it

[Nevernose]

6. There are no "dwarfs" in this series

There is A dwarf, as in a single person of short stature, but that's not his race, it's because the character (and actor) have the condition known as dwarfism." He's little. And a universe filled with swords and armor? Is the reviewer referring to OURS, which the series is based on and has had swords and armor far longer than we've had guns and tanks. And the fantasy weather? Perhaps because part of the series takes place in the north, where it's cold, and part takes place in the south, where it's warm has somehow caused the NYT reviewer to become confused. You'd have thought that the Irish and Maltese shooting locations would have been additional clues.

Why are so many people so totally closed minded to entire genres? And why do they get these people to review entertainment? Are there no other critics there?

I get the distinct impression that, besides being prejudiced against the genre, the reviewer either A) didn't watch it closely or B) didn't watch but a few minutes or C)didn't watch any at all.

[Supply Side Jesus]

13. there was a 2nd dwarf....*spoiler*

a but it didn't end well for him

[XemaSab]

15. I think that by the time anyone gets to book 2

they should just assume that everyone's going to die horrifically.

That way every time someone makes it though another book it's a pleasant surprise. :D

[Supply Side Jesus]

16. you know..

I felt so bad for that Sparrow.... he was kind and helpful, and that asshole killed him! That really bugged me for some reason! The only sense of justice was Cersi had the asshole's head loped off for trying to fool her. :o

[XemaSab]

17. That's hardly the most appalling moment in the series

Seriously, it's like LOTR meets Cormac McCarthy. :o

On edit: with a healthy dash of "The Thorn Birds" thrown in FTW. :D

[Supply Side Jesus]

18. Lol

far from it, but it bugged the hell out of me.. poor little sparrow LoL

i think someones head being replaced with that other thing's head was probably one of the most appalling moment in the books

[XemaSab]

19. That is certainly a strong choice

The "coronation" of whatsisname is another strong choice. "And not a drop of blood was spilled." :o

[Supply Side Jesus]

20. omg, that scene is going to be wicked!!

}(

gawd, GRRM is one sick bastard!

[XemaSab]

22. If you'll allow me to wax rhapsodic for a moment

GRRM knows exactly when to cut the scene, and he knows exactly when to spin it out.

To wit: that one part that you referred to never happens "on camera," because he KNOWS that he can't do it nearly as much justice as the minds of his readers can do.

As another example, that one chick who almost married whatsisname, almost got raped by whatsisname, DID marry whatsisname, and now she's the creepy secret hostage of whatsisname? I dunno when it's going to go down for her, but it can't be good. :o

[iris27]

24. Yeah...just got to that part in my re-read...NOT something you

want to stumble across while reading during your lunch break, LOL!

[Nevernose]

30. You're gonna have to remind me.

Please? I'm re-reading the first book, but I haven't read them since the last one came out what, something like five or six years ago?

[Supply Side Jesus]

31. I think he is in AFFC

believe Brienne and Podrick run into him on the road while looking for Sansa

[Warren DeMontague]

7. You do realize that the review was written by a woman, don't you?

One who has also bemoaned the 'death of modern feminism' in places like Time Magazine.

Plus, I think she's wrong. My wife is a much bigger Tolkien nerd than I am.

[anneboleyn]

9. Yes, she wants to limit the reading, viewing, and imaginations of other women. Strange isn't it?

I know many women like your wife! There are millions of us out there. We apparently are not reading the "right" fiction or watching the right kinds of films.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. Meh. The reviewer probably doesn't like Pink Floyd, either.

Her loss.

[XemaSab]

12. I do realize this, which only leads to more

:banghead:

I don't think a man would have made a "Sex in the City" reference, ya know? :P

[iris27]

23. Wow, could this have been written by anyone who knows less about fantasy?

The long seasons in Martin's world aren't some "vague global-warming horror story", they're his shorthand way of saying "this planet is not Earth". He's written at least one sci-fi short involving a world with an erratic orbit that had no night.

It cracks me up that the illictness she refers to as being "tossed in for the ladies" is actually a vital plot point that drives the major conflict of the first book. It starts a war, for crying out loud! "Tossed in", my ass...



Gender essentialist bullshit is no less offensive when it comes from a woman. I for one would absolutely 'refuse to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agrees to "The Hobbit" first'. Except that I refuse to join a book club altogether, because reading isn't fun and social anymore if you spend the whole evening having to explain that "The Time Traveler's Wife" is absolutely not science fiction, because nothing so terribly ignorant of both basic biology and basic physics deserves that label.

/goes back to her third read-through of "A Song of Ice and Fire" in 7 years, anticipating the 5th book release (finally!!!) this June.

[XemaSab]

25. To take it to the next level

note well that the murder of the last Hand, while it does set off a chain of events that starts the war, was actually orchestrated by whatsisname in order to get his grubby little hands on some of them trout womens... and this is a plan he's been working on for 20 years. :P

(Chicks dig intrigue. :D )