Adrastos sends over this nice takedown of the recent negative reviews tonight's Game of Thrones (Galactica-style discussion threads to follow because HOMG) has gotten, in particular this assy one in the Times in which a woman lectures other women on what they like:
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.
First of all, Lord knows women can't be interested in political intrigue and swords and stuff. Those are BOY things! Ms. Bellafante is sure those strange girl nerds exist, but she's never met one who'd actually go out in public! All normal girls have to have some hotties takin' they clothes off for our simple lady brains, because a plot, particularly a plot that involves MEN and POWER, is just so not interesting to us.
We can't relate to men as fellow people, or share any qualities or experiences with them through well-told stories! There are no universal human values men and women can share! Everybody knows women can only relate to other women, and our book clubs only include novels by ladies about lady things, like true love, and menstruating.
You know, I started reading fantasy and sci-fi based on stuff my Dad would hand me, and my best female friend from childhood was obsessed with Tolkien, and never once did it occur to me that these stories were supposed to be inaccessible to me because of my inconvenient girl parts. I used to think of my childhood as conservative, but looking back it really was remarkably unburdened by the kind of patriarchal bullshit Ms. Bellafante is reinforcing here by saying that girls can't relate to courage, loyalty, feats of arms, and need some pining princesses to get us hooked.
Second of all, "bed-hopping?" In the first installment of the series? I'm straining to remember any gratuitous sluttery, male or female, and as I just re-devoured the first book last weekend, the fact that I can't think of any (people screw, sure, but it's for the usual reasons: because they're trying to get something from someone, or because they like each other) makes me wonder if the show is going to add a few more layers to people's relationships. Maybe Loras will be EVEN GAYER than he so completely already is.
I will say this, though: Nobody's innocent and pure in this story. People you will HATE this year, you'll adore in ways that will make you slightly ashamed of yourself later. I said "devour" with relationship to the books above; I am not kidding, the next one comes out in July and it will be all I can do not to EAT it, because it's a good story, and you don't have to check your sexual equipment to appreciate that.
Come back later tonight for more nerd-ness. Ladies more than welcome.
A.