A scene that aired during Sunday’s installment of the hit HBO drama series “Game of Thrones” has drawn an angry response from critics and lawmakers.
Among those responding to the scene, which depicted a sexual assault, was U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who released a tweet Tuesday calling the scene “gratuitous” and “disgusting,” the AP reports. McCaskill said she was done with the show, according to the report.
“Others critics included the website The Mary Sue, which offers a feminist view of pop culture. The website posted that it would no longer promote ‘Game of Thrones’ and said that rape is not a device to drive a story,” the AP reports, noting that HBO declined to comment.
“The attack involved newly married characters Sansa, played by Sophie Turner, and Ramsay, portrayed by Iwan Rheon. Ramsay’s rape of Sansa was off-camera, suggested in her cries and the distress on a bystander’s face,” the report notes.
Oh please, it’s not like they were watching Sesame Street. This is a show that’s admittedly over the top, with extreme violence and sexual violence part of the show from the very beginning.
So, the Senator (and that one website) were okay with multiple beheadings, characters flailed alive and burned alive, powerful men torturing and killing prostitutes as sport, and dragons cooking and eating people, not to mention the infamous Red Wedding? But a wedding-night rape (incidentally, the SECOND time there’s been one of these in the show’s five seasons) is suddenly too much to bear? Even though virtually all of it took place off screen?
What were you expecting? Frankly, I was relieved. I thought Ramsey Bolton was going to slice her up after he consummated his wedding…
Not only that, but this is not the first time that a new wife was raped after her wedding. How soon they forget the Showtime series “The Borgias.”
Glad a TV writer could work out his personal fantasy. Haven’t seen the series, so don’t care. If someone objects to this, best way to counter it is to simply ignore the series, don’t fuel the publicity machine that lives off this type of controversy, and as a professional in the TV business, don’t nominate it or vote for it for any awards. Most producers/directors/writers loved to be loved, don’t mind being hated, but can’t stand being ignored.