How strong will HBO be in the face of criticism from the religious right?

[JungianQueen]

I have no idea why anyone would think that HBO would buckle to any special interest groups when they have shows like:

Carnivale (where evil incarnate comes in the form of a preacher).

Deadwood (how many times can we say the word c*s*er in one episode)?

Rome (orgies, hot lesbian sex, hot man on man sex, etc).

True Blood (where a zealous religious organization is pretty much painted as a laughable group of morons).

I don't see where the religious right has had any power over anything HBO does in the past. Why in the world would that change now?

[Brude]

THAT was the deal with Preacher?

Such awesome potential wasted because of jackassery?

That man must pay.

Naw, it's a good thing he lost the project. He was the worst possible person for the job anyhow. WHen I heard Preacher might be an HBO series, I was very happy, then I found out MSJ was the one doing it and I was very sad. The day I heard it got dropped, I remember I was actually quite relieved. I'd rather wait for some other person - hopefully much better - to come along and do the show. Almost anyone except for MSJ.

[About Yea High]

Naw, it's a good thing he lost the project. He was the worst possible person for the job anyhow. WHen I heard Preacher might be an HBO series, I was very happy, then I found out MSJ was the one doing it and I was very sad. The day I heard it got dropped, I remember I was actually quite relieved. I'd rather wait for some other person - hopefully much better - to come along and do the show. Almost anyone except for MSJ.

Joel Shumacher?

[Ser_not_appearing_yet]

The bible bashers will probably accuse HBO of corrupting our minds and glamourising Satan.

All good things of course. We need more corruption and glamourising of Satan.

Why? You guys get enough Satan with me. The world should be happy with that.

[Ser Greguh]

The religious wrong won't give a rat's ass about the show, presuming they even know it exists. The vast majority of their effort involving their bitching about popular culture is directed toward shows and movies that they perceive as direct affronts to their faith; general vulgarity and sex doesn't really register on their radar. The show won't be nearly as salacious as Rome or even The Sopranos or Sex and the City and you didn't really hear much of anything about those shows, so I think we're in the clear on this one.

[Eyelesbarrow]

As long as hot button issues like abortion, healthcare, gay marriage are on the tv and the news, I think AGOT is safe.

[BigFatCoward]

Meh.The American right you mean. I'm very right winged and I support gay marriage, as does most of my family.

HBO gave up on Preacher because of the Church, and Preacher is effing awesome.

To be honest, I don't think the Church will have anywhere near as much of a problem with this as they did with His Dark Materials, which failed not because of the church as much as because it was crap.

i totally agree with you in respect of it being crap, however it is the only film in history to take $400 million worldwide but less than $100 million in the US. there has to be a reason for that anomally.

[Padraig]

i totally agree with you in respect of it being crap, however it is the only film in history to take $400 million worldwide but less than $100 million in the US. there has to be a reason for that anomally.

The US have decent taste in movies!

[The Pita]

The US released Gamer, D&D, and Batman & Robin. These numbers make sense when you realize that the books are very British, so that the viewership from european countries was higher.

[El-ahrairah]

Ha ha, well here's one member of the religious right devoutly hoping AGOT is filmed... :) Anyhow I see nothing that would make it a target, compared to the myriad other films and shows every year with similar content.

[antisocial]

I think its safe to say you probably wont see any protesting of this. I'm sure a major reason why D&D chose HBO was because its subscription based programing.

Meaning you have to pay extra to be able to watch it. Which is why HBO gets to make shows like Oz, Deadwood, Rome, Sex in the City, Dream On, and so on.

Now if this was on one of the major networks, and they tried to shoot the version they are now. Hell yeah, the religious right and most likely parent groups would be all over it, its just too adult for regular TV.

[crunchb3rry]

The show can't be threatened by parental groups or religious zealots. That's how HBO gets way with all their shows. They have no thirdparty commercials (so you can't say you didn't like what you saw and threaten Charmin that you won't buy their toilet paper if they run ads on the channel), it's a channel you have to manually include a la cart on top of any cable provider tiers, and people have had over two decades to figure out HBO is a channel you don't blindly let your kids watch.

[Slynt]

That it even occurs to someone that there's a "religious right wing" that could spoil Game of Thrones is shocking enough; that these nutters are part of a powerful nation is frightening.

I'll try and be on my best behavior though, and just mention the one thing that makes GoT different from the Deadwoods and the Weeds and whathaveyou:

Game of Thrones will feature the supernatural - in the form of icy cold beings called the Others; in the form of worship of fictional gods (Oh noes!); there will be dragons (hopefully); in short, those tropes of fantasy literature that Martin has included in his saga to make it fantasy as opposed to medieval fantasy;

and just the kind of stuff religious poopooheads get off on.

This happened to The Lord of the Rings. It happened to Pullmann and if I am not mistaken, whatshername who wrote the Potter series. It happened to Dungeons & Dragons. It happened to heavy metal. In short, all the good things in life.

I hope these people have moved on though and can accept that even if they can't be reasonable, other people can.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

bfc,

Lets not beat about the bush. the religious right in America have an unhealthy amount of power. His dark materials took very little money in the US compared to the rest of the world due to criticism it received from the right, the passion of the christ took a fortune despite being pants. when crazy people start criticising the incest, paedophilia, breast feeding dragons, witchcraft, infanticide, worship of strange gods, dwarf sex, warging and the like will HBO have the courage of their convictions and stick to their guns or will they dilute the product. now i know HBO have shown some gritty stuff in their time but nothing as gritty of AGOT.

on a side issue i notice at present it is being billed as AGOT not ASOIAF. with brand recognition being so important what will they do with season 2? will they call it ACOK? ASOIAF hardly trips of the tongue for a TV series.

There are those of us on the Religous right (myself included) who enjoy the series as well. We're just not sitting down to it for "family entertainment".

[El-ahrairah]

and just the kind of stuff religious poopooheads get off on.

This happened to The Lord of the Rings. It happened to Pullmann and if I am not mistaken, whatshername who wrote the Potter series. It happened to Dungeons & Dragons. It happened to heavy metal. In short, all the good things in life.

There's by no means a united front against fantasy from my coreligionists, though. Many who would gleefully toss Pullman and Rowling in the bonfire accept Tolkien and Lewis as gospel. Opposing the Inklings on religious grounds is rather lunacy of the far fringe.

[Quentis Martell]

I don't think that HBO would invest into something that they wouldn't have delved into in depth. They know what they are getting into. Honestly I don't think they give a damn. I just hope they do it the justice it deserves. I understand taking a novel to screenplay would probably be difficult, But this goes beyond the normal.

[Shrub Knight]

The "religious right" doesn't tend to object to lewd, violent or anti-religious material the way it used to. The only reason Harry Potter received objections was because it was directly marketed to children. AGOT won't be, nor will it be nearly as mainstream.

Attacks on mainstream christianity are commonplace these days anyway. Those who speak out against ant-christian rhetoric, displays, art, etc are labeled as suppressing free speech. If the HBO execs wanted to REALLY rile up a group of religious people, they could find some way to insult islam...... then the $&% would hit the fan.

[Lord O' Bones]

It'd probably just turn into yet more publicity for the show in the end, which couldn't really be a bad thing. I don't think the 'Christian Right' had a huge amount of influence over the viewership of Harry Potter, did it?

Fuck the religous and anyone else who trys to get AGOT cancelled.

Yeah. Remember, Marilyn Manson didn't go away when the fundies went after him, but he mostly did when they stopped. But yeah, I think this is a non-issue for HBO.

[defter]

The religious wrong won't give a rat's ass about the show, presuming they even know it exists. The vast majority of their effort involving their bitching about popular culture is directed toward shows and movies that they perceive as direct affronts to their faith; general vulgarity and sex doesn't really register on their radar. The show won't be nearly as salacious as Rome or even The Sopranos or Sex and the City and you didn't really hear much of anything about those shows, so I think we're in the clear on this one.

yeh i gotta say my mom is pretty right wing, or whatever, but if its not on ordinary cable, it may as well not exist to her. guess its that way for a lot of people.

[pablonohablo]

Lets not beat about the bush. the religious right in America have an unhealthy amount of power. His dark materials took very little money in the US compared to the rest of the world due to criticism it received from the right, the passion of the christ took a fortune despite being pants. when crazy people start criticising the incest, paedophilia, breast feeding dragons, witchcraft, infanticide, worship of strange gods, dwarf sex, warging and the like will HBO have the courage of their convictions and stick to their guns or will they dilute the product. now i know HBO have shown some gritty stuff in their time but nothing as gritty of AGOT.

on a side issue i notice at present it is being billed as AGOT not ASOIAF. with brand recognition being so important what will they do with season 2? will they call it ACOK? ASOIAF hardly trips of the tongue for a TV series.

I think you're looking at the wrong problem, bfc. If any kind of kulterkampf backlash is going to sink AGOT, it will likely come from the Loony Left and the PC Brigade.

Martin (to his credit) portrays life in Westeros as close to 11th century Europe as he can. That means chucking women's rights out the window, for one thing. He has some very strong and compelling female characters, but the culture is thoroughly sexist. The women of his time can never be the head of a society (or a marriage); at best they can be the neck and must be content with being the power behind the throne. If I were worried about a boycott that could buckle the already weak knees of hollywood whores -- er, executive-types -- it would be about groups like NOW branding AGOT a sexist film. Those are the kinds of crap charges that get efforts like AGOT scuttled, not cries that they're immoral.

As for there being a Religious Right conspiracy, your evidence seems pretty weak. His Dark Materials took in crap money because it was (by all accounts) a crap movie with a story based in large part on attacking the values of religious folks (who, much to the chagrin of the Bill Maher-types, make up most of the world's population). The Passion took in beau coup bucks because it was a well-done film geared towards religious folks (who, much to the chagrin of the Bill Maher-types, make up most of the world's population).