A Sanitised (PG) Game of Thrones?

[iheartseverus]

I have no idea how you made it through the books, but maybe you should just tune out from the show so that people can be spared having to read in between the lines of your posts about your fears of sex and sexual acts.

:lmao:

[Renasko]

I think it's a good idea. I agree with iheartseverus, for the most part. Some of the content is ridiculous and puts people off watching. I know this, personally, as I and my SO have tried to get people we know to watch the show and they've complained. Thankfully the rest of the show holds it together, so it's not embarrassing suggesting it.

[spitsphyre]

Like I said earlier, there are less gratuitous ways of shooting sex. Ways that people other than randy males might appreciate and it would be nice if the directors of photography started to use those. What they're doing is rather off putting for people who don't want to see straight up titillation. You can show the human body without reducing it to a sex toy.

And to echo iheartserverus, the sex, the nudity and the violence in the books all severed a purpose. The sex scenes that were uncomfortable weren't there to make you turned on and hard/wet, they were there to show us how monstrous people could be. Personally, I really wish they had included naked-Cat and a Ned/Cat sex scene. It would be WONDERFUL to see a couple in love acting on it.

[Lord O' Bones]

So... this is the delusional about history Puritans thread?

[spitsphyre]

So... this is the delusional about history Puritans thread?

I don't think anyone arguing for less sex in this show is saying that sex is bad, that it doesn't exist or that it doesn't have a place within the series. If you read the thread (or any thread criticizing the sex in the show) it seems most people are upset about how it's presented.

[Wolfmage]

Ways that people other than randy males might appreciate and it would be nice if the directors of photography started to use those.

I think to make that argument you'd need to substantiate the claim that the content was actually titilatting to men. And on that score, I doubt you'll succeeed. As a married man who watches the show twice each week: once with my non-uptight feminist wife, and once again with a mate who enjoys Spartacus, I can tell you I've never found any of the sex scenes in GoT tillitating. Indeed, I think that's nigh impossible when the majority of the sex has been deliberately exploitative in its feel, designed to accentuate particular situations and characters as depraved or exploitative, or otherwise used purely as a vehicle for exposition or levity. Most has also been rather tame. So, I think it's fanciful to think this is really masturbation material for 17 year olds.

What they're doing is rather off putting for people who don't want to see straight up titillation. You can show the human body without reducing it to a sex toy.

I won't deny that some of the camera work and scenes couldn't be improved, but I don't agree that the show runners should orientate their filmographic sensibilities around a minority of over-senstive conservatives. Obviously others can parse this adult content without needing to assign puerile or conspiratorial motivations to the producers.

And to echo iheartserverus, the sex, the nudity and the violence in the books all severed a purpose.

Frankly this is trivially false. There are literally dozens of examples of gratuitious sex and nudity in the books, including many that are graphically perverse without having any substantive plot purpose. Indeed, you've already been furnished with formidable examples of these earlier in this very thread, so I won't trouble to repeat them here. Suffice to say, the books are certainly not perfectly high minded about sex. But then I think many people must read these books with blinkers on about particular parts to make some of the comments they make about the show. Try reading these scenes to your mum and then come back.

The sex scenes that were uncomfortable weren't there to make you turned on and hard/wet, they were there to show us how monstrous people could be.

Again, nothing in GoT so far has been hot. Showing a bit of flesh isn't hot if the whole scene is robbed of any sensuality because it is overpowered with counter-veiling animus like abuse and exploitation, or because the locus of the scene is exposition and not passion. That describes 99% of the sex and nudity in GoT so far.

Personally, I really wish they had included naked-Cat and a Ned/Cat sex scene. It would be WONDERFUL to see a couple in love acting on it.

That's probably a more valid complaint, but also quite revealing that this is more about conservative sexual morality than a genuine aesthetic complaint. It's hardly surpising that those that are most vocal about the alleged aesthetic flaws in the show's use of sex are also expressing a moral preference for the safety of a different kind of sex which privileges monogamous love.

[The Marquis de Leech]

There's a term for this, people. It's called bowdlerisation, and it went out with the nineteenth century.

[elmis]

Edited

[reiver]

I think it would be incredibly easy to film this show without sexualizing all of the nudity (sounds weird but it IS possible) and adding more tender sex as opposed to the pornographic sex. Yes, there WAS a ton of sex and violence in the books but the sex at least was presented much differently than it's shown in the show.

Yes. This is exactly what i want. Not a PG-13 version of the show or whatever but a show that's made for adults with a mature attitude to nudity and sexuality. I think it's too late to chop up the show as it stands but they really should take this on board for the future if they ever want to be mentioned in the same breath as Rome and Deadwood. Ep 7 though would imo be immeasurably improved by the removal of the LF scene in its entirety for both the bond villain talking and the excrutiating "play with the ass" bits. My problem with the nudity and sex so far has been its presentation and occasionally its use rather than with naked bodies. I've felt that the nudity has for the most part felt forced and unnatural with an emphasis on titillation rather than character or world building. I.E it's been cheap and gratuitous.

An example from the show of nudity that felt appropriate and natural was the wine seller being dragged behind Dany's horse. That's the sort of tone i think suits the shows and the books. Nudity that isn't pretty and soft lit with long, leering butt and tit shots.

Tbf the sex scenes (and there's actually very few) are pretty much concentrated in the end of ASoS and AFFC and some work: i loved the visceral feeling of Jaime and Cersei in Baelor's, but some do feel a bit excessive and meant to be read one handed i.e a lot of Cersei and Lady Taena.

[Salome the Persian Witch]

I've felt that the nudity has for the most part felt forced and unnatural with an emphasis on titillation rather than character or world building. I.E it's been cheap and gratuitous.

An example from the show of nudity that felt appropriate and natural was the wine seller being dragged behind Dany's horse. That's the sort of tone i think suits the shows and the books. Nudity that isn't pretty and soft lit with long, leering butt and tit shots.

:agree:

I'm kind of giggling at the accusations of "conservative moral values" here - because trust me, I have never been accused of that! But the aesthetic criticism from many of us is ironically the opposite imho. The sex could be more "natural" - grittier, harsher, more in line with what could/would be in such a situation ( much like the violence seems to be depicted). The perfect bosomed, slender, glowing skinned whores getting slammed from behind with perfect lighting and make up - while a character who would never tip his hand to anyone (much less his whores who potentially could be spies and/or make pillow talk with customers) just makes no sense.

The first show with the Dothraki wedding scene with women's bosoms bouncing around and getting "dry humped" made everyone I know giggle and/or roll their eyes. Even the practicality of sex (something as simple as... positioning properly) is completely skipped over for what looks forced, manufactured, and ridiculous. (And don't even get me started on Loras & Renly!) :laugh:

If we're going to show a Dothraki scene - show these women getting frickin' mounted properly already. What red blooded Dothraki warrior would settle for a quick dry hump? And if they would, then what does it say about their society and them as warriors?

I am not in the camp that GRRM uses sex scenes gratuitously - but even so, they're described in ways that are at least semi-plausible (if rather disturbing).

[Arya The Assassin]

There's been more than a few people say that the sex and violence is a bit rich for their blood, but they put up with it because the story is so great. But what if you could legally make your own PG version of the show?

Of course you could technically create a PG version of GOT, but in principle I don't like this idea at all. The TV show is based on a series of books that were written for adults, with adult themes and adult content. I don't want a PG 'butchered', 'sanitized' version of GOT, nor do I want GRRM to start writing a more 'PG-friendly' book series. The sex and violence is one of the things that I find appealing about the books, and it wouldn't be the same without it.

So instead of trying to make the show something it was not meant to be [1], I think people who find it too offensive can -- frankly speaking -- rather watch something else. I was very happy when I heard that HBO was going to do this show, because I knew they wouldn't be afraid of dealing with the books' adult themes.

I do agree about one thing: I have the impression that some of the sex scenes are there just for its own sake, which makes it seem artifical at times ("Okay, we need some sex in this episode. Hmm, lets add some lesbian sex when Littlefinger talks, to spice up the scene"). I wouldn't mind that some of these scenes were either cut or shortened, but not for the reason you mention above, because I don't find the sex to be gratuitous at all. My criticism has more to do with the way the sex is presented and directed, and not the nudity itself. Presenting the sex in a more natural way would not necessarily make it more PG friendly, just different in tone.

[1] Things would've been different if the show was written and shot with a PG audience in mind to begin with (but then again, imagine the uproar among fans of the books). But trying to edit a show that was originally intended for mature audiences, is a different matter. There are numerous issues that have to be dealt with: If you remove a scene or certain shots, you have to fill the missing scenes with something else if you want to keep up the running time. Dialogue with profanity would have to be changed, and so on (it would not only affect how characters such as Tyrion talk, but also the way we perceive them). Several R-rated movies have been 'sanitized' for TV (Scarface [1983] is a good example), and I know how much directors hate to do this (but they do it anyway, because they're forced to by the studio or realizes that there's extra money to be made).

[ferthepoet]

I don't think I can be considered to have conservative moral values at all, as I'm a big liberal activist but the thing is this. We all who love the books want the whole series to be adapted with the highest possible quality and we know that in order for that to happen the series need to be the biggest possible success. Now in order for a series to be successful it makes no sense to have something that attracts no viewers and turns away some. Some people complain about the double standard of people being o.k with the violence on the show but not with the sex, and those critics have merit. However, if you have people talking about how cool was Gregor cutting a horse head and few to none people complaining about it, that's a cue to keep it. If you have a reasonable future of people complaining about Ros and the whore doing a scene that looks straight out of a 90s softcore porn film and saying it distracted them from the coolness of littlefinger speech, most people saying they don't mind the scene but didn't enjoy it and absolutely nobody (as far as I know) talking about how amazing the scene want. Them as a series maker whose job is to sell a product then I think you must rethink your stand.

[Wolfmage]

Yes. This is exactly what i want. Not a PG-13 version of the show or whatever but a show that's made for adults with a mature attitude to nudity and sexuality.

I don't think the show lacks a mature attitude towards nudity and sexuality. I haven't agreed with a single example that's been brought up from Dany's butt to Littlefinger's monologue. You guys keep saying this like it's some kind of obvious incontestable truth, rather than something that's asserted by a vocal minority of viewers - many evidently watching uncomfortably with their family in the room.

I think it's too late to chop up the show as it stands but they really should take this on board for the future if they ever want to be mentioned in the same breath as Rome and Deadwood.

I think the show is closer in its sensibility to Deadwood than you think it is, and it's certainly better than Rome to my mind. Deadwood isn't as contradistinctively high minded as you're claiming, for a start. The sheer quality and frequency of profanity in Deadwood goes beyond anything that could be remotely justified by plot and characterisation. Indeed, I fully accept that you could cull a third of it and still get a uniquely gritty and profane western with all the characters fully intact. Yet, the prospect of a censored counter-factual version of Deadwood leaves me completely unmoved. The version we have works, so despite the many conservative viewers who've complained noisily about this issue, I wouldn't alter a single line of dialogue. I feel the same about GoT. Also, returning to the issue of sex specifically, Deadwood took exploitative blowjob monologues and general brutality towards prostitutes to a new levels in television history. So I think it's a questionable exemplar to prosecute a case against GoT based on taste. I do agree with you that Deadwood sometimes handled these matters more deftly - but I also feel they had less plot territory to cover as it was an original made-for-tv series with more episodes per season. This afforded the producers a bit more leeway in allowing the series to breath. GoT can get there if they don't listen to the rabid book devotees.

[Prankster]

On the one hand: the sex scenes have been redundant and somewhat embarrassing in their attempts at titillation. You don't have to be a prude to slap your forehead at Littlefinger's monologue to Ros. The scene didn't bother me because of the sex, or the way the sex was being portrayed--it bothered me because of how badly it was shoehorned in. Honestly, you could have made the sex in that scene MORE explicit, but staged it differently, and it would have worked better. As it was there were way too many lingering "Ooh, looka this" shots that didn't serve a storytelling purpose (yes, it's possible to construct a shot of sex that serves a storytelling purpose. That scene was *thematically* important). Even a scene or story element that's there just to be "sexy" is going to rely to a certain extent on restraint. It's why even porno has a storyline, for Pete's sake. Simply throwing in a random sex scene in every episode makes them less sexy. And narratively speaking, the Littlefinger scene might have had a real impact if we hadn't had several sexposition scenes already.

On the other hand: it's interesting that so many people are saying "why do we have to watch this sex scene?" as if there was something inherently wrong with watching people have sex. I've just made the argument for why you shouldn't lean on them too much, but let's face it, sex is crucial to this story. Among other things, we really did have to see Tyrion banging a whore at some point, and of course Dany and Drogo's and Cersei and Jaime's sexual exploits are pivotal as well. More than that, sex sets a tone for the series. So, I'd argue, even one or two extraneous "sexposition" scenes are completely justifiable. I don't want to get into a whole hectoring thing about how our society is kind of screwed up about sex, but I can't help but notice that there's been far less hand-wringing about the violence in this thread.

[LadySansa]

I think GRRM is a great writer and could write the most amazing books for children that would get tons of kids reading. His stories would be just as fantastic without the sex and gore.

[scotcat]

Unless I am missing the point entirely, GRRM's books are written with adults in mind, not children. Doing a sanitised version of GoT wouldn't be true to the novel. I say keeping it as it is makes for a more faithful adaptation. This is only my opinion, though.

Just out of curiosity, what is that offends the pro-sanistisation camp more - the sex/nudity or the violence? If it's the sex, it makes an interesting commentary about our society that we find less offence in decapitation than in sex or nudity.

[enigma]

Unless I am missing the point entirely, GRRM's books are written with adults in mind, not children. Doing a sanitised version of GoT wouldn't be true to the novel. I say keeping it as it is makes for a more faithful adaptation. This is only my opinion, though.

Just out of curiosity, what is that offends the pro-sanistisation camp more - the sex/nudity or the violence? If it's the sex, it makes an interesting commentary about our society that we find less offence in decapitation than in sex or nudity.

It's almost undoubtedly the sex. Sadly.

There seems to be two conversations going on in this thread simultaneously.

1) Let's have less explicit rape/sex/nudity in GoT, and more romance betweeen consenting adults!

2) Some of the sex exposition (sexposition) scenes in GoT were poorly written or filmed.

I agree wtih #2, but disagree strongly with #1. For example, the Littlefinger monologue with the whores was overall a weak scene and it could have been much better.

As for censoring the sex in ASOIAF for the sake of censoring the sex, all I can say is LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. Like, you know that scene in OZ where the prisoner gets anally raped because his cellmate decides to make him his bitch? Let's tone that down a little...you know? Make it more consensual. Maybe he just happened to fall in love with him?

[spitsphyre]

There seems to be two conversations going on in this thread simultaneously.

1) Let's have less explicit rape/sex/nudity in GoT, and more romance betweeen consenting adults!

2) Some of the sex exposition (sexposition) scenes in GoT were poorly written or filmed.

I feel like this attitude is making people not actually listen to what's being said. No one has said "Up the romance! Give us more love!" and almost no one has said "No sex and nudity! Sex is bad we don't want to see it!" For the most part everyone in favor of changing the sex scenes are saying "For christ's sake, make it flow better! Give us more story! Show us sex the way we know HBO can do it!" (from past HBO shows) I mean all you have to do is look at the responses aimed at most of the people who have said that to see that they're being accused of being anti-sex and "should go watch something else."

When this topic comes up it's like real discussion shuts down and if you aren't wholesale for all sex and nudity ever you're a freaking prude and how DARE you say something should be changed <_<

[Wolfmage]

I feel like this attitude is making people not actually listen to what's being said. No one has said "Up the romance! Give us more love!"

What else would you call the apoplectic reaction by some to Dany's wedding night and the express desire to see Catelyn and Ned's sex scene in preference to every whorehouse scene? I've seen plenty of comments in regard to both.

In regard to the wedding night, many people apparently took umbrage at the show's approach to the wedding night because they thought it somehow made the romance between Dany and Drogo implausible now that he is a rapist. They are, thereby, expressing dissatisfaction that the show didn’t immediately establish a kinder and more tender kind of respectful love, rather than building to that over time.

Never mind that Drogo is a rapist regardless of the wedding night, by virtue of Dothraki culture and their way of war; he has presided over countless rapes as Khal, and has no doubt committed countless rapes himself as a renowned warrior. Never mind that Dany was effectively sold into sexual slavery, and so her ‘yes’ of immature biological arousal in the book was of rather dubious moral significance compared to Viserys’ coercion anyway. Never mind that Drogo basically commits spousal rape for two weeks straight on the journey to Vaes Dorthrak, and so very very arguably the show has simply incorporated that rougher non-consensual intercourse into the story earlier to smooth out her arc. All of that was ignored in the haste to condemn the show for not establishing the enduring love between Dany and Drogo on firmer footing from the beginning.

So, I would definitely call that an example of critics calling for more romance, and doing so based on a fairly trite reading of the relationship within the book.

and almost no one has said "No sex and nudity!"

True, but given we’re in a thread about deliberately sanitising the show to make it watchable, it’s fair to say that the strawman is surviving by feeding off some over-the-top reactions. It would also go better if the criticism was a tad more sophisticated than assigning base, puerile motives to the produces because it was simply 'inconceivable' that anyone would find it germane to the show’s purpose.

When this topic comes up it's like real discussion shuts down and if you aren't wholesale for all sex and nudity ever you're a freaking prude and how DARE you say something should be changed <_<

I find extreme responses generally do tend to provoke dismissive ones, and the idea of censoring a show certainly classifies as an extreme response. It’s such an absurd kind of epistemic closure that it’s hard to take it seriously.

[Hnim]

It would completely butcher Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire. While I admit that most of the sex is gratuitous and non-plot necessary, Westeros is a world of violence and brutality, and that is part of what the story is.