After 400 comments, all I can add is: the issue here really is that simple. And all the mansplaining in the world won’t convince me otherwise.
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Not good?
However, as someone pointed out:
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#CURSE YOU, BIOLOGICAL IMPERATIVES!
Just in case the newcomers are unclear on this term, let me buffalo-buffalo it with Mansplaining Mansplaining:
A Man Explains Mansplaining.. [I love the title, but I don’t find the piece itself that humorous. Does anybody differ?]
In case that doesn’t make it clear what it is and why you should avoid it - let’s make it simple and appeal to your wallets: Mansplaining costs the US economy billions of dollars each year
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You can still criticize things that you like; it’s one of the hallmarks of art is that nothing is beyond some level of criticism. It’s also clearly stated that the show itself has some great things about it and has really awesome female characters, but the set dressing is failing it, which is a valid critique.
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I am fully aware that the actresses who appear naked in this series, and look beautiful doing so, are three dimensional people with interesting lives and not objects.
yet the women in the background are not. Did you read the article?
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Why don’t we have Rand Paul and his “libertarian” ilk up in arms about the high cost of mansplaing? OH, that’s right, cause he’s a consummate mansplainer himself.
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“Unfortunately, when it comes to watching TV, feminist viewers too often
have to compromise: either except the limited female representation”
Do you mean Accept? Just trying to clarify.
Because you’ve gone and watched every “adult” show to make sure? Or because you are taking the comment literally, as in, “every show in the world labeled as ‘adult’ will have [nudity]”?
But they are. They are, in fact, actresses (I’d bet a sawbuck most, if not all, of them belong to whatever the European equivalent of SAG is, if such a union even exists), just as much as the muddy villagers and wildlings and King’s Landing townsfolk and Meereenese slaves and men of the Night’s Watch we see in every scene who never get a word of dialogue to say. All of those people are extras (who generally prefer to be called “background actors”) who get paid to stand and move around as living set dressing; it’s just that the women we’re discussing do so without many clothes on. And the point is that we, the audience, understand that the actors playing the roles are not the characters themselves. Unless we’re genuinely too immature to be watching the show.
My own argument rests on the concept that the show’s habit of parading unclad women around does not necessarily send a message that women should only exist to please the male gaze. The message sent fits the show’s context: people disrobe in order to have sex, or bathe, or attempt to influence someone else, or any number of contextual reasons. Some characters violently disrobe other characters… as an act of violence. It’s all logical within the storyline, just as it makes sense that Ned Stark can decapitate a mostly-loyal soldier and still be a heroic character, or that Arya Stark can develop into a vengeful murderer and still retain 100% of our sympathy. The nudity is excessive to many people, just as the violence is excessive to many people, and the show is rightly not intended for children, and maybe the show does belabor its points about the lack of agency of women who don’t happen to be characters named Cersei, or Catelyn, or Arya, or Sansa, or Brienne (or even the ones who have undressed, such as Melisandre, Margaery, Ygritte, Shae, or Daenerys), but again, the show is not presenting any of its characters’ behaviors as endorsements. It is not nonsensical for prostitutes to hang around their brothel naked, and the show’s story contains many events set in brothels. Is the show’s treatment of women markedly better if they’re murdered or raped or slapped or abused or exploited in a more discreet state of dress? Are their seductions and sexual transactions more dignified when they wear less-revealing attire? Would changing any of that honestly help the message of the show?
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The one time I was an extra (or background actor), that was the understanding. "Thank you for being here, we appreciate it, but don’t get in the way of the talent; we’re working.
Yyyeeeeaaaaaahhhhh, gotta love that backhanded compliment. ‘Actual logic’ as opposed to ‘Stupendous Man Logic’, I guess.
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This, exactly. This is precisely the difficulty I have with the show because the nudity in many scenes simply didn’t fit, didn’t illuminate anything, and looked like somebody (I guess the non-named HBO exec) wanted to see some naked women just for the sake of seeing naked women.
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In Game of Thrones, the male full frontal nudity and female full frontal nudity aren’t of the same degree. The man’s organ is completely exposed while the woman’s organ never is. Instead the woman’s organ is deliberately obscured by hair or shadow in every full frontal scene in the entire series. If nudity fairness is the goal here, you have to acknowledge that point. Women might be nude more often but the men get more nude. And this is very deliberate. In the Theon castration scene, one of the women lacked public hair so the makeup department actually glued some on - and not just because the characters can’t shave, since they’re partially shaved in other scenes (but still not enough to show any bits). In other scenes, especially the extreme close-ups, they make strategic use of shadow to hide what otherwise would surely be visible flashes of female genitalia.
As for what’s historical, Westeros is a parallel world, not a historical one. Granted, it’s probably unrealistic that Osha would be trimmed as she was in season 2, since she’s a wildling and little more than a prisoner. But that’s not a sexism issue. They probably just didn’t want to go the extra lengths to make it look more natural.
The shows at the local adult bookstore sure have it.
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Do you think we can get this thread to > 1000 comments before it closes/is falcorized?
Also - @Mindysan33 - 4 more posts, and you’ll have double my count! Or something like that, until I posted this one. 5 maybe?
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I am sure this all has merit, but I couldn’t read past the point where someone said Sansa Stark had acumen. I mean, here mother made every wrong decision available too, but at least she didn’t look like a lost puppy when she did it.
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The author who just wrote the many-paragraphed post doesn’t understand “nudity” or “genitalia”? Oh, do tell us more.
Given that you don’t feel the author understands:
- “nudity”
- “genitalia”
- the difference between fantasy and historical fiction
- historical grooming patterns
- beauty standards
I wonder if there’s anything you feel the author does understand.
Also, exposed genitalia is exposed genitalia whether “just barely” or full-screen. As for the contention that GOT nudity is “reasonably balanced between the sexes”, and given that you’re expecting a count of exposed vulva on GOT, please cite your evidence of “reasonably balanced”.
We’ll wait. 
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