Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon!

[Miriel]

This requires explaination. I have very rarely saw a post that came even close to something that could be considered hyper misogynistic, or even slightly misogynistic. Maybe if you go to r/beatingwomen or some bulltit reddit like that, but that is a relatively small population of Reddit and you have to expect misogyny from people like that. But whatever, small potatoes.

One of the first threads I explored while checking out Reddit a few weeks ago was about ex-girlfriends/boyfriends and in it, there was a bunch of dudes complaining about men's rights. Like, seriously. Men don't have enough rights. I talked to a few people who frequent reddit (since I don't) and they said this is a thing. People there actually bitch about men's rights like it's a real issue. Creeped. Me. Out.

Also calling everything sexist or misogynistic is dumb. Just because dudes don't get naked on the screen does not mean the creators of the show are blatantly sexist. It just means that dudes aren't getting naked on the screen as much.

And it tires me out all the time that people so fiercely refuse to acknowledge how prevalent sexism is. Everyone is sexist to a degree (and also racist). Myself included. Is it really that hard to see in oneself? How much you let it influence you obviously depends on the person and it's not like I said that's the ONLY reason people might like or dislike characters.

Just that in my theory, female characters in hundreds of tv shows or movies generally are given much less latitude for behaving badly before they lose popularity versus male characters. And the disproportionate amount of dislike for Cat seems at least in part, due to the fact that it's a woman making poor choices versus a man. For all I know, people dislike her equally as much as anyone else, but it doesn't get talked about as much now does it?

And yeah, there are things about Game of Thrones that's sexist, just like in pretty much every show that has ever existed. And in every human mind that's ever existed. There is a gratuitous amount of female nudity in this show. Like, more than most HBO shows and that's saying something. And very little male nudity. And again, this is true for a LOT of media. Females get naked, men don't. Look at fashion magazines, movies, music videos, etc. Men in clothes, females semi-nude. Terry Richardson pretty much ONLY shoots photos where the girl is partially dressed and the guy is fully clothed. That's supposed to just be how things are? As if it's totally random? Nah.

It also seems silly for a girl to be COMPLETELY naked while the guy only has a shirt off in a sex scene. That's not how it would go down in real life. Also, the actor has been naked in other stuff before, so it's not like he has a problem with it. Somewhere, someone made the decision to have a naked girl jump on a guy with half is clothes still in tact. They might have made that decision for 10 different reasons, but at least one of the factors (in my opinion) had to have been that they just don't see the need for male nudity as much as female.

And I don't know how it is in the books, but in the show, it seemed to me that Cat realized what a horrid mistake it was to bring Tyrion to her sister. Maybe she didn't regret the arrest itself, but it sure seemed like she regretted bringing him to nutso sister lady. And she didn't seem all that pompous and unrepenting in her scene with Rob. She seemed... sad.

I have no idea how it is in the books, although I've heard more than one person say that Cat is one of their favorite characters in the book, but she could be absolutely TERRIBLE. But an episode airs, and then people here bitch about Cat and I'm like, what? What did she do that was so much worse than anyone else? She seems to me like one of the less offensive people on the show.

[Jinx]

I for one, am against the appalling lack of Robb's penis in this show.


SEXISM!

[Bunny]

This requires explaination. I have very rarely saw a post that came even close to something that could be considered hyper misogynistic, or even slightly misogynistic. Maybe if you go to r/beatingwomen or some bulltit reddit like that, but that is a relatively small population of Reddit and you have to expect misogyny from people like that. But whatever, small potatoes.

One of the first threads I explored while checking out Reddit a few weeks ago was about ex-girlfriends/boyfriends and in it, there was a bunch of dudes complaining about men's rights. Like, seriously. Men don't have enough rights. I talked to a few people who frequent reddit (since I don't) and they said this is a thing. People there actually bitch about men's rights like it's a real issue. Creeped. Me. Out.

This right here? Sexism. Just because the issue of men's rights isn't as prevalent of a problem as women's rights does not mean that it is not an issue. There are plenty of things that men get screwed on simply for being men and being "less fit" than a woman is. Yes, women have it tougher. I am not arguing that, but saying that men have no right to complain about their perceived lack of rights in certain areas is ludicious.

Also calling the whole of Reddit hyper misogynistic based on, by your own admission, one or two threads is ignorant. I frequent Reddit and I know a lot of other people that do the same and very rarely do any of us run into blatant sexism.

Also calling everything sexist or misogynistic is dumb. Just because dudes don't get naked on the screen does not mean the creators of the show are blatantly sexist. It just means that dudes aren't getting naked on the screen as much.

And it tires me out all the time that people so fiercely refuse to acknowledge how prevalent sexism is. Everyone is sexist to a degree (and also racist). Myself included. Is it really that hard to see in oneself? How much you let it influence you obviously depends on the person and it's not like I said that's the ONLY reason people might like or dislike characters.[/quote]

I do not refuse to acknowledge that sexist is extremely prevalent. I refuse to acknowledge people, like yourself, who throw the term sexism out left and right without an clear grasp of what the problem with it is. The lack of male nudity in Game of Thrones? Not sexist. The target audience of Game of Thrones, like most other mainstream television shows, is 18-35 year old men. Appealing to your core audience is not sexism, it's business. Hatred of Catelyn? Not sexist. People do not hate Catelyn because she lacks a dick (although some certainly do, but I would wager that the number is relatively small). People hate Catelyn because of the reasons I outlined in my previous post, as well as other reasons. Disliking a character who happens to be female is not sexist unless you hate that person solely for being a woman.

And yeah, there are things about Game of Thrones that's sexist, just like in pretty much every show that has ever existed. And in every human mind that's ever existed. There is a gratuitous amount of female nudity in this show. Like, more than most HBO shows and that's saying something. And very little male nudity. And again, this is true for a LOT of media. Females get naked, men don't. Look at fashion magazines, movies, music videos, etc. Men in clothes, females semi-nude. Terry Richardson pretty much ONLY shoots photos where the girl is partially dressed and the guy is fully clothed. That's supposed to just be how things are? As if it's totally random? Nah.

Why are we looking at fashion magazines, music videos, and any other form of media? This is a thread about Game of Thrones specifically and a discussion about perceived sexism in Game of Thrones. Anything else is largely irrelevant. If you want to address the problems of sexism in other media you can, but it has no real bearing on the current conversation at all. And regardless of that fact, the majority of television shows that feature women half-naked or fully naked are those shows that are aimed, again, at an audience mostly comprised of 18-35 year old men. A large portion of television viewers are of this age group. Shows, movies, etc that are aimed directly at female groups do not feature half-naked or fully-naked women. They feature buff men without shirts because that is what works. Are we to pretend that this is not sexist based on your own preceived criticism? That argument, much like yours, is half-hearted and stupid but the two go hand-in-hand.

And I don't know how it is in the books, but in the show, it seemed to me that Cat realized what a horrid mistake it was to bring Tyrion to her sister. Maybe she didn't regret the arrest itself, but it sure seemed like she regretted bringing him to nutso sister lady. And she didn't seem all that pompous and unrepenting in her scene with Rob. She seemed... sad.

The only reason she showed regret, at least from my understanding, is because her sister wasn't doing exactly what she wanted her to do. Lysa gave Tyrion an out and Catelyn did not want him to have one. He wanted him to be held responsible for crimes that Catelyn thought he committed even though she did not have any realistic proof that he did them.

I'm not saying that sexism in media is a non-issue and should be ignored, by the way. It is a massive issue and should be addressed to the best of our abilities. But calling everything sexist simply because it does not agree with your world view while completely dismissing other types of sexism that exist for the same reasons? That's not the way to get rid of the bulk of sexism.

[Miriel]

You must have an incredibly narrow definition of what sexism is. I've never seen anything wrong with calling out sexism and racism, even though people get all uppity about it. It's a reality. Deal with it. Lots of things are sexist. They won't hurt your livelihood or otherwise ruin your day, but it's still sexist.

Men bitching about how men have it so hard in this world is like Christians bitching about being persecuted. It just makes my eyes roll. Oh boo hoo, you have it so hard.

I bring up the other examples because it's such a ridiculous notion that media in all it's forms has plenty of instances of sexism and yet game of thrones is immune? As if.

Yeah there's sexism, I still watch and for the most part enjoy the show.

Admitting that there's sexism doesn't somehow invalidate the whole thing. Gratuitous female nudity in the presence of clothed men IS a depiction of women with sexist overtones. It's unimaginable to me that someone can't see that.

EDIT: I just want to add that you can dislike Cat all you want, and you obviously have your own reasons for having that dislike. It's not like anyone implied that you can't dislike a female character for any reason other than femaleness.

Just that to me, the dislike of Cat in this thread has always seemed excessive to what we've seen on the show. And has repeatedly been brought up. I can only speculate on the reason why, that speculation being what I keep repeating myself. It's much easier for audiences to dislike female characters than male characters and this has always been true.

[Raistlin]

Let's break this down.

I somewhat agree with Miriel and Del's implication that the actual arrest itself was not unforgivably stupid. Stupid, yes, but given Cat's fears, a momentary stupid overreaction is not unsympathetic (of course, such a rationalization is inconsistent with Cat stubbornly sticking to her decision for days/weeks afterward). What is so mind-bogglingly stupid about the decision was that she was convinced of Tyrion's guilt in the first place. This is baseless (and I recognize that the real blame is on Martin). Her only evidence is the fact that Tyrion possessed the knife at some point in the past (and based on Cat's trust of Littlefinger, I will accept this as a reasonable belief). And it wasn't Tyrion's prized knife that he carried around with him everywhere, but a knife that was seen with him only when he had just won it on a bet. That is it. There's no remotely reasonable way to twist that into serious evidence of Tyrion's guilt. Because Cat held this absolute conviction for weeks, despite all the contrary evidence (Tyrion's own arguments and the fact that Tyrion saved her life on the trip to his "trial"), her actions were hopelessly stupid.

Not only was the belief stupid, but thoughtlessly sticking with the arrest and keeping Tyrion was additionally stupid, as her own husband and daughters were in King's Landing. What did she think would be the response? There's no evidence that she even considered this problem.

Lastly, her release of Jaime Lannister. Again, overwhelmingly stupid. Not because she is justifiably terrified for her daughters' safety, but because of her absolutely deluded conviction that telling Brienne to take him to King's Landing alone (or with another person, as in the books) would accomplish anything at all for her daughters. She was not negotiating a transfer of prisoners, but simply giving away a very importantly political and military prisoner on the hope and prayer that the Lannisters will take kindly upon this gesture and stupidly release their own very important political prisoners (accepting the belief that Arya is still in King's Landing as reasonable).

On the subject of Sansa, she was an infuriating brat in the first book/season, but she was like 12 and indoctrinated with the message that she needs to be a good, obedient little princess. Not every little girl can be as badass as Arya. Sansa also becomes a very sympathetic character immediately upon having to deal with Joffrey.

I don't see how Ned Stark got even the slightest pass. There's a smurfing Stupid Ned Stark meme, for crying out loud. I do think the above two decisions of Cat's were more absurdly irrational than just about anything Ned did, but Ned was clearly so puffed up on his own honor that he was apparently incapable of even contemplating that people can be bad. His level of oblivious delusion did make him fitting match for Catelyn.

[Miriel]

Ned Stark was dumb as rocks, but I still love him as a character. Joffrey is an evil little prick, but again, I think he's a great character. The actor is hilariously great in the role.

The point with Cat is that she makes dumb decisions like anyone else and people here seem to just loathe her character. Shlup and I were just pondering why that might be the case. If Ned Stark had been the one who had done the same things Cat did, I think people would still like him as a character. Oh that Ned! Bless his dumb little heart. Right?

But Cat? Oh no, she's "most idiotic annoying smurfer". Yeah.

[Bunny]

You must have an incredibly narrow definition of what sexism is. I've never seen anything wrong with calling out sexism and racism, even though people get all uppity about it. It's a reality. Deal with it. Lots of things are sexist. They won't hurt your livelihood or otherwise ruin your day, but it's still sexist.

Men bitching about how men have it so hard in this world is like Christians bitching about being persecuted. It just makes my eyes roll. Oh boo hoo, you have it so hard.

I bring up the other examples because it's such a ridiculous notion that media in all it's forms has plenty of instances of sexism and yet game of thrones is immune? As if.

Yeah there's sexism, I still watch and for the most part enjoy the show.

Admitting that there's sexism doesn't somehow invalidate the whole thing. Gratuitous female nudity in the presence of clothed men IS a depiction of women with sexist overtones. It's unimaginable to me that someone can't see that.

Then please, define sexism for me. Because, according to what you have posted in this thread previously, women are the only ones that can justifiably be victims of sexism. Your posts indicate this and, I am sure based on this, your actual thought process is based on this. I do not have a problem with calling out sexism, racism, or any other type of racism. My issue lies with calling ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that you do not agree with, or that seems slightly skewed in one direction, sexist or racist. You stated that the lack of male nudity in this show is sexism. How is that sexist? It's HBO addressing their core demographic.


Men bitching about how hard they have it in this world is nothing like Christians bitching about being persecuted and to dismiss it as such is a gross oversight on your part. This is one of the problems I have with sexism, and by extension, some versions of feminism. Men can be victims of sexism just like women can and not addressing this problem is yet another form of sexism. Just because women might have it more difficult in some ways does not mean that they have the market on being victims of sexist behavior. Give me a smurfing break.

I never said Game of Thrones is immune to sexism. I simply stated that what people are calling sexism isn't sexist, or that you aren't providing enough reasons as to WHY it is sexist. Again, a lack of male nudity in comparison to female nudity is not sexist in and of itself. I'm sorry if you disagree with that because I do not understand how you can view it that way.

If you accuse of me having an incredibly narrow definition of what sexism is, I'm going to go ahead and say that you have too broad of a definition of sexism, or have an equally as narrow defintion that ignores several instances of sexist behavior. Regardless, I don't think this conversation is going to get anywhere and so I'm going to stop after this post and get back to talking about my likes and dislikes of Game of Thrones. Feel free to continue.

[Miriel]

You can google sexual objectification and do your own research on sexism. There's actually been quite a bit written about the sexual objectification of women on Game of Thrones. A quick google search should yield plenty of results.

And even though I stand by my comments that the naked women, clothed men syndrome is sexist, I'm pretty sure me and ahem, "Tifa's Boobs" were shouting sexism mostly because we just want to see peen.

I'll just say that some of us in this thread are obviously equal opportunity objectifier and if you're not, then screw you.

[Jinx]

You can google sexual objectification and do your own research on sexism. There's actually been quite a bit written about the sexual objectification of women on Game of Thrones. A quick google search should yield plenty of results.

And even though I stand by my comments that the naked women, clothed men syndrome is sexist, I'm pretty sure me and ahem, "Tifa's Boobs" were shouting sexism mostly because we just want to see peen.

I'll just say that some of us in this thread are obviously equal opportunity objectifier and if you're not, then screw you.

I'm equal opportunist where Robb's peep is concerned.

[Shlup]

These posts are starting to get way too long for me to focus on right now, but I wanted to put it out there that I am always really hesitant to play the sexism card... I do it very, very, very rarely... but after a couple of years of seeing "Cat/Dany/Sansa is such a stupid bitch! I love [insert male character here, whose decisions have been no better]!" and, like Miriel said, it's not that way in female-domianted fan communities... it becomes hard to ignore.

I cringe to think of what the hyper misogynistic Reddit people might think of Cat.

This requires explaination. I have very rarely saw a post that came even close to something that could be considered hyper misogynistic, or even slightly misogynistic. Maybe if you go to r/beatingwomen or some bulltrout reddit like that, but that is a relatively small population of Reddit and you have to expect misogyny from people like that. But whatever, small potatoes.

It is most definitively not a small population, or at least not small enough. I had to change my reddit username because my original username hinted that I was female and I was sick to death of being harassed. You don't have to go as far as /r/beatingwomen to get into crazy territory. /r/mensrights gets cringe-worthy pretty quickly.

[Freya]

I am addicted to the internet and I don't see much sexism on reddit. I mean I'll see the "dat ass!" comments on pictures or "make me a sammich" posts occasionally but I don't really think of those as sexism and more as jokes. Actuallythere is a whole thread going on right now that's on the hot page with like 1000 replies about how men objectify and treat women in their daily lives and the men of the thread going "oh snap What dicks" and being nothing but respectful. The /r/gameofthrones is pretty good though about any of it. In fact they remove things that objectify the actors. Because there was a totally hot set of gifs up of jaqen and then later I noticed they removed it because of that reason. Which was sad because I hadn't got to save them or anything and I was too lazy to look in my history.

Sansa gets the hate because she was a brat. And most everyone agrees she changes and grows.

Dany gets the hate because she was an entitled brat. And most everyone agrees she's changing and growing.

Cat gets the hate because well I don't want to have to explain again what many of us have explained already.

Claiming that disliking female characters because they are female is silly. I am female and I just dislike Cat because I dislike her. Making such a broad statement that everyone doesn't like them because they are female is, again, silly. Most every comment I have ever seen about people disliking Cat are for the same reasons I said earlier, that Bunny, Wes, Cuch all said. And it's not about the male characters. That's irrelevant that they may like one character and dislike another. Male or female. The fact is, people dislike her because of reasons we've detailed. If you don't agree well alright but it's no reason to put the sexism card into it.

It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine when people claim people dislike others because of their gender or claim that I personally dislike them because she's another female and as a girl, I hate other girls. No. I hate stupidity. I don't care what gender you are. You could be an android that has no gender, if you act stupid (you wouldn't cause come on ROBOT) i'm still going to dislike you. Tossing in the gender thing is unnecessary and usually just a way for people to try to give their point more support. Nothing about what any of us said about cat had anything to do with her gender. It all had something to do with her actions and reactions. She also just happens to be female.

So lets back away from that whole sexism nonsense in regards to dislike for Cat.

[Jinx]

Yeah, Freya tells me all the time I'm super girly and I make her sick, but she still loves me.

[Shlup]

Reddit is not dominated by misogynists. It's a huge, diverse community. There is enough of them, though, that a few will pop up everywhere you look, and it's very irritating. I agree that /r/gameofthrones really isn't bad in that regard.

It's definitely a pet peeve of mine when people play the sexism card, but that doesn't mean gender discrimination is never an issue. People are more forgiving of the faults of male characters than they are female characters. You're right, their choices don't have to do with them being female--peoples' inability to forgive their bad decisions while easily forgiving the bad decisions of other characters, though... seems to create a pattern.

I'm not going to push it, though, because I hate accusing people of sexism. And I, at least, am not accusing anyone individually of being sexist--it's just a general overtone, based on dozens and dozens of people declaring they hate the female characters (excluding Arya, who's the most masculine of the female characters), yet I almost never see anyone hate the male characters. Cat/Sansa/Dany/Cersei get called stupid bitches all the time. Yes, there are people that will defend them, but there's a definite noticeable pattern between which characters are forgiven for their bad decisions and which aren't, and I'm not going to deny that I see a pattern when that pattern keeps popping up over and over and over again. If it were just Cat, then maybe, but it's like every female character short of Arya!

Aaaanyway... I don't like the way this is going so... I forgive all of the characters for their decisions that didn't turn out well. There's no character I dislike, and I'm super duper excited for the next two episodes. Though what I'm really excited for is next season. Though I hear they're splitting the events from the next book into two seasons, which might mean it's season four that's going to have lots of my favorite things. Stupid ten episodes a year...

[Jinx]

I've said a hundred times I hate Jon.

[Shlup]

You seem to really think that any one example that doesn't fit into my very generalized observations invalidates my opinion. That's not how things work.