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'Times' irks geek girls with 'Thrones' review
The New York Times is taking a quiver full of barbs today, as female fantasy lovers respond to the paper's laughably parochial review of HBO's new series Game of Thrones. The review, by Times critic Ginia Bellafante, is "a flaming insult to geek girls," notes Amy Ratcliffe on her blog, Geek With Curves. While it's easy to understand some of the review's criticisms—namely, the show's confusingly large cast and complicated intrigues—you can also see why some might feel the writeup is sexist in its discussion the show's lurid sexual subplots, which the writer doesn't seem to realize are pulled straight from the books by George R.R. Martin. "The true perversion," Bellafante writes, "is the sense you get that all of this illicitness has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise." Ah yes, nothing attracts the female TV-watching demo quite like graphic sex! Another head-scratcher: "Game of Thrones is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population's other half." Wait, is this the same "other half" that has made fantasy one of the most popular genres in both literature and Hollywood? You don't have to be a geek girl to be baffled by this review; you just have to live in 2011. Hat tip to Christopher Baccus. |
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Filed under Griner, HBO, New York Times, Newspapers
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Yeah, that's quite the misfire on Bellafante's part. Did she even watch the show before she wrote this review? Did something hit her on the head beforehand?
Posted by: DK | Apr 15, 2011 7:37:22 PM
It's not just the brazenly sexist generalizations that are irksome. It's the complete lack of effort in even attempting to craft a substantive "review." She does not delve into the acting, the plot, the production design, etc.; as you say, she basically just throws her hands up and dismisses it as too complicated. She wants HBO to "get back to business" on its non-fantasy fare. In light of this review, I have serious doubts she was able to follow The Wire either.
Posted by: DarthCorleone | Apr 15, 2011 8:18:17 PM
Which the writer doesn't seem to realize are pulled straight from the books by George R.R. Martin. "
Posted by: Macy Lerma | Oct 9, 2012 4:00:02 AM
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