George RR Martin on Racism and Sexism Accusations against Game of Thrones

so my next question again - George's kind of continues on the issue of the political implications so for all the enormous interest and lauding of your work certainly deservedly Spokeo there have also been some critiques I'm sure you know of the series by which I mean both the book series on the TV series political and social implications now in many ways we could say that the series really kind of undermine traditional notions of power that they really in some ways very much play with you know as we've talked about about phallic constructions of power kind of subverting it but at the same time you know there has been some critique of the works in terms of issues of gender and sexuality and race so for example with the TV series that even led to the coinage of a new term sex position right which people talk about it you kind of laugh about the way that sometimes they'll be these scenes with with sexual activity or nudity to kind of prevent the information of narrative kind of narrative information from seeming boring that you have the sex going on so some people say okay so women and sexual minorities are therefore just kind of titillation purposes and not much else and there have also been some critique of some of the racial tropes for instance using the trope of the kind of white savior of dark people like in the case of Daenerys Targaryen so I'm curious do you think that these critiques are justified how do you respond to those critiques well you that question covers a lot of territory there there let me try to separate that into component parts here first of all you have to separate the books from the television I know they're there they're two different things and sometimes it's very very very clear as in the case of this white Savior business with the the scene with Daenerys where she is hailed by the slaves that she's just freed in the city of yokai that scene is drawn largely from the books but in the in the book site I think I make it very clear that the slavery of slavers Bay of yunkai and hasta poor and marine is not racially based it's not American slavery which was strictly race-based it's modeled much more on the the slavery of the ancient Near East of the Romans and the Greeks where slaves could be of any race you know it could just be the guys at Wilson last war you know the Greeks enslaved each other you know if Thebes defeated Athens in a war a bunch of Athenians would suddenly be slaves and thieves and vice versa the Romans conquered people of various colors in Africa and very different covers and colors in Germany and goal and made slaves of them all and that's certainly what I depict in the books and I think that's what is meant to be depicted in the TV show - but no practicalities wood running a TV show those those scenes were filmed in Morocco and the people that you see are extras who are paid you know thirty dollars a day or something like that - to perform to be in the background when you film that the practicalities are you put out a call for extras and people show up and and you sign up as many as you need when you'd be that in Morocco Moroccan show up so I don't know what the I mean obviously there's an implication there that people took of it perhaps people who had not read the books that one of the people that she freed were brown or black and that's certainly not the was not intended to be the case but on the other hand flying in people from from Ireland to in order to yeah people this scene in Morocco just to stand in the crowd would have been very very cost prohibitive these are the kind of practicalities of television production that's that some critics never taken to advantage I mean if you look at the Dothrak I for example we filmed these Dothraki scenes with Daenerys in a number of different places and you know like some of the early scenes our main location is Belfast in Northern Ireland and we film in areas around Belfast now Danny in particular has filmed scenes in Morocco in Malta she's filming some in Spain right now we move around what some of the early death rocaille scenes when she's first with Khal Drogo or actually filmed in in the fields outside Belfast in Northern Ireland in forests and grasslands and if you look at those closely there's a lot of kind of pasty white nothing right because those are the guys who showed up when we put a casting call yeah hey do you have long hair can you ride a horse and you know you hire who you show up and I mean that's senior you know with with Daenerys - I mean ties to the gender issues I know what you're saying about the differences between the TV show in the book that it's very different let's say the issues of sexual violence that are in the TV program are not like the scene you know that it is not a rape of Danny and in your book and I know that so I I understand exactly what you're saying about that that between the difference between the television and but as you know but you're also an executive producer of the TV series do you have can you kind of negotiate those things with them or you know how does that work to say I don't like the way your you're translating this you know I'm involved in a television show but it's it's really run by David Benioff and you know and I don't consult every day I'm not I'm not in Belfast I'm I'm you know in Santa Fe trying to half world away trying to finish my books so I do consult with them they we talk regularly they sometimes ask my opinions and sometimes they don't but I don't think in them in that particular case I would have done anything different I mean frankly I don't even think I realized there was a problem there until people started pointing out there was a problem maybe that's my blindness or the blindness of David and Dan but it was just you know the practicalities if you're going to do that see I mean how do you how do you get that where do you get the mixed racial things when you're trying to hire a thousand extras for a scene and you're doing it in Morocco I don't know you know do you use CGI to to change their complexion or do you know Jews say we have enough brown people sorry we're not hiring anymore you brown people you know only white people should I don't know I don't know how you how you do that but I don't know maybe there is a better way and we should have thought about it more but I don't know that now let me go to another part of that question which is the sex position question that was a very cool coinage which was coined by I think it was Miles not yes miles not yeah referring to it but one particular scene yeah and I think they was probably justified for that particular scene Littlefinger is giving a long speech in the brothel and meanwhile there's there's a couple girls getting it onto the background and it was parodied on Saturday Night Live and all that but I do think that like many of these tropes that or these corners have come forward it's it's been met vastly misused people don't seem to actually understand the scene have started applying it to any scene that has sex I don't think sexuality is sex position you know sex position was that one particular thing where they're trying to put something I guess visually interesting on behind on the scene while there while someone was delivering uh you know a long nugget of backstory George let me let me come at this from a different way because there's another side to your characters another side to what you're doing as you illuminate any rolling stone interview from a from maybe about a year ago you derived the fact that fantasy is mostly inundated with evil ugly Dark Lord's who go to battle with dashing brave heroes and you've kind of turned that paradigm upside down I don't have a follow up to Tom on this in a second your books feature a dwarf as a major character if not the sole the most reasonable voice a disabled boy many of the characters a prostitute plays several seem to be wise and heroic you have a character who commits in the first book and the first season of the show an irredeemable act who is now in the color since he's lost a limb is becoming almost I I hesitate to say heroic and yet that's what it is you seem to have changed the nature of heroism as it has been traditionally defined in fantasy and science fiction is that something you set out to do consciously or just or did it evolve did characters like Tyrion bran and Jaime Lannister did they just evolve organically you know I think it's a little bit of both I've always been attracted to great characters I think they're more interesting than than heroes you know who are just going around being heroic all the time is that why bike taking Jamie's hand away he becomes a more sympathetic character and seeks redemption instead of continuing on the path he was on before well he certainly has to read to find himself and in that comes a lot of personal anguish and personal growth and personal struggle all of which is you know great material for uh for drama you know I grew up as a comic book fan as I mentioned that was my first stuff was published in comic fanzines and a huge influence on me when I was like 10 11 12 years old was was Stan Lee and the Marvel comics and there was one of the things he did you know I'd been reading DC Comics for years when Marvel started and did he see stories were all completely circular you know Batman was looking around Gotham City and you know here comes the Riddler or the Joker and he defeats the Rigler under Joker and they go in but they're never any surprises the story ends right where begins so next week he can you know would poison ivy or whatever and you always knew he'd hear us well you always know who the villains were and Stanley three through let out yes sir he you know the Fantastic Four what a revelation that was in 1961 you know one of one of the guys on the team was a monster and he didn't like being a monster and he was angry at the other people on a team they were fighting within each other that Justice League never fought within each other and I discovered really the powers of conflict and the powers of great characters and they continued to I mean I love lorded reins and I think Boromir is my favorite character he's the one who who succumbs you know he's a hero but he's also fatally flawed and you know he fails at the last moment and and you know you're rooting for him but then and Peter Jackson's a great job in the movie was showing his temptation you really really like Boromir but you know then he turns against Frodo corrupted by the ring but then he does so ugly full of arrows Sean Bean dying one of his many deaths [Applause] so I love to write about characters like that and intellectually I always I also I also find the question of redemption fascinating maybe it's you know I'm not religious now but I was raised a Catholic so maybe it's maybe it's questions that I that come to me from my whole Catholic upbringing and the things I learned from my sister Mary elephant or something in catechism I mean you know that the whole question of forgiveness for sin you know that the Catholic Church teaches you go to confession and you were forgiven for your sins even terrible sins but certainly our society doesn't necessarily doesn't necessarily deal with that we we don't forgive people even I don't forgive people I recognize you know I'm a great character myself here I'm you know as some of you know following my blog I'm a I'm a football fan I'm a fan of the Giants and the Jets but it bothers me - Michael Vick is on my is on my Jets team and I know he's paid his debt to society and all of I can't just bring myself to root for this guy yeah so you know and and then um people say well what about your belief and we're done well yeah I know but it's still it's hard it's part

Channel: Aegon Targaryen

Views: 2,903,078

Rating: 4.844183 out of 5

Keywords: george rr martin stephen king, fire and blood, world of ice and fire, dunk and egg, jrr tolkien, southpark, conan, stephen colbert, audiobook, 2019, new, iron throne, favorite scene, game of thrones season 8 teaser, leaked, jon snow, ned stark, daenarys targaryen, stannis, the wall, whitewalkers, dragons, nightflyers

Id: 5X_0PSvGhvc

Length: 13min 40sec (820 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 15 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/bigbigguy]

He actually had a fan letter in one of the old fantastic four issues.

[u/WEEGEMAN]

I've been seeing some debate why Stan Lee should or should not be recognized at the Academy Awards. The juggernaut of the MCU aside, I think he should. The guy has influenced so many writers throughout the years, impacting popular culture--including movies.

So in this case you have a young George RR Martin reading comics that Stan Lee wrote, recognizing what he did with protagonists/antagonists. Martin went on to write(ing) the Song of Ice and Fire books, which was adapted into the extremely popular HBO show Game of Thrones.

Tell me again why Stan shouldn't be recognized. Tell me one more time stuffy movie critics that probably don’t frequent here so I don't know why I am antagonizing you.

[u/thevogonity]

Neither Stan or GRRM have had any works recognized by the academy, so anything more than a spot on the in memoriam presentation does not make sense.

And that is perfectly alright. The MCU does not need Academy recognition. They are action blockbusters which have never faired well with academy, but yet the MCU has seemed to have some modest success without any awards.