Game of Thrones Poster

I know I shouldn’t draw attention to this, it’s exactly what the editors of the New York Times were hoping for when they green-lit the review, but I just can’t help it. Long story short, a reviewer at the NYT didn’t like the first episode of HBO’S Game of Thrones. And you know what? That’s okay. What’s not okay are her poorly considered and narrow-minded criticisms; not to mention her tasteless views of Fantasy and women.

There’s an argument out there that the NYT should have handed the television show to a reviewer with a taste for and a history with Fantasy literature and cinema. I don’t fully agree with this, however. One assumes that the early viewership of the show will primarily be made up of fans of Martin’s series, an already established audience, but as the show moves on (and garners more critical acclaim, as it has everywhere besides the NYT), that audience will continue to grow and reach outside the typical circle of core Fantasy consumers. Does one need to be immersed in 60’s corporate politicking to enjoy Mad Men? No. Does one have to understand the Tudor dynasty to enjoy or critique The Tudors? So, newcomer to Fantasy is reviewing a Fantasy product. There’s a whole swathe of the audience who will be ignorant of the genre’s history. I’m fine with that.

But.

Regardless of any past experience, however, if one chooses to review a product (especially a paid review), isn’t it fair to expect them to go in with an open mind and a willingness to immerse themselves in an unfamiliar vocabulary and set of rules?

Well, the author of the New York Times review of HBO’s Game of Thrones doesn’t seem to think so.

Here are two of my favourite quotes:

The true perversion, though, 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. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first. “Game of Thrones” is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half.

and

If you are not averse to the Dungeons & Dragons aesthetic, the series might be worth the effort. If you are nearly anyone else, you will hunger for HBO to get back to the business of languages for which we already have a dictionary.

Frankly, I can’t tell which is a more reprehensible statement: that for television to be good it has to be rooted in the cliche and familiar, or that women don’t like dragons and knights and wouldn’t watch the show if it didn’t have explicit sex scenes. Just wait until the reviewer gets a glimpse of some of the Tyrion/Shae sex scenes in the second season. In the meantime, she can go back to watching Nikita in all its contemporary glory.

Congrats, Ginia Bellafante! Not only do you write for the New York Times… you also get to publicly set both women and Speculative Literature back to the gutters they used to occupy and that we’ve all so often fought our way out of. I hope you’re proud.

Now, where’d I put my copy of Water for Elephants? Must’ve got lost when my fiance was baking bread and starching my sheets. Awe well… I’ll just go re-read this amazing rebuttal by the good folks at io9.

Discussion
  • neth April 15, 2011 at 11:57 am

    Have you read the satirical review at Io9 about how boys won’t like Game of Thrones. It’s good stuff.

    Also, there is a lot of fantasy bashing starting to come around with this show. Did you see the Slate.com review? it was terrible, the reviewer flat-out stated how he hated fantasy and spent the rest of the review confirming that he hates fantasy. Now a critic doesn’t necessarily have to be a fan, but at least open to the possibility of liking (or not liking) something. It was also an embarrasing review, if not as blatantly offensive as the NYT.

  • aidan April 15, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    Nope, missed the Slate review. Glad I did, too!

    The io9 rebuttal is awesome. I don’t always love their stuff, but they are spot on this time. Will add it to the original article.

    Thank, Neth!

  • D. D. Syrdal April 15, 2011 at 12:03 pm

    I had to go look up who Lorrie Moore is. ::: Proudly flying my geek-girl flag:::

  • James April 15, 2011 at 12:06 pm

    The first links to this just started to appear here and there on Twitter before I went to bed this morning and I attempted to read it then, but I did not get too far. I know I should have probably continued, but I stopped reading the review after the author complained about having to extend some small amount of focus in order to keep track of all the characters. At that moment, my mind shuffled it in with the multitude of one-star Amazon book reviews, which make the same complaint, as not being worth reading.

  • Sensawunda April 15, 2011 at 12:08 pm

    Now, I’ve never read The Game of Thrones (although it is next on my list), nor do I intend to watch this series, and I fully respect negative reviews, but the way in which this NYT reviewer goes about her negative review is almost inexcusable. The review spends equal space dissing on fantasy as a genre, insulting the people who read fantasy, using incredibly ignorant gender statements, and all-in-all being desultory. I could hardly find a review of the actual episode in her slanderous filth. It’s despicable.

    I agree with Neth. There has been an awful, awful lot of fantasy bashing lately, but it’s coming from the never-ending sources of genre hate. Anytime spec fic becomes popular, the literati have to smite our masochistic group back down to our normal position of licking boots. I am very, very sick of it.

  • neth April 15, 2011 at 12:48 pm

    Fans reaction is getting kinda nasty – the NYT apparently had to disable the rating feature (though you can still email the critic) and her entry on wiki is being edited quite heavily.

  • Yiota April 15, 2011 at 1:47 pm

    Hey come on! I watch Nikita but i’m freaking excited about GOT :P
    There are some stupid things there though. I have friends who are girly,love sex, etc but they really got into series like that even though they have no connection with the subject like me.

  • Chad Hull April 15, 2011 at 4:29 pm

    Not to take sides, but have you Aidan, or anyone else bashing this reviewer’s take, seen the episode discussed or considered that some of the points given might, in fact, be valid? It’s one thing to have a difference of opinion but at least all parties involved should be talking about the same subject matter.

    I can admit to rolling my eyes to many of the reviewer’s… comments, but then again, I haven’t seen the show. Perhaps she has a point. After all, she has been privy to pre-screening of a show that has yet to air to the public, not a book that is familiar to many.

    (My apologies if you, like the NYT’s reviewer, have seen an advance showing of the episode; in which case my remarks are totally out of line.)

  • aidan April 15, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    Nope. I haven’t seen the show. But being familiar with the source material, I feel confident in my opinion that Ms. Bellafante’s opinions and criticisms are weak and ill-considered jabs at the genre as a whole and not solely at Game of Thrones. This seems doubly obvious when one reads any of the dozens of other reviews that praise the television adaptation for being smart fantasy.

  • smitty April 15, 2011 at 8:53 pm

    Global warming?!? Did I miss something when I read this series? Was it the (*spoiler*) global warming that caused the dragon eggs to hatch? This NYT review is just another example of media doing all it can to further entrench the “lowest common denominator” mentality. Seriously, too many characters to keep track of? Gratuitous sex for the ladies? And what’s with bashing True-Blood? Sounds like somebody has gone too long without some hard-core Dothraki lovin’!!

  • SF Signal: SF Tidbits for 4/16/11 April 15, 2011 at 10:22 pm

    […] by Gina Bellafante. Responses are coming in from Jennings Roth Cornet, Shaun Duke, Rhonda Eudaly, Aidan Moher, Mari Ness, Annalee Newitz, Amy Ratcliffe, and Brian White.E-book sales top paperbacks for first […]

  • Celine April 16, 2011 at 2:02 am

    Well… I am a woman, who love reading fantasy as well as other books… I am shocked about this article : women must only like books about relationships ? love ? sexual relations ? We can’t admire this wonderful book that is “The hobbit”, and think that it is one of the best book of the XXth century ?
    Aidan, I agree with you on this point : this serie should not be for fantasy-reader only… But this girl is just a fantasy-hater, the kind that despise it without having read a single book !!!
    Well, the last sentence of the article is a good summary of her lack of curiosity : please, do not lead me outside of my comfort zone…

  • annie April 16, 2011 at 2:55 am

    LOLOLOL!

    Women who love fantasy would never belong to such a stupid book club…

  • Doug M. April 16, 2011 at 4:30 am

    While I agree that the snarky comments were unnecessary, I’m not shocked or appalled at all. I obviously don’t agree with her opinions, but I’ve never been concerned with the legitimacy of the genre myself.

    Fantasy will always be the red-headed step-child of the industry (TV, Movies, Literature). It’s never stopped fantastic movies (or TV shows) from turning up, or fantastic books from being written so far. It’s a niche market and we’re a niche fanbase. I have no need for it to be accepted into mainstream culture… in fact, I don’t think it would be very beneficial if it were.

    So while I’m truly looking forward to this series, I’ve already accepted its inevitable early demise–because the vast majority of TV watchers will agree with this NYT review (Unless boobies are flying in every single scene).

  • alchymyst April 16, 2011 at 6:39 am

    I am honestly not surprised. While I like NYT as a source of news, every time I read their TV or movie reviews, I realize they always hire writers who do not like either movies or TV. It’s like having someone who hates beer write beer reviews.

    She didn’t like the episode, well, okay, I can live with that. Maybe I won’t like it either, who knows. What’s really offensive (and feels even more offensive coming from a female critic) is that she spits on women who would choose to watch something that has dragons and swords. Next thing she’ll tell me I should be in the kitchen taking care of babies. Either NYT is really in such budget trouble that they no longer have editors who can stop their writers from spewing this sexist stuff, or their entertainment section has really sunk to a new low.

  • Alex C April 16, 2011 at 10:29 am

    The Slate review, in which the writer makes no bones about pissing on the Fantasy genre from an assumed lofty height of superiority, makes the NYT review look practically even-handed.

    One of the parts of the Times’ review that I disagreed with most was the idea that the distasteful/exploitative sexual element of AGOF was there to appeal to a female audience. When I read the first few books of the series many years ago, it seemed more as if it were there for sexually-frustrated male readers, although maybe I’m just promoting the old basement-dweller stereotype. In any case, I thought that Daenerys’ sex scenes were treated with a little more relish than I was comfortable with.

    I do find it quite hard to entirely disagree with criticism relating to the cod-medieval, dragon-laden setting too. This is not a show that is honestly going to change preconceptions of Fantasy but reinforce them. Perdido Street Station it ain’t. Sex, violence and supposedly more robust politics (Fantasy lent credibility by masquerading as some form of historical fiction) are a poor replacement for sheer imaginative fire and originality. But then, ironically, Fantasy fans (lovers of such sprawling multi-book epics) generally just want more of the same, comfortingly familiar like a security blanket.

  • Betty Brownson April 16, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    While I’m upset at the NYT review, I’m not surprised. Even now, I’m asked why I read Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Paranormal. I’m always told, I’m a woman I should read inspirational, self-help, and chic lit.

    I say Bah, and just like D.D, I keep waiving my *geek girl flag*, eating popcorn, and reading my Fantasy books.

  • Kathleen April 16, 2011 at 2:33 pm

    have you Aidan, or anyone else bashing this reviewer’s take, seen the episode discussed or considered that some of the points given might, in fact, be valid?

    Since her review had almost nothing to actually say about the episode itself, I find it hard to believe this is the case.

  • CaptainAubrey April 17, 2011 at 8:02 am

    Alex C
    I do find it quite hard to entirely disagree with criticism relating to the cod-medieval, dragon-laden setting too. This is not a show that is honestly going to change preconceptions of Fantasy but reinforce them. Perdido Street Station it ain’t. Sex, violence and supposedly more robust politics (Fantasy lent credibility by masquerading as some form of historical fiction) are a poor replacement for sheer imaginative fire and originality. But then, ironically, Fantasy fans (lovers of such sprawling multi-book epics) generally just want more of the same, comfortingly familiar like a security blanket.

    Having read the first two and a half books, I have to agree with you. People have always told me how great these books are, but they lack orginality and rely on the old tedious fantasy setting, the only “new” thing about them is grim violence and sex and I often get the feeling I’m reading a soapopera aimed at the fantasyfans who are comfortable in that old, overused setting. It could just as easily be set in our world in the middle ages, and the series lack almost everything I need to be surprised and engaged by a piece of speculative fiction.

    That being said, I look forward to the TV-show. I’d much rather spend 50 minutes a week watching this story than hours of reading it when there is so much more engaging litterature out there to immerse myself in.

  • […] Comment: New York Times Embarrassing Review of Game of Thrones, posted by A Dribble of Ink […]

  • Kat Hooper April 17, 2011 at 11:03 am

    Well said, Aidan. And thanks for reminding me that I must go RIGHT THIS MINUTE and add HBO to my satellite service! I am hoping I can talk my husband into watching with me!

  • […] completely ignorant is more than disappointing. There have been some very fine rebuttals from Aidan Moher, Daniel Abraham, and many others to the review. Even Martin himself took issue with the slighting […]

  • […] been pouring in every since from around the web: Jennings Roth Cornet, Shaun Duke, Rhonda Eudaly, Aidan Moher, Mari Ness, Annalee Newitz, Amy Ratcliffe, Brian White, and more. Some are calling on fans to […]

  • […] been pouring in every since from around the web: Jennings Roth Cornet, Shaun Duke, Rhonda Eudaly, Aidan Moher, Mari Ness, Annalee Newitz, Amy Ratcliffe, Brian White, and more. Some are calling on fans to […]

  • […] the responsibility of editorial departments and the reviewer.  Aidan of A Dribble of Ink has already responded to the NYT review, the body of which I take some issues with.  He […]