Game of Thrones is a phenomenon; there's no doubt on that score. I mean,it has even achieved the much-coveted Acronym Status: all you have to say is GOT, and everyone knows what you're talking about.
I didn't look up any of the actual metrics, but the show is now being regularly referred to as the most-watched series in the history of broadcasting. However, if that is true, I can't help but wonder what that says about our culture.
Because significant portions of the show are outright pornographic. Over the years, some folks have tried to make the case that these very explicit scenes are somehow essential to the show's ambiance. But the idea that the series' approach to sex is more than just smut fell apart back in 2016 when HBO, the cable network that produces Game of Thrones, had to sue Pornhub, one of the web's largest porn sites, for copyright infringement. After all, if pornographers are using clips from your show, then it's hard to deny that what you are producing is, well, pornographic.
But Game of Thrones is also extremely violent. Again, the point is often made that the brutality of the series is required by the medieval setting. And throughout the show's run, people have also insisted that, because the series is so well-written, the carnage is hardly ever just out and out gratuitous. But those arguments really just concede the point; they are simply attempts to justify what everyone pretty much agrees is a stunning amount of violence.
So what does all this say about us and our society?
To begin with, it reveals just how deeply confused we are. We applaud the #MeToo Movement, and we are adamantly opposed to sexism and the exploitation of vulnerable persons, and yet we are watching a show in which the distillation of all those evils—pornography—plays a prominent role. We deplore the polarization of our country, and we are concerned about the level of actual, physical violence in our culture, and yet we are celebrating a series that is drenched in gore.
But these dynamics also demonstrate just how much we have forgotten and just how much we take for granted. Because, apart from the obviously fantastic elements, the world used to be an awful lot like Game of Thrones--full of savagery and sexual oppression. And life is still that way for many of the folks who inhabit this planet. But to the extent that it's not, those advances are, in large part, due to the Christian Faith and to the institutions it has founded and the virtues it has encouraged.
So why do we want to return—even imaginatively—to a sexist and bloodthirsty past? Why do we want to experience—even vicariously—horrors that we have worked so hard to overcome? And how is this not a rejection of the Faith that has made the world so much better for so many people?
If those questions appear as important to you as they do to me, send me a note or give me a call. We have a lot to talk about.
Father Aidan Wilcoxson is the pastor of St John Orthodox parish in Cedar Park (www.theforerunner.org); he can be reached at fraidan@austin.rr.com.