We GoT taboos in droves
Game of Thrones is by no means the first television show to treat its audience like adults. Although we rely almost exclusively on cable television for R-rated content in 2017, it was network television that began breaking barriers, with NYPD Blue in 1993. Featuring foul language, nudity and violence, it was also the first to show a few bare butts, leading to several of ABC’s local stations refusing to air episodes – all of which only piqued interest. In comparison with today’s standards, NYPD Blue would seem positively tame
In order to take things several steps further, Thrones needed only remain faithful to its source material, George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series. Rape, abuse, child murder, torture, castration, cannibalism are all present, but the most talked about example of the show’s breaking of taboos has been its romanticized exploration of incest.
The series uses such subject matter as a provocation. It’s hard to find a single episode that doesn’t involve a nude scene for a female character, having become the show’s most gratuitous cheap trick. And with several storylines involving rape over the years, Thrones has made the once rare plot device a recurring theme; leaving many fans in a moral outrage on social media after Jaime assaulted Cersei, or when Sansa Stark was raped by Ramsay Snow.
For better or worse, Thrones, as pop culture provocateur, has impacted what we find acceptable on television. Just think of the series that have premiered since its debut. Westworld made headlines when a casting call went out last year requiring actors to perform “genitalto-genital touching” and to “simulate oral sex.” We’ve also seen graphic scenes of oral sex from Outlander, suicide and rape from 13 Reasons Why, domestic abuse from Big Little Lies and child murder on The Walking Dead. American Gods might just usurp Thrones when it comes to setting taboos on fire. From a female god who vaginally swallows men and women whole during sex to, according to the New York Times, “the single hottest and most pornographic gay sex scene ever” between two Middle Eastern men, American Gods has given Thrones-like provocations more nuance and complexity.
Thrones might have upped the television game in terms of taboos, but with its end just two short seasons away, prestige television has already picked up the baton. Meanwhile, audiences have become a little more desensitized to things they never knew they wanted.