‘Joffrey’ questions Game of Thrones’ violence
Portrayer of the sociopathic king weighs in on the show’s misogynistic depictions
Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers up to Season 5 of Game of Thrones.
"Joffrey" in real life is very different from his character on Game of Thrones.
Actor Jack Gleeson, who played the sociopath king on the show for three seasons and a couple of episodes in the fourth, has his doubts about the prevalent violence against women that has caused so much controversy for the show, some of which was perpetrated by his own character.
“It’s a tricky thing when you are representing misogyny in that way, because I wouldn’t say the show ever implicitly condones misogyny or any kind of violence toward women,” Gleeson told the Daily Beast in a recent interview. “But perhaps it’s still unfair or unjust to represent it, even if the gloss on the representation is a negative one.”
He continued to say that sometimes you “have” to represent this kind of violence to “expose it.”
“Obviously, as a 23-year-old man, I can never put myself into the mindset of a woman who has been sexually assaulted. But I think that sometimes you have to represent awful things happening onscreen, even if they’re for entertainment, because you have to expose the brutality of them; because the chances are you’re not going to see that anywhere. So there’s a chance it engages some kind of empathy, but it is a grey area. It might be very traumatic and stressful to watch those scenes.”
He also acknowledged that how you represent sexual violence is incredibly important.
“I think it’s always how you represent that kind of treatment: Are you in some way making it cool, or are you making it into an entertainment product, and is that wrong? Or are you doing it in order to expose the problem of sexual assault?”
Gleeson hasn’t seen the scene from Season 5 that has caused so much controversy — the rape of the character Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), a frequent victim of his character, King Joffrey — so he “can’t say” if the show is portraying this kind of violence appropriately.
Other actors from the show have addressed this issue, which has led some long-term fans to quit watching all together. Turner said at Comic-Con that her character is “still strong” after the assault and Gwendoline Christie, who plays Brienne, has applauded the show for its portrayal of female characters.
“I think it’s always how you represent that kind of treatment: Are you in some way making it cool . . .? Or are you doing it in order to expose the problem of sexual assault?” JACK GLEESON ACTOR
George R.R. Martin, who writes the books the show is based on, has defended the use of rape in both the books and the show. In June he said, “If you’re going to write about war, and you just want to include all the cool battles and heroes killing a lot of orcs and things like that and you don’t portray (sexual violence), then there’s something fundamentally dishonest about that. Rape, unfortunately, is still a part of war today. It’s not a strong testament to the human race, but I don’t think we should pretend it doesn’t exist.”