With all the hubbub about this weekend’s Season 6 kickoff of Game of Thrones, I thought I’d squawk a lil about why I will most definitively Not be watching.
Perhaps you’d think it’s because this show has almost singularly ushered in our “Spoiler Alert!”-maniacal culture. Or maybe because it’s known for graphic sex, graphic violence and graphic sexual violence. Maybe you think epic dramas with multiple storylines and a seemingly endless cast of characters just isn’t my thing. But you’d be wrong.
It’s the costumes.
I simply can’t get interested in a show set in a world that exists before the zipper was invented. Body armor and bustiers don’t interest me. (Not during the daytime, anyway.) The truth is that I can’t get interested in anything in fantasy period costume.
I cannot relate or connect to medieval times. Not the utensil-less theme restaurant. Not the time period. And certainly not fiction set there. The same goes for fantasy worlds where people wear this kind of thing.
I may be in the minority here, but I don’t really see how. Our clothes serve as the touchstones of cultural progress. I can get behind retro-wear that harkens back to the 1960s. Even the ’20s. But when we start going back hundreds of years, my eyes glaze over. I am simply unwilling to become emotionally invested in characters who live in a time period set before women wore pants.
Did they have the same trials and tribulations that women have faced for millennia? Philandering husbands and unruly children? Oh hells yes. Are the men sweaty and muscular and brave and fierce? It looks like it, based on the short snippets I’ve seen before I can quickly switch channels to something I am actually interested in. Yet, because of the confines of their clothing, the silly stylings of their outfits, I am out.
Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I am no slave to fashion. I clean up alright, but I am by no means a clothes-horse. So why this aversion to gilded costumes of centuries past? To intricate curls placed just so on the top of women’s heads? The hipsters have brought facial hair back to this century with a vengeance, and I am one of the few people okay with that, but the bearded faces of the warriors who populate Game of Thrones give me a wide yawn.
Jousts? Boring.
Swordfights? Snore.
Dragons? Phooey.
This prejudice extends far beyond George R. R. Martin’s fantastical epic. Case in point: I adore Gerard Butler. His face, accent, abs, et cetera. And yet, I was not one to subject myself to any of those beloved things when the film “300” came out. Not because it was touted as one of the most violent war movies since “Saving Private Ryan,” but because in the promo posters, he was wearing an old time-y period war-wear and that just turned me off. And it was great flick! Ask anybody. Anybody but me.
Will Game of Thrones come back this season to acclaim and applause and watercooler-inciting debate? Absolutely.
Will people be riveted by the action and some guy named Jon Snow (who apparently has amazing hair, from what I’ve heard, anyway) and whether he is dead or whatever? Yup.
Will I be joining in the fray?
Spoiler alert: Nope.
