Game of Thrones and the Risk of Desensitization

I am watching Game of Thrones.   I started it about 9 months ago, watched a few seasons and then stopped.  Now I am back into it, but a bit uneasy about my interest.  I think the popularity of this show is a window into the complex and contradictory nature of the human psyche and of our desensitization to violence and horror.

On one level the series is a classic, cleverly crafted adventure story.  The characters are vividly portrayed, the action is complex and interwoven into multiple sub-plots and narratives.  The themes are familiar ones of power, wealth, ambition, honor, courage, cruelty and betrayal, to name a few.  The storyline is intricate and has enough depth to keep me intrigued, even though I am now somewhat jaded and bored by most adventure and special effects movies.

But there is something quite disturbing about Game of Thrones and its appeal for me.  Like so many streaming films, GOT proudly displays its MA – Mature Audiences - banner at the outset of each episode, letting me know which type of titillation I can expect:  Graphic Violence, Graphic Sexual Scenes, Nudity, Foul Language or some joyous combination of the four.

When I viewed the first few episodes I was shocked by the violence and the type of sexuality and nudity portrayed, and I debated whether to continue. But the story is captivating, and the characters are appealing, so I continued to watch.

As the carnage increased, and as many of the sexual acts were also disturbingly violent, I began to question my commitment to the series.  The frequent scenes of sadistic torture and horrific violence were very difficult for me to watch, and most of the nudity and sex scenes were either violent or predatory in nature, devoid of any romance or love.

But I soldiered on, suppressing my revulsion at the extreme parts and enjoying the interlocking pieces of the overall story.  The series successfully manipulates its audience into the addiction of needing to ‘see what happens next’, and I fall prey to this compulsion as readily as the next one.

Still, ‘what happens next’ is often a cruel disappointment and a bitter accumulation of vengeful hopes – a beloved character being brutally murdered, children being butchered, innocents being flayed alive, the leering rape of a virgin.  We are assaulted time and time again with hideous scenes and nightmarish images. What a price our sensibilities pay for this need to ‘see what happens next’!

Yes, I know the real world can be cruel and that GOT in some part mirrors our own sad history.  I know that there is a danger in making violence seem innocuous and tame, which was the legacy of our early film history.  The more realistic violence in GOT is certainly shocking, and if I believed that its impact would somehow empower efforts to rid this world of that type of violence I would heartily support its realism.

However, I suspect that the escalating realism of violence in film is not a matter of alerting the world to the brutality of violence, but rather a slow desensitization to it, along with a seductive awakening of a darker capacity to be titillated by appalling acts of sadism and cruelty.

And the sexuality portrayed in GOT is almost uniformly perverse.  I am no prude and I believe films should portray the full range of healthy human sexuality - love, romance, seduction, passion, ecstasy.  But GOT focuses on the very types of sexual predation that we have labored these long years to expose and condemn.  These types of sexual perversion may indeed be afoot in the world, but by bombarding us with their imagery I cannot help but believe that we play a dangerous game with weak or vulnerable psyches.

One wonders whether the story could have been just as compelling with a lot less graphic violence and sexual perversion.  Were these scenes truly indispensable?  Was it really necessary to show us flayed human bodies and dragons spitting out portions of flesh?  Do we need to actually see torture being inflicted in grim detail to understand that it happened?  Did we gain anything by seeing Sanya sexually assaulted by Ramsey other than a fierce desire for vengeance? Is the essence of the story not enough to carry it and keep our attention?

I am comfortable that my own visceral abhorrence of the violence and depravity is evidence that I have not yet been too desensitized, but I do wonder at my willingness to subject myself to it for the sake of a good story.   Is it really worth it?  I am hooked and will see it through to the end, but I am troubled that I have travelled this road.