It seems like The New York Times gets a lot of shit these days. First, you've got the rather unpleasant neo-conservative, Fox News-watching crowd that take every opportunity to deride the paper as a "liberal rag" and scoff at the mere mention of the paper's name. Then you've got the people that love to discuss the imminent death of the newspaper industry - guess which money-hemorrhaging national paper is their go-to representation of the growing obsolescence of old media?
Normally, I'm a pretty staunch defender of the good ol' NY Times. I couldn't really tell you why, except possibly residual fondness from having it delivered throughout my childhood. The crossword puzzles are still consistently par excellence, so there's that. In any case, it was therefore somewhat of a surprise for me to find myself, along with many others, shaking my metaphorical fist at the paper this past week.
The source of my considerable nerd rage was a TV review, published by the Times, of the (then upcoming) new HBO series, Game of Thrones, which you can read here. Many, many people have already commented on how oblivious and unhelpful Ginia Bellafante's review was (including George R.R. Martin, the man behind the novels the HBO show is based on), but I figured I would join in the fun as well.
I would first encourage anyone who hasn't read the review yet to click the above link and take it in. We all on the same page? Awesome! Now, the first thing that should be apparent is that reading Ms. Bellafante's review tells you pretty much nothing substantive about the quality of the show. She takes great pains to inform the reader of the setting, where it was filmed, the linguistic process behind it, and her opinions on the genre of the show. Things like the likeability of the characters and the performances of the actors playing them, the effectiveness of the writing, and the quality of the production are, however, completely unaddressed. There is certainly no uniform standard that criticism, especially TV criticism, adheres to, but I think it's safe to say that the reviewer should at least make an attempt to, well, review the show. Ms. Bellafante, however, decided to use her "review" as an opportunity to write some broad generalizations about HBO, TV, and the fantasy genre - thankfully they make highly entertaining targets for mocking. Which I shall proceed to do, methodically and joyously.
Ms. Bellafante starts off by insulting the intelligence of her readers. OK, well that's not exactly true, but it's not that far off either. She writes, "Keeping track of the principals alone feels as though it requires the focused memory of someone who can play bridge at a Warren Buffett level of adeptness."
Never mind that she holds up The Wire as an example of a proper HBO show, which had a similarly sprawling cast that was difficult to distinguish in the early-goings. Ms. Bellafante is supposed to be giving her opinion on the show, which she sort of does here, albeit in a rather snooty manner. It becomes problematic, though, when she uses her difficulties in keeping track of the characters as the basis for a wider generalization that the feeble-minded women who watch Sex and the City reruns will be equally confused.
"Embedded in the narrative is a vague global-warming horror story." I'm honestly at a bit of a loss here, since I can't imagine how this idea was planted in her head. Game of Thrones (the novel) was started in 1991 - yes, the concept of global warming was around well before then, but I'm guessing that Mr. Martin didn't exactly have it on his mind at the time. Also supporting my view is the fact that her interpretation makes absolutely no sense.
Here's my favorite passage, though: "How did this come to pass? We are in the universe of dwarfs, armor, wenches, braids, loincloth. The strange temperatures clearly are not the fault of a reliance on inefficient HVAC systems. Given the bizarre climate of the landmass at the center of the bloody disputes — and the series rejects no opportunity to showcase a beheading or to offer a slashed throat close-up — you have to wonder what all the fuss is about. We are not talking about Palm Beach."
I've tried and tried, but I still have no idea what in the hell Ms. Bellafante is trying to say here. I think (if there is any point to it) that she seems to be suggesting that she had a hard time believing people would fight over a landmass that didn't have the climate/aesthetic appeal of something like Palm Beach. I suppose Ms. Bellafante is just used to battles erupting over the luxurious sandy beaches of Afghanistan, the scenic Libyan vineyards, and the wonderfully mild climate of southern Vietnam.
She then snaps out of her gloriously inaccurate global-warming metaphor, and produces a real gut-buster: "The bigger question, though, is: What is “Game of Thrones” doing on HBO?" I would think that the "bigger question" for the review might be something more along the lines of: How good is the first episode of Game of Thrones? Does the series seem to have potential? Would I recommend someone watch it, even if they haven't read the novels? How does it manage the transition from print to the screen? But what do I know; I'm not the one writing for The New York Times.
The passage that attracted the most attention (read: anger and bemusement) was this choice selection: "The true perversion, though, is the sense you get that all of this illicitness has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first. “Game of Thrones” is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half."
I'm not really going to touch this, since the other reactions I linked to provide more than enough commentary on the idiocy of Ms. Bellafante's sentiments, and this is getting a bit wordy. Suffice it to say, the next time The New York Times assigns someone to review a genre show, they might want to make sure that the writer actually writes a review of the show, and not a petulant and pointless piece on their distaste for fantasy.
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