Some things just shouldn’t make heads roll.
In the first season of HBO’s uber-popular series, “Game of Thrones,” one particular scene of one particular episode features several decapitated prop heads on sticks.
No surprise, since decapitation is fairly common in the show.
What is surprising is who’s noggin happens to be impaled – former President George W. Bush.
Show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss point this fact out in the DVD commentary of Season One, and stressed the use of ex-President Bush’s head was “not a political statement.” “We had to use what heads we had lying around,” they explained in the commentary.
Despite the explanation, some political figures were outraged. Brookyln Republican party chairman Craig Eaton said in an interview with E! Online people should respect the office of the president and Americans should “boycott watching this particular show.”
“Americans of all political persuasions should stand up and demand that things like this should not continue,” Eaton said.
That’s a slight overreaction. Barely a third of Bush’s head is shown in the scene; a mangy mop of brown hair falls down to where the shoulders would be.
There’s no headshot, no “Mission Accomplished” banner flying on the stake supporting the ex-President’s head, nothing at all that should offend anyone.
But then again, it’s impossible to keep from offending anybody. Someone somewhere took the time to actually listen to DVD commentary and post this finding online.
There are bigger things to worry about than a prop head of the ex-President being put on a stake. The fact that the creators specifically said it wasn’t a political statement should be enough to defend their actions.
But that isn’t good enough for some people.
The creators issued an apology after the incident went viral, saying they “meant no disrespect to the former president and apologize if anything we said or did suggested otherwise.”
“We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show,” Benioff and Weiss said in a statement. “We can’t afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk.”
Do the creators of a fantasy TV series have a political agenda? Probably not.
There are bigger things to worry about. More important things to flip out about. This should not be an issue.
But apparently a fake head on a stick is just enough to push some people over the line.
Contact Taylor Balkom at [email protected]