I've defended the hit HBO show in the past from charges that it exploits sexual violence against women for prurient thrills. The rape scenes this season and last struck me as consistent with the book. Murder, rape, pillage--these are all part and parcel of the world George Martin created.
To pause for ethical reflection on rape or any other act of violence is exactly what doesn't happen in the books. Martin wants to you become fully immersed in the Hobbesian world he creates. You need to viscerally feel that ethics are irrelevant.
But then came Cersei's Walk of Shame this Sunday. If you ask me what distinguishes it from the rape scenes, I'm not sure I could say, but I found it gratuitous.
It seemed to go on far longer than necessary. It seemed designed to give the male viewer an erotic thrill from watching a woman punished and humiliated.
News reports said it took many cuts to shoot the scene which makes me wonder why all the bother. A shot of Cersei before the walk (fine if she's naked) and after (bruised and bloody) would have been sufficient, perhaps more horrifying if left to the imagination.
How to explain the scene where the camera cuts away from Stannis Baratheon right before he is beheaded yet the decision to linger so long on Cersei's body?
How to explain the focus on the aftermath of John Stark's murder--the streaming blood--rather than the dead body yet again get so explicit in the scene with Cersei?
Well, duh, female nudity sells. I know that.
But this episode went further than that. The episode was characterized by alternating scenes of female degradation and female revenge, arguably both sides of the same coin, both part of the same male fantasy. The writers seemed to have let their own sexual hang-ups get the better of them.