CONTENT WARNING: The following article discusses sexual assault
Game Of Thrones cops its share of heat for its graphic and often-disturbing portrayals of sex and violence, but in a recent interview, Sophie Turner came to its defence, saying that popular culture shouldn’t flinch away from these things.
The actress, who plays Sansa Stark on the popular HBO show, was drawn into the criticism after a notorious scene depicting her rape by Ramsay Bolton on their wedding night, and says that at first, she had conflicted feelings about it.
The actress told The Times Magazine that at first, she was naive about the scene and its potential impact:
“Sexual assault wasn’t something that had affected me or anybody I knew, so I was pretty blase about the whole thing. Naively so. And then I shot the scene, and in the aftermath there was this huge uproar that we would depict something like that on television. My first response was like, maybe we shouldn’t have put that on screen at all.”
She said that she later changed her mind, telling the publication:
“The more we talk about sexual assault the better, and screw the people who are saying we shouldn’t be putting this on TV and screw the people who are saying they’re going to boycott the show because of it. This sort of thing used to happen and it continues to happen now, and if we treat it as such a taboo and precious subject, then how are people going to have the strength to come out and feel comfortable saying that this has happened to them?”
The 21-year-old actress also addressed the notorious 2015 scene in a recent interview with Time, addressing the blowback that the show received at the time, and saying:
“This was the trending topic on Twitter, and it makes you wonder, when it happens in real life, why isn’t it a trending topic every time? This was a fictional character, and I got to walk away from it unscathed … Let’s take that discussion and that dialogue and use it to help people who are going through that in their everyday lives. Stop making it such a taboo, and make it a discussion.”
Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were asked about the controversial scene, and defended its part in the narrative, with Benioff saying:
“It might not be our world, but it’s still the same basic power dynamic between men and women in this medieval world. This is what we believed was going to happen.”
Weiss added:
“We talked about, is there any other way she could possibly avoid this fate that doesn’t seem fake, where she uses her pluck to save herself at the last? There was no version of that that didn’t seem completely horrible.”
Game Of Thrones returns for its seventh season on July 17.
Source: The Times / Time Magazine.
Photo: John Shearer / Getty.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, call 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732 to speak to a counsellor.
