Game of Thrones

During a recent binge on the television series Game of Thrones I began to notice examples of stereotyping and inferred racism. The program is in a mythical medieval setting but it still manages to reinforce current ideas around race. What is interesting about this program is the way it has grouped all non-white ethnicities together. It does this by putting them all into a tribe called the Dothraki tribe. This tribe does have white members but it appears to be a tribe of “others” where various cultures are mashed together. The grouping is justified by the fact that this tribe takes slaves from a number of different places. However this does not explain the level of unseen racism in the program.

The Dothraki seem to represent a combination of cultures. They are portrayed as savages using a number of techniques. One technique is the use of music. When we see members of this tribe they are often accompanied by the sound of tribal like drumming. It is a threatening style of drumming which is used in other movies to present natives as dangerous, untrustworthy, and wild. Female members of the tribe are also highly sexualised as they dance and simulate sexual acts with little clothing on to the sound of tribal calls. When a fight breaks out between tribe members the rest gather and look on in delight. We see mainly dark faces cheering at the bloodshed. Mean while a white outsider tells his companion “a Dothraki wedding without at least 3 deaths is considered a dull affair”. A white girl who is sold off to marry the Dothraki King is shocked when her translator informs her that the tribe has no word for thank you. This girl becomes more savage due to her involvement in the tribe. It is as though they corrupt her. This can be seen when she eats a horse heart, her mouth and hands covered in blood while the tribe chants. These techniques construct members of the tribe as savages who have less capacity for love and are violently inclined.

The props used on the Dothraki set seem to be borrowed from a lot of different cultures. For example in a large meeting tent there are tall pillars that are carved and similar to Totem poles or temple pillars. There are also prayer flags that could have been inspired by countries like Tibet or Nepal.

The Dothraki King goes by the name of Khal Drogo. This character is a fierce warrior. He is strong and intimidating. His physical attributes are emphasized but he is presented as unintelligent and uncaring. Another character makes this clear when he says: “he has never been defeated, he’s a savage of course but he’s one of the finest killers alive”. Khal Drogo is played by the actor Jason Momoa. Momoa is a mixture of Native Hawaiian, German, Irish, and Native American blood. He has dark skin, brown eyes, and dark hair. According to the IMDb website when he auditioned for the role he performed a Maori Haka “to illustrate to the producers that he was Khal Drogo”. Momoa took the Haka out of its cultural context and used it to add a warrior dimension to his audition. The show borrows flattened elements of diverse cultures and mashes them together so it is likely that the creators were impressed by this performance and not worried about its cultural significance.

The settings are also important for the construction of “others” in this program. The Dothraki scenes are filmed in the North African country Morocco and on the Mediterranean island of Malta. Many of these settings are dry and dusty and distinguish the tribe as foreign and exotic. They help to justify the cultural mash up that is going on. When we see members of the tribe such as the topless black women dancing and chanting around a campfire the images are more familiar. This is because we are used to seeing images of African women performing tribal rituals in similar settings. The Arabic looking men wearing robes and turbans also do not look out of place in the sunny and dusty settings. The settings of the white clans are quite different however. These were filmed in parts of Scotland and Ireland. They are more reminiscent of a white part of the world. In these settings the grass is lush and green, there is far less sun, a rolling countryside and tall forests.

This program has taken one-dimensional elements from a number of non-white cultures and pieced them together into a single tribe. Viewers know the tribe does not exist however this construction does carry with it pre-existing stereotypes. These stereotypes do have an effect on the way people perceive members of the different cultures that this program has drawn on.

Link to page:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944947/