Completely agreed,
BDS. It's disheartening — to say the least — that Kathleen Kennedy's LucasFilms and Disney, despite an ostensible commitment to diversity, have hired yet more straight white male writer-directors for Star Wars films, which have
never had anything else. To make matters much worse, as you say, D&D have a longstanding history of being extraordinarily ignorant, writing material that's misogynistic, racist, and homophobic (probably because Game of Thrones has a similar dearth of minority voices among its almost entirely white male writers and directors).
It's also telling that so many posts in here are people who refuse to engage or even read the OP, blanketly dismissing any concerns. Era is far from as progressive as some would suggest. People can't stand for those uppity women, PoC, or queer folks being critical of their television.
Let's list some things off the top of my head:
Homophobia:
- Inserting violent homophobia into Faith of the Seven where there is none on the books. In fact, Westerosi culture as a whole isn't particularly homophobic, except insofar as feudal primogeniture demands noble sons marry noble daughters. (Actual homosexual relationships are fine and accepted!)
- Omitting most LGBT+ book characters, many of whom were meaningful or easy to include.
- Not only were most homosexual men in the books as martially capable as their heterosexual counterparts, whether masculine or feminine, but Jon's squire Satin serves as a welcome example of Jon being indiscriminate (and, if you want to read into it, perhaps not heterosexual himself).
- Turning the only included homosexual book characters — Renly and Loras — into one-dimensional stereotypical caricatures. In the books, they're both quite three-dimensional, in many ways ideals of Westerosi martialism and masculinity, and also one of the healthiest couples in the novels.
- To further expand on that: Renly is a vaunted tournament participant, who looks identical to Robert in his youth, who was described as "muscled like a maiden's fancy."
- In the show, he's a gay stereotype who's... afraid of blood. One of their introductory scenes is literally them shaving each other's bodies.
- Loras in the books, meanwhile, is consistently compared to a youthful Jaime Lannister. He's one of the most talented swordsmen in the realm, with a rash temper. When Renly dies, he joins the Kingsguard — a celibate order — because "when the sun has set, no mere candle can replace it."
- In the show, he's even more effete and effeminate than Renly. We almost never see him with a sword in-hand. He doesn't join the Kingsguard after Renly's death, and in fact starts whoring around immediately after. (Because gay people are promiscuous! Duh!) He discusses wedding planning with Sansa, lol.
Racism:
- Daenerys' infamous white savior crowd surfing on a crowd of 100% people of color.
- In the books, slavery is more akin to the Roman variety, irrespective of skin color.
- Going into none of the depth of the Meereenese politics.
- Missandei's Shock Value death. Not only did only her being captured make no sense, but they had her — an ex-slave — symbolically put back in chains for her execution.
- Relatedly, I can't wait to see how these chucklefucks handle Confedereate. That they want to tackle a scenario of "What If American Slavery Still Existed?" says a lot about them.
- Tyrion inexplicably assuming the Unsullied soldiers didn't speak Common last night. When he's been around them for years now.
- Turning the Sand Snakes into stereotypical exotic caricatures, when they were each racially diverse in the books, representative of Oberyn's equal opportunity sexual relations. (By the way, Book!Oberyn is bisexual too, but that was also not included — in fact, in the show he assumes Varys is gay based on... I guess, stereotypes!)
- Omitting various characters of color from the books.
- Whitewashing some of their roles, such as turning Chataya and Alayaya into... Ros.
Misogyny:
- Innumerable instances of gratuitous rape.
- Including various scenes where the women being raped have their faces off-screen, removing their humanity.
- Innumerable instances of dehumanizing sexposition aimed to titillate male audience members using Male Gaze, at the expense of female audience members.
- The idea that "powerful women" are toxically masculinized violent women, or otherwise cynical ice queens. By extension, several female characters were more-or-less ruined, turned into opposites of their book counterparts:
- Brienne, the soft-hearted, deeply empathetic, and chivalrous young woman was turned into someone who frequently bullied Podrick, and demonstrated disdain for femininity. In the books, she isn't disdainful of femininity at all — she's equal parts Lady of Tarth and a True Knight.
- Sansa's strength in the books is not only her intelligence, but her resolute commitment to kindness and goodness in the face of cynicism. "If I am ever queen, I will make them love me." Instead of "learning from Cersei" (gross), Book!Sansa is an indictment of Cersei's internalized misogyny — a demonstration that Cersei is wrong, that kindness isn't stupid, that it wins.
- Arya in the books envies Sansa's femininity, she doesn't condemn or mock it. She never calls girls or feminine pursuits "weak" or "stupid" as she does in the show. (She calls Sansa stupid in a bout of sisterly rivalry, but that's very different.) Let's look at a quote from the books:
- "The Lannisters are proud," Jon observed. "You'd think the royal sigil would be sufficient, but no. He makes his mother's House equal in honor to the king's."
"The woman is important too!" Arya protested.
- The idea that women in proximity must behave bitchily toward one another. Last season it was Sansa and Arya catfighting, this season it's been Sansa and Daenerys.
- The idea this season that Emotional Women must be rationalized/condescended to by Reasonable (read: stupid) Men.
- See: the double standard applied to Daenerys and Jon Snow.
- Show!Daenerys has never actually demonstrated much propensity for madness (let's forget that the actual Mad King's descent into insanity took many years with sometimes justified paranoia). She has years of actual ruling experience. Yet, characters like Varys and Tyrion warp their prior characterization (remember Varys' "Fire and Blood" declaration to Olenna?) to insist she's crazy — when her last action was to put aside her southerly war and go North to save the realm.
- Show!Jon, meanwhile, has demonstrated nothing but stupidity lately (don't get me started on the show's thesis that Good/Honor = Stupid — complete opposite of the books), yet Varys immediately decides he's a better ruler than Daenerys, literally because he has a penis.
- See: Tyrion inexplicably appealing to Cersei's motherly emotions when we — and Tyrion — have seen ad nauseam by now that Cersei is insane and consumed by power.
- After having the Hound make a gross comment to Sansa referring to her rape as being "broken in," the show has Sansa literally say she wouldn't be where she is now without her abuses/abusers.
- For the people in the back: RAPE AND ABUSE ARE NOT EMPOWERING. ABUSERS DO NOT GET CREDIT FOR INSTILLING STRENGTH IN THEIR VICTIMS. SANSA DID NOT GLEAN STRENGTH OR POLITICAL CANNINESS FROM HER ABUSES — SHE ALREADY HAD THEM.
And this is just a cursory write-up. I'm undoubtedly missing countless examples of these showrunners' ignorant malfeasance.
