June 14, 2012
HBO apologizes for putting George Bush's head on a pike.
Apparently, they thought differently about it after some bloggers made the typical-blogger argument that they wouldn't do that to Barack Obama.
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38 comments:
Eh. A movie was made about killing him. This is small potatoes. Though, if you believe it was an accident, I still have that bridge.
Cue Don Rickles' scrubbed joke about a broken mop.
Heh.
When offered HBO as part of a bundle by Comcast I told the Rep I disagreed with HBO's political philosophy and blatant ideology. That was a couple of years ago. They haven't changed. Hopefully, NETFLIX, BLOCKBUSTER and other movie rental firms will drive HBO out of business. Hollywood produces some good movies if they stick with what sells and not anti-American propaganda.
Ironically, this kind of thing would/could be really funny IF they were not such hypocrits about it, ie. equal treatment for liberals and dems.
Oh for fuck's sake. Where would they find a fake head that looked half Summer Isle, half Westerosi?
Come on, people.
I'll be cancelling HBO as soon as my cable company stops giving it to me for free.
Wimps.
Apologizing for phony outrage bugs me. I won't say I'm outraged though.
Totally done on purpose and leaked deliberately by the offensive parties.
Look at the publicity and hype and ask yourself "had you heard about this thrones thing before"?
Well, now you do. This is PR combat at its best.
I'm just tired of the insincerity. Usually, the outrageous outrage/boycott statement comes from the left followed by the cloying corporate apology a day or two later. It sounds no better when it comes from the right.
I'm with Mathew Sablan on this one.
Dumb. Some hollywood types seem to be out to piss off half of their audience. It doesn't seem like good business.
It would seem to me that they'd want to avoid dragging current day political metaphors into a show where the primary enemy is a narcissistic boy king whose overweening sense of destiny and entitlement lead him to destroy everything he touches.
I am a year behind Game of Thrones and I enjoy it. But most of the decent people in that show end up with a spike through their head. If it was good enough for Eddard Stark it is good enough for Bush.
Trey
Kevin, I was thinking something along those lines, but could not put the thought together. How satisfying it is to see you did the work and expressed the thought so well. Thank you!
Trey
No worries. Obama's head will be on the pike (figuratively of course) after the election.
No worries. Obama's head will be on the pike (figuratively of course) after the election.
I'm sorry, but they just happened to have a severed head of Bush "around"? Riiight. Also, did anyone notice the errors in the sentence below the first picture?
"A screengrab from HBO's 'Game of Thrones' features a severed head that bares [hello, it's "bears"] a striking resemblence [resemblance] to former President George W. Bush."
Sloppy.
::shrug:: If I hadn't been told the fake head looked like President Bush, I probably wouldn't have noticed it. Why gin up a controversy where none existed to begin with?
I'm with Mr. Buddwing, if I hadn't been told it is Bush's face, I wouldn't have known. With that wig on, they weren't making any effort to draw attention to his George Bushness.
I don't know if their explanation is true (that they needed heads for this scene, they only had so many lying around, and the president's was one of them), but it is perfectly plausible.
Fake controversy.
Well, at least they apologized.
For a pack of Lefties, that's an achievement.
Wonder what Tyrion would have to say about such a stunt?
It certainly diminishes the heartbreaking Song of Ice and Fire.
::shrug:: If I hadn't been told the fake head looked like President Bush, I probably wouldn't have noticed it. Why gin up a controversy where none existed to begin with?
They, being the Leftist pricks they are, thougt it was a jolly good joke and wanted to make sure everyone knew how clever they were. Too bad not everyone finds it funny. Expect more of this, I think the cultural tide is turning.
Fake outrage is silly to me. I also think they probably just gathered heads rather than making their own, and yet some snickering no doubt went on about it being GWB.
That being said, the outrage is still silly, as we all know HBO is biased, and they actually enjoy the outrage.
I say turn it around. Use the Romney way of turning a political insult into an advantage. Surely, GWB's head on a pike now opens the door for assumptions that HBO see Obama as a Joffrey figure.
Don't feign outrage, mock their unintentional, yet true, analogy.
It certainly diminishes the heartbreaking Song of Ice and Fire.
Not necessarily. GRRM has said he may have as many as 8-9 books in this series. I'm half expecting him to go David Weber/Safehold and declare it to be a long, lost human colony on another planet :) If that's the case, surely there's some Bush DNA involved.
Silly? yes. Deliberate? Probably. should they be called on it? Of course. Will it hurt the left ie Obama? Probably I'm a little sick of the frat boy pranks of the left, and I can see I'm not the only one.
I just wonder in what other contexts they have used the severed head of George Bush. Has this head been used in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Scream III? Are there any other Presidents honored with a severed head in the prop department? Besides Nixon, of course.
I say turn it around. Use the Romney way of turning a political insult into an advantage. Surely, GWB's head on a pike now opens the door for assumptions that HBO see Obama as a Joffrey figure.
That was pretty much my first thought as well. The Starks are pretty much the heroes in ASOIAF. The person you don’t want to be compared to is Joffrey Lannister. Or anyone named “Bolton” or “Frey.” ;)
HBO seems sincerely sorry. Sorry that it was mentioned in the DVD commentary.
"We made this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologized immediately for this inadvertent careless mistake. We are sorry this happened and will have it removed from any future DVD production."
Translation: buy your DVDs now before we go all George Lucas on them!
Anyone genuinely outraged by this needs to get his humor-ectomy reversed.
I've become convinced that when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody.
By "the wealth" I mean "pirated videos that HBO tries to charge for". By "it" I mean "movement towards a world in which HBO executives are reduced to living underneath freeway overpasses".
Apparently, HBO is developing a movie/smear job about George HW Bush so this was an extremely
in. con. veeeenient gigglefest on the part of the GOT producers.
Or not a smear job.
http://tv.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/arts/television/41-george-h-w-bush-documentary-on-hbo.html
Dumb. Some hollywood types seem to be out to piss off half of their audience. It doesn't seem like good business.
That's what I don't get. Why spend so much effort alienating a huge chunk of your audience?
I already won't pay to watch anything involving Tom Hanks or Morgan Freeman. Ditto Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. I will HAPPILY pirate the hell out of them. Screw the whole lot.
Follow Michael Jordan's philosophy. He didn't discuss politics because people who don't agree with him still bought his shoes.
The media and pop culture whine that America is so divided --- yet THEY are doing the dividing as much as possible.
MadisonMan,
Wimps.
Apologizing for phony outrage bugs me. I won't say I'm outraged though.
You're so full of shit I can smell you from here. You'd go ape shit if they had a head of Obama on a pike.
I'll echo an earlier comment and say that Eddard Stark was one of the few honestly and sincerely good men in the series, and on that comparison it's hard to get too outraged. On the other hand, it's pretty obvious that's not the comparison the show's creators were making. The idea that this wasn't mean as a political statement can't be taken seriously. It obviously is. That it's a childish and moronic statement doesn't change anything. HBO clearly understands the impact of such things, which is why they're apologizing, but everyone knows it's insincere. There's much gleeful gloating over it in the usual circles--and no shame. As usual, the death fantasies say more about Bush's political enemies than it does about him.
Well, I don't think they should use a sitting president, so not Obama, (at least until next year), but making a game of trying to catch a glimpse of Clinton or JFK or Reagan would be a pretty good promotion, as those things go.
But if they *wouldn't* use Obama, then some soul searching needs to be done.
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