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Thanks to the rise of provocative scripted series on streaming and cable, there’s more sex and nudity on TV than ever before. But what does all this sex and nudity mean for the art of television itself? How does it enhance or encumber the stories being told on screen? In this new Decider column, SEX ON SCREEN, we’ll take a critical eye to these moments. We’ll strip down TV’s big sex scenes to see if they’re worth anything at all – or if they’re just used as a cheap trick.
Game of Thrones has an unofficial nickname in pop culture and it’s “tits and dragons.” The schoolyard-esque slam is that the show only rose to its insane levels of popularity by giving the people what they really want to see: gratuitous female nudity and super cool dragons.
It is true that Game of Thrones has had a complicated relationship with sex and nudity over the years. When you look back at early seasons, nude women were often used merely as set dressing. Think of Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) giving a long monologue about his Machiavellian worldview while he coerces prostitutes in his employ to pleasure each other or the random naked sex worker who just so happens to act as an armrest (and appetizer) for Bronn (Jerome Flynn) before The Battle of the Blackwater. When in doubt, it seemed, the show would just toss in a naked lady or twelve for some very basic titillation. Occasionally, these characters would only be introduced to be maimed, beaten, raped, killed, or discarded. Who were these people? What were their stories? Why were they naked? Why???
But recently, something has changed on Game of Thrones. It’s been a subtle evolution, but it’s there. Last season, the prostitutes who popped up tended to wear more clothing, we got male full frontal nudity, and the few scandalous scenes we did see seemed to serve a narrative point. In fact, the last three big female nude scenes — Cersei’s sorrowful march through King’s Landing, Melisandre’s magical necklace reveal, and Daenerys’ fiery murder of the Khals — all used nudity to tell us something important about the characters.
What sparked this shift? You could look at a variety of instigators for the transition. There was both highbrow criticism of the show’s reliance on nudity, sex, and sexual violence and online petitions to dump the show over its incessant depictions of sexual assault. Also, as streaming services have taken over the television landscape, nudity taken by itself is not as exciting as it may have once been for an American viewer. There has to be thought behind it, or else it looks lazy. So times are changing, but the culture of the fictional world on Game of Thrones has changed as well.
Over the last six seasons, we’ve watched as the stability of feudal Westeros has crumbled to bits. Kings, lords, and knights have fallen like flies. Elsewhere, cultures built around the concept of slavery have been toppled. The change is Daenerys (Emilia Clarke). The Mother of Dragons is a conquerer with a mission and that mission is to “leave the world better than our fathers left it.” In fact, if you want the best overview for how Game of Thrones has (or hasn’t) improved its approach to sex and nudity, look no further than Daenerys Targaryen’s journey.
Daenerys is introduced in the very first episode of Game of Thrones. She is an ethereal sylph of a girl, fond of staring out at the horizon and trembling when spoken to. In her very first moments onscreen, her older brother Viserys (Harry Lloyd) undresses her and appraises her body with uncomfortable sexual desire. The camera lingers on the character’s breast as if to make sure that’s where our eye goes. It’s what we’re supposed to see when we look at her: her body through a domineering male’s eyes. That’s partly because that’s what Dany’s role is at this point. She’s being sold to a Dothraki warlord named Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) to further Viserys’s ambitions. Her value is wrapped up in her physical beauty and not much else. To that point, the last look we get of Dany in the pilot is of her being raped on her wedding night by the Khal. To make matters more uncomfortable, there’s a pretty sunset in the background.
Dany’s very first scene also teases that maybe — just maybe — this way of ordering the world could be upended. After Viserys leaves her to take her bath, she slowly sinks into the steaming hot water. The further she dips in, the less of her body the frame can see, and the more we understand the latent magical power surrounding her. The water is boiling hot, but it does nothing to Dany. The focus on her body is no longer about her physical beauty, but her metaphysical power.
Throughout the first season of Game of Thrones, we watch Daenerys evolve as a woman. She educates herself in the art of seduction and uses these tools to earn Khal Drogo’s love and respect. The power dynamic between them literally flips in the moment that she forces him to change positions in bed to put herself on top. It’s pretty obvious messaging, but it gets the point home: She wants to be in command of him, and will no longer tolerate the reverse. The relationship somehow becomes a loving one of equals and Khal Drogo later kills Viserys for threatening Daenerys’ safety. At the end of the season, Daenerys brings her dragon eggs into Khal Drogo’s funeral pyre and in the morning, nothing is left but a starkly naked, unburnt Daenerys and a trio of baby dragons. Her nudity is no longer about inviting lust, but illustrating her awesome power. Her body is a conduit for her superhuman nature. She is, at last, the Mother of Dragons.
Now, here is where some of the initial “tits and dragons” jokes may have had their earliest influences on production. A few years back, it leaked that Clarke was loathe to do a nude scene again. The last major one for a while was in Season Three, when mercenary Daario Naharis (Ed Skrein) sneaks into her tent to deliver the heads of her enemies and swear fealty to her beauty. It’s a moment where she’s in a position of power, but only because of the lust she inspires. It’s also…well…a bit gratuitous. (She could have been in a nightgown and the scene could have played almost the same.)
After that, Clarke was covered up for three whole seasons. Last season, she boldly stripped down again for the jaw-dropping moment in which she conquers the Dothraki without a single weapon in hand. The moment recalls the birth of her dragons and carries similar weight — except she is the only “dragon” present. In interviews, Clarke wasn’t shy about the scene. Rather, she was proud. She told Stephen Colbert last year: “You know, I did it before in Season One and people like to talk about it. So I just wanted to come out and do an empowered scene that wasn’t sexual. It was naked, but strong.”
“It was naked, but strong.” That describes the gulf between the majority of Clarke’s early nude scenes and the one last season. It’s also an apt way to describe how Game of Thrones‘ own relationship with sex and nudity has become more complicated over the years. There’s still a lot of nudity on the show, but it finally has a stronger narrative weight behind it. These scenes add character, they add comedy, and they add drama to what’s happening. Essentially, they’re far less problematic than they were before. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but as these changes are happening, gender roles in Westeros are also changing. The women are on the rise. Season Seven ended with Sansa and Arya killing their tormentors, Cersei taking her vengeance on King’s Landing, and Daenerys allying with Yara Greyjoy, Olenna Tyrell, and Ellaria Sand to take back the Seven Kingdoms.
So does Game of Thrones suck at using onscreen nudity in a smart, artful way? Eh…it’s complicated. The show has definitely improved over the years and that trend may be in thanks to criticism or the natural turn of the narrative. It will be interesting to see if this trend persists in Season Seven — if Game of Thrones continues to challenge itself to present more nuanced nude scenes or if it contents itself with being the “tits and dragons” show.
