Controversy Surrounding ‘Game Of Thrones’ And George W. Bush!
Has anyone heard about the controversy currently surrounding Game of Thrones? Apparently in Episode 10 of Season one there is a scene featuring the decapitated head of former President George W. Bush. The controversy first started when series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss pointed out the prop during the commentary track for the episode on the DVD box set. W’s head is one of many in a scene that shows numerous heads mounted on spikes.
HBO was quick to offer an apology: We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste. 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.
David Benioff and D.B. Weiss then issued their own apology for the incident: We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can’t afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush. In the DVD commentary, we mentioned this, though we should not have. We meant no disrespect to the former President and apologize if anything we said or did suggested otherwise.
It would seem that HBO didn’t think these apologies were enough and have now issued another statement, “We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste,” “We made this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologized immediately for this careless mistake. We condemn it in the strongest possible terms and have halted all future shipments of the DVDs, removed it from our digital platforms and will edit the scene for all future airings on any distribution domestic or international.”
The episode has now been pulled from rotation as well as iTunes, HBO Go and all other digital platforms and all shipments of the DVD box set have been stopped.
I guess I can see what all the fuss is about, but common it’s a prop and it’s barely noticeable (or is is) in the scene. Sure, Benioff and Weiss asked for trouble when they pointed it out, but I just don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I think HBO is over-reacting just a little here. Guess I should go pick up a copy the box set before they all disappear.
Source: Deadline
