I don’t watch TV. Yes, I know this is one of the touchstones, these days, for proving how ‘cool’ you are, but it’s true and has been true for years. I find the idea of setting aside an hour, or whatever, at a specific time each week quite ridiculous. Of course, when I was a girl, even a teenager, things were different. I’d lay aside an hour to watch my favourite programmes, but now I really don’t watch it at all. Between being a parent, and a blogger, my evenings are pretty much accounted for.

And I don’t miss it, and don’t feel left out of the conversation when others are mentioning the goings on in Eastenders, Coronation Street or River City, all popular soap operas in the UK. The first, set in London, and the second named, set in Manchester, broadcast UK-wide. The third, set in  fictional suburb of Glasgow, is unique to Scotland, and Scottish television.

I honestly neither know nor care for the plotlines, characters or anything else to do with them. I have better things to do with my time.

I receive my information on television culture second hand. I see it referred to in newspapers, sometimes on television news (which I occasionally do watch if they’re reporting a global event) or hear colleagues referencing it. So what’s the big deal over Breaking Bad? Everyone seems to rate it. I’ve never seen it. The soundtrack seems pretty top notch, though, featuring the likes of Nat King Cole, Badfinger and Mozart. Is my late father somehow the music advisor on the series? 🙂 It certainly looks like Dad’s sort of thing, with Dad’s sort of soundtrack.

Anyway, I’m becoming sidetracked. The RL Mr. Keng bought me a boxed set of Game of Thrones, Series 1, for Christmas. I was sceptical (but made all the right ‘how wonderful’ noises at the time). But last week I sat down and, over the course of a couple of nights, devoured the entire boxed set. And had ordered Series 2 before I finished Series 1! Wow! I’m hooked!. The RL Mr. Keng appears to know me better than I do! 🙂

And I thought that it was the perfect thing for replication in SL. And others clearly feel the same, as SL is chock-full of various Game of Thrones styled roleplay sims. Dare I say it is in serious danger of supplanting Gor as the RP’ers epic tale of choice? While I’m not going to immerse myself in RP in SL, I do like the idea that there seems to be numerous avatars who wish to immerse themselves in the yarn. In a sense, the likes of Game of Thrones is perfectly matched to SL.

‘Come on, Ella, tell us how it relates to naturism’, I hear you cry.

It doesn’t. What it does do, though, is normalise, to some extent, the idea of nudity on mainstream television, particularly in the U.S. I’ve seen both male and female full frontal nudity in ‘Game of Thrones’, and that’s probably fairly remarkable for a relatively mainstream U.S. TV show (correct me if I’m wrong!).

Perhaps some of our north American readers might enlighten us, but isn’t this something of a sea-change for U.S television in the years since Janet Jackson’s ‘Nipplegate’ at the Superbowl?

If broadcasters are moving on, to accept that breasts, vaginas, penises and testicles are acceptable for broadcast, I’m in favour. Granted, the violence portrayed in ‘Game of Thrones’ is graphic, but -in context- almost ‘cartoon’ like. It’s a fantasy/medieval ‘ripping good yarn’, and works. The nudity appears normal -which nudity always should- with bare breasts simply the dress code of the (imagined) era. Nothing wrong with that, the Spartans and Minoans in real history also had similar dress code. Granted, TV still panders to the notion that ‘a pair of tits’ puts ‘bums on seats’, as it were, and some of it has a gratuitous feeling to it. Nonetheless, it’s all rather more acceptable than TV previously shying away from nudity, as if it wasn’t normal, while displaying the nauseating double-standard of presenting more graphic, unpleasant and sickening images of dead Iraqi soldiers, in ‘Gulf War 1’, of people subjected to Sarin Gas attacks in Syria, or of starving children in various locations, all served up as ‘acceptable’ because it’s ‘news’. Facebook needs to get with the game. Allowing the broadcast of beheadings while maintaining a ‘no nudity’ policy seems like a ludicrously skewed vision of what’s right and wrong. Of course, as Facebook is an idiotic invention by an idiot -if he regards beheadings as more acceptable than beheadings- it’s not all together surprising.

I mean, who appointed Mark Zuckenberg as our moral guardian?

Frankly, a nipple will always be much, much, much less offensive than death flickering through the television set on the news or social media.

Rant over….you’ll be glad to hear 🙂

Normal SLN service resumes tomorrow, as we embark on the new year’s SL naturist escapades in earnest. Join us!

Ella.

edited to add….

Some avatar photos set in Game of Thrones styled sims, and practically Game of Thrones styled ‘costumes’ 😉