Why Game of Thrones is good for my 7 year old daughter

Now before you go getting all judgemental on me, I don’t mean I’m going to sit down and watch explicit violence and sex scenes in brothels with my 7 year old, so let me explain.

In general women in films and TV tend to be depicted as the poor, little weakling, who need the men to save/rescue/validate them. As much as I love Disney they don’t do much for L (and C) in learning to become strong, independent women. Disney princesses are pretty and rich, but they usually need saving by a strong, handsome, rich prince, they don’t ever seem able to get up and defend themselves.

In Game of Thrones we have a fantastically inspirational character for girls of L’s age (just a shame the show isn’t suitable for her age!) in the form of Arya Stark.

Photo credit www.imdb.com from HBO’s Game of Thrones series

L would absolutely LOVE Arya Stark, this tomboy who is an excellent swords(wo)man, who cuts her hair off and pretends to be a boy at one point, who takes no sh*t from anybody, and seems to have no fear even when faced with her worst enemies.

That’s who I want my daughters to aspire to be like, not a princess who floats around in an ivory tower waiting to be rescued by a prince.

The show is awash with strong female characters, including one of my least favourites, Cersei Lannister.

 Photo credit www.imdb.com from HBO’s Game of Thrones series

Cersei Lannister is unlikely to be on anyone’s list of dinner party invitees; she’s hard, nasty and does what it takes to get what she wants. But I like the fact she’s strong, powerful despite living in a time and place where a woman can’t be powerful, and is ambitious.

Moving on to my absolute favourite, which has to be Daenerys Targaryen.

 Photo credit www.imdb.com from HBO’s Game of Thrones series

Seriously, how can you not love someone who is forced into a marriage with a man who’s supposed to be completely evil, learns how to make him love her, overcomes a domineering brother, becomes “mother of dragons” before going about freeing all the slaves?! Daenerys, YOU ROCK! And if she’s not a strong, empowering and powerful woman, then who is? (I also love that she’s beautiful and feminine whilst being hardcore, winning wars and overcoming all the baddies!)

Next up is someone who is laughed at by everyone, but she’s crazily strong, can beat most men in any form of combat, and is a just and loyal woman: Brienne of Tarth.

 Photo credit www.imdb.com from HBO’s Game of Thrones series

She might not be someone that girls or women aspire to be, but I like her presence in the show and everything she stands for.

Finally, a look at the wildlings as they have their own strong women too. Of course the one I’m thinking of is the one many of us are jealous of, the one who gets to break the gorgeous Jon Snow’s vow of celibacy: Ygritte.

Photo credit www.imdb.com from HBO’s Game of Thrones series

Ygritte is rough and ready, and isn’t overly nice to Jon Snow (who I’m a little bit in love with), but she’s as good with a bow and arrow as any of her fellow menfolk, and you wouldn’t catch her waiting around for a man to save her!

There are many more strong female characters in Game of Thrones, but these are the main ones for me and, love them or hate them, I  am so pleased about their presence in such a major TV series.

Now, with this being quite a women’s lib blog post, you’re no doubt wondering where I stand with the whole non-stop female nudity in Game of Thrones. And I have to say that at first it put me off watching the show – not that I have a problem with naked women – but because I found it to be misogynistic, violent TV at first. I also found it really hard to follow (I was 6 months pregnant with C when I first started trying to watch it, so concentration levels were low!), so I left Hubs to watch it, but every now and then I would catch bits of it, and, when I was a bit more alert, I decided to give it a try.

And do you know what? I quite like the female nudity in it. Do you know why? Because for the first time, in what seems like forever, the women are normal. There are small boobs, and big boobs, but they are all natural and they wobble, they are not pert, perfect, plastic boobs. The women are not anorexically thin. There are slim women and chunky women. There are curves and bums and thighs. There are no fake tans, fake nails or fake boobs. The women have – shock horror – pubic hair!

Not only is it good for our daughters to see this, but it’s good for our sons too. In a world where our children are growing up to believe that porn stars and porn films are normal, it’s good to see that the naked form paraded around (and around and around) in Game of Thrones is true to life.

Yes, I know, there is a lot of sex, and a lot of violence in the show, but on the whole I’d rather Game of Thrones for our children growing up than the false, plasticness of Hollywood and most films and TV series these days.

Now I really hope that writers, directors, producers and Hollywood will see the success of Game of Thrones, and will start to give us more strong women characters and more natural bodies, for the sake of our little women and men. Then hopefully by the time L is a tween or a teen she will see strong, naturally beautiful women smiling back at her from her TV screen.

I’m linking this up with the lovely Vicki at Honest Mum and her Brilliant Blog Posts, click on the linky below for some other great reads: