Mhysa and racism: The Great White Savior Those of you who watched the last few minutes of Mhysa saw Daenerys, a pretty white girl, lifted to the heavens by a nameless mob of darker skinned worshippers. The uplifting music, the focus on the pure white, immaculately dressed, platinum blonde-haired girl surrounded by dusky, dirty, poorly clothed slaves crying “Mhysa” (apparently meaning “Mother”) was followed by a zoom-out to show that thousands of slaves apparently worship Daenerys as their new savior. The whole sequence was sickening, from the slaves reaching out to Daenerys for salvation, to the use of the one non-white child actor as one of the catalysts for the Mhysa chanting. The nauseating episode managed to exceed one’s expectations of a British Colonialist propaganda video. As pointed out by others, there is a huge undercurrent of self-effacing, weak, pathetic slavish dark characters who look to the one pretty white girl for all their direction, values and even their identity. In a previous episode, the character “Grey Worm” apparently preferred his slave name to his original name because it was good luck as he had that name when the great-white-savior Daenerys liberated him. You can see how pathetic slavish and white/euro-centric these characters are. If you paid attention to the last episode you’d notice there was no dissent in the mob. No random slaves try to steal from Daenerys, or use the time to try to get away from the city or have a conversation of any sort with each other. The mob just acts in unity with Daenerys as their central nexus. But wait, isn’t Game of Thrones based on a medieval fantasy European setting, and aren’t non-white people just being overly sensitive about there not being significant non-white characters. No. No one cares if the show was based strictly on a European setting or if all the characters were white. What bothers people is when there are plenty of non-white characters and non-european settings and those individuals and nations seem to be reduced to broad Eurocentric stereotypes of what the rest of the world is. No one can argue anymore that Game of Thrones is only set in a predominately white medieval Europe inspired world. A large part of the show is not set in a Europe analogue. In fact, one of the main story arcs is set in some orientalist (look this word up) fantasy that a young white girl explores on her journey of growth and discovery. Presumably “Essos” is a cobbled together version of the Middle East and North Africa. Viewers are no longer able to argue that the show is mostly about white people. Thousands of dark skinned slaves appeared in the final episode, shuffling on-screen to slavishly pledge devotion to their great white savior and then disappeared without any further narration. The problem is that these non-white characters don’t have names or identities but exist solely to provide context and growth for our one white character. While Daenerys might eventually fail, the problem with the scene is the non-white mob. They don’t talk to each other or have a purpose outside of their role in the great-white savior angle. Simply put, Game of Thrones has tons of non-white characters, and they are all reduced to the most hideous racialized stereotypes. (You can follow me at disgruntledcritic.blogspot.ca/)
Posted on: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 21:14:20 +0000
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