Feminizing
By Jo Douglas
Image sourced via Unsplash
House of the Dragon, first released on August 21, 2022, is a prequel series to the remarkably popular Game of Thrones. It focuses on the Targaryen family and the civil war that ensued between them 200 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen, one of the primary characters of Game of Thrones. If it wasn’t for my best friend, Isabell, I wouldn’t have touched either of these shows with a ten foot pole. They were made for men, after all– why even attempt to enjoy it?
Yet Isabell sat me down, made me join a Discord call, and managed to stream the show to me. All of my prior knowledge came from her long-winded rants about the franchise, ranging from insane fan-theories to character relationships. In all honesty, I only agreed to watch the show so I would know what she was going on about. I didn’t expect to actually enjoy it. Isabell had other plans for me.
Instead of just playing the show all the way through like a sane person, she would pause it every two seconds to explain something, or call attention to the acting, or foreshadow. There wasn’t anything that escaped her eye, and I was greedy to hear it all.
“Did you see the way he looked at her? He’s so in love with her.”
“Look at how gorgeous their clothes are! Say what you want about the Targaryens, but they know how to dress.”
“I just KNOW she’s trying not to throttle him right now.”
“This all would have been solved if the lesbians could have lesbiand.”
“Look at him. That is a man.”
Suddenly, I wasn’t watching a gritty fantasy about incest and war – no, I was watching a reality show where violence was an unfortuante quirk. We were gossiping about the characters, how they behaved with each other, how they reacted to things, making unfounded statements about what they were really thinking. This wasn’t a man’s show anymore: it belonged to Isabell and I. We had successfully feminized the series.
This act of feminizing didn’t stop at George R. R. Martin’s work. Why would it? Every game we play– Valorant, Overwatch, League of Legends, etc.– gets customized into the girliest amalgamation of “male” interests and feminine aesthetics. This includes: cutesy, usually pink skins for characters and guns; crosshairs morphed from a basic shape to delicate flower; hyping up any other woman we meet; and whatever else we can do to make the space more feminine. More ours.
Whether you like it or not, no space is inherently male or female. Everyone enjoys and interprets things differently. By entering spaces we enjoy without the need to morph our point of view, we allow ourselves to truly enjoy it. Media is consumption, but that doesn’t mean you have to conform. Gossip about Star Wars characters, dye Batman pink, and be yourself. That’s the point of life.