Salman Rushdie is already in my personal doghouse for sullying Padma Lakshmi, but his interview with Haaretz may as well be an act of war. Rushdie, who’s working on a Showtime series, said that he’s watched a bunch of other respected TV series to help with the gig. And that’s when he talked sh*t about “Game of Thrones” and “The Wire.”
Among the shows he’s liked are The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Dexter, and Deadwood, but not everything gets an unequivocal rave from Rushdie, who goes on to say, “There was a series called Game of Thrones which was very popular here in the United States, a post-Tolkien kind of thing. It was garbage, yet very addictive garbage — because there’s lots of violence, all the women take their clothes off all the time, and it’s kind of fun. In the end, it’s well-produced trash, but there’s room for that, too.” [Vulture]
As an expert on sex and violence, yes: there is a lot of sex and violence on “Game of Thrones,” and it’s very appealing. But it’s not garbage. To call “Game of Thrones” “well-produced trash” is to ignore the strong acting performances and the kind of bold narrative arcs that Rushdie’s never been able to create himself.
Even the most sacred television drama of all-time came in for unimpressed scrutiny: “Everybody loves The Wire and I think it’s okay, but in the end it’s just a police series,” Rushdie says.
JUST a police series?!?!? “The Wire” is just a police series the way Lolita is just a story about pedophilia, or the way Midnight’s Children is just a turd on paper. Ass.
