'Game of Thrones:' HBO apologizes for George W. Bush's head on stake
A scene from HBO's “Game of Thrones." Credit: Handout
HBO last night sent out an apology for the use of George W. Bush's head on a stake in a brief scene in last season's “Game of Thrones” -- revealed during the DVD commentary of the season just released. Check out the video below -- the news was first reported yesterday on the website i09.
“We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste. We made this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologized immediately for this inadvertent careless mistake. We are sorry this happened and will have it removed from any future DVD production."
"GoT” producers, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had their own statement, reading: “We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush,“ Benioff and Weiss said. “In the DVD commentary, we mentioned this, though we should not have. We meant no disrespect to the former president and apologize if anything we said or did suggested otherwise.“
For you non “GoTers' out there, this is the scene where bad boy King Joffrey is showing his bride, Sansa Stark, a look at the head of her father on a stake - he had been beheaded last season and this is a scene at the end of the first season where Joffrey's displaying his gory trophy.
In the commentary, as reported on i09.com, the producers said, “The last head on the left is George Bush. George Bush's head appears in a couple of beheading scenes. It's not a choice, it's not a political statement. We just had to use whatever head we had around.“
And for my own two cents on this, what incredible timing! HBO airs tonight an almost adulatory portrait of George W. Bush's father, George H.W. Bush; go here for my review. I certainly believe the producers -- I do -- because shortcuts like this happen all the time, but one does have to wonder about the wisdom of pointing this out, knowing that it could cause a firestorm (and apparently has; I'm sure Fox News is having a grand old time with this) and you especially have to wonder why no one at HBO actually saw this in the first place. And the most intriguing question -- what production was this head used for in the first place? Scene was filmed in Ireland, I believe.
