So I learned something new today.
Turns out that prosthetic body parts are recycled—productions use the same ones over and over again because of cost. It makes sense, imagine how expensive it would be to make a fake head: eyeballs, teeth, nose…
But one such recycling is getting the producers of Game of Thrones in big trouble. Turns out they recycled one such prosthetic head to put on a stick: That of George W. Bush.
Why, you may ask, did the HBO production have a prosthetic head of our 43rd POTUS? That I do not know.
Regardless, they stuck some crazy-ass long hair on the guy, propped him on a stick and showed him to Sansa Stark. It’s supposed to be her father’s head.
All of this may have gone unnoticed but then David Benioff and D.B. Weiss happened to point it out in the commentary section of the Season One DVD.
Oops.
EW.com elaborates on HBO’s reaction:
“It’s not a choice, not a political statement!” one of the writers say during the commentary. “We just had to use what heads we had around.”
Once news of the Bush head hit the internet, HBO released this statement: “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.”
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free
What do you think? Is it disrespectful to use a prosthetic G.W. Bush head on a stick for a tv show? Or is it all in good fun?
Any guesses as to why they had a fake Bush head in the first place?
What it means is that the property department, or property house had, at some point, need for a dummy head of G. W. Props are redressed and reused regularly, and this was one that was turned away from camera so it just needed a similar cheek and jaw line. Michael Meyers in Halloween is a mask of William Shatner turned inside out. Should we be incensed that John Carpenter portrayed Captain Kirk as a violent mass murderer? I don’t think so. This is just a case of what happens when the people see behind the curtain at the magician’s tricks,… Read more »
…Um, fairly harmless. I realize why they had to apologize but it’s not even his face facing the camera so it seems like overkill.
On the other hand his profile bears very little resemblance to Sean Bean, so…there’s that.