TV

Do shows like Game of Thrones deserve criticism for their depiction of sexual violence, or is their portrayal justified, given the setting of Westeros as a brutal world were violence is the common place?

There's an interesting debate to be had here about the responsibilities of show writers/directors toward how they handle sensitive topics and staying true to the fictional world they operate within.

Look at the stories of Gravity Falls and the hidden messages among the episodes. Explore how it ultimately led to a giant real-life scavenger hunt which strengthened fan's appreciation of the show. Research if any other shows have done this, where they bring aspects of the tv show into real life for fans to enjoy, and how that contributes to the strength of the fan base and its longevity.

Ultimately, the pros and cons of bringing aspects of a show into real-life.

The transition of villian or semi-villianous characters in tv shows throughout a show's run is a popular move within the recent years due to the rise of the anti-heroes.
Consider examples of when this has worked verus when the change simply felt out of character. How far is too far? Have there been any instances where the characters committed acts which were retconned to ensure their new status would be accepted by audiences?

True Blood is a television show that uses mythical characters as symbols for both past and present events. One of these that stands out to me is when the Vampires are given the right to marry, this would be a symbol of Homosexuals being given the right to marry one another. Another one is that the Vampire's curfew has been lifted and in many countries (such as Australia) the indigenous had to fight to get the same curfew as everyone else. In one episode you see a burning cross and the in the opening credits you see a boy with what looks like a KKK costume on which as both strong representation of the KKK.The thing that has made people tune into the show week after week is the mythical creatures and the story lines that are being used to demonstrate these symbols.

Judging by volume, it seems easier to write morally ambiguous screenplays. Such screenplays also seem to benefit from the default of events being meaningless or random in a meaningless or random existence (e.g., Tony Soprano's series-ending "dirt nap"), while works regarding morality as objective, ala Breaking Bad, must convincingly explain actions and repercussions without the easy shrug of "stuff happens." If we set the Way Way Back Machine to say, a century ago, the bar of acceptance for atheistic works was high, but today, its bar for justification seems awfully low. Whaddya think about that, my friend?

Analyze the issue of the show's main characters being involved in law yet acting above it (i.e. through murders, blackmailing, theft). What are the implications of this hypocrisy and how can this form a commentary on modern society or human nature? How is the show so appealing despite the characters going against simple black-and-white laws most people have been raised to instinctively follow? How can we condemn real-life criminals, yet root for these fictional ones as they do the exact same thing? Do the characters' backstories inform and alter our perspective of them, humanizing them so it becomes more difficult to see them as villains?

Analyse the way David Simon's 'The Wire' (2002) and Vince Gilligan's 'Breaking Bad' (2008) portray the War on Drugs and the efficacy of policing. Would be interesting to compare representations of surveillance, public policy and drug communities (i.e. how the centrality of drug trading affects social, economic and cultural structures in Wallis's neighbourhood in 'The Wire' v. Jesse's town in 'Breaking Bad'). Might also be useful to look specifically at the first seasons and compare the way policing is represented as a response to political zeitgeists in each show and how methodologies have changed. For example, 'The Wire' came straight off the back of 9/11 which is cited heavily in the first season as the reason behind the lack of police resources and subsequent thriving of illegal drug pedalling.

NBC's critically-acclaimed but fairly short-lived television series Hannibal is an adaptation of Thomas Harris's novels featuring the psychiatrist-cum-cannibalistic-serial-killer Hannibal Lecter. Although initially structured as a prequel to the first Lecter novel, Red Dragon, over the course of its three seasons the show became an entirely different animal, adapting pieces of all four of Harris's novels about Lecter (Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising) to form a whole that's very different than the sum of its parts.

How does Bryan Fuller choose, combine, and discard very different plot threads from the books into one cohesive series? Does he? Are his methods effective, or is the show's plot line a muddled mess?