The Croatian Church Could Be Forcing Lena Headey To Stay Clothed In GAME OF THRONES
Some spoilers for Game of Thrones season five to follow.
Nudity has many meanings on Game of Thrones. Look at the character of Danaerys - while she spent large swaths of season one naked, by the time season four ended she was always fully clothed, and in fact had men stripping down for her. The show examines the power struggles inherent in sexuality during a time when the genders are particularly inequel, and that's part of the reason why Lena Headey's Cersei has never been nude onscreen. It isn't that Headey is against nudity on film - she's done it before - but it's because the nudity must mean something. In 2013 Headey said:
I've said from day one that I've got no problem with nudity. I've done it throughout my career. But for this character, it's been better for her regality and her feistiness to not bare her flesh until she has to. When it's out of her control. And if that ever happens, it won't be Cersei being seductive or sexy. She'll be stripped. That kind of a scene will have more power if it's not an everyday occurrence. I can't wait for that.
That moment is coming in season five. Cersei has a hard road ahead of her, and that scene where she is stripped will happen... or it was scheduled to happen. It turns out the local authorities may stop it from happening.
The scene in question would see Cersei stripped down in a Sept before the High Sparrow, a religious leader. Naked and exposed, she is then forced to walk out of the Sept and parade through the streets of King's Landing. It's a powerful sequence that will probably ignite lots of discussion online (some of it from people who probably won't understand the context of the sequence and will complain the show is laying low a strong female character). The problem is that the Croatian town where they shoot the King's Landing sequences have forbidden the production from doing the scene at the order of the local church. Apparently the Church of St. Nicholas holds a lot of sway on the morals of the town of Dubrovnik, and they believe this scene would be immoral. And so the local authorities have refused the show a permit.
It's not clear what Game of Thrones will do in this situation. The scene is pivotal, and to have Cersei not stripped would remove the impact of it. This scene is very much about the male power structure punishing a sexual woman, as well as punishing a woman who became too powerful. Having Cersei in a slip doesn't get that idea across. I'm curious to see how they'll solve this problem.
