by Miodrag Zarković

It’s been almost a year since I announced, on this very website, my intention to make a documentary about a paper tiger that is the critical acclaim for Game of Thrones.

Hopefully, it wasn’t a wasted time, because the documentary is finally here, titled Fair Game: The Critical Universe around HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’.

It will be released on May 3rd on the Internet. It’s appropriate, I think, because the good old web is the only place where countless issues many of the viewers have with that show are addressed. Elsewhere, and in the mainstream media, a certain “Emperor’s New Clothes” routine continues even though the sixth season promises to be even worse than the previous ones.

I honestly hope that Fair Game will be watchable even for those who like Game of Thrones, partly because the documentary is not an attempt at changing anyone’s mind. Everyone’s entitled to feel whatever they do about the show. What Fair Game tries to establish is that we that drastically dislike the show have very legitimate reasons and a firm basis for our opinion, and that that opinion isn’t rooted in some irrational hatred towards the showrunners, nor is it directed at show fans.

The only irrational thing in all this is that our opinion is silenced and marginalized by the mainstream. Or, as one of the interviewees for Fair Game phrased it, that an opinion of dissent is left behind. That is the only real problem in the critical universe centered on Game of Thrones, and that is the main topic of Fair Game.

Critical voices shouldn’t be sidelined so easily. Whatever the subject may be. Period.