High-res A Family Affair as Old as Oedipus If it was not quite the “ick” heard ’round the world, there was a collective shudder that went up the spines of fans of serialized television at the moment it was revealed in the Dec. 4 episode of “Boardwalk Empire,” the Prohibition-era crime drama on HBO, that Jimmy Darmody, the aspiring young mobster played by Michael Pitt, had had an incestuous relationship with his mother (Gretchen Mol). Were that not a sufficiently chilling disclosure — one that had further ramifications in Sunday night’s season finale — some HBO aficionados may have realized that this premium cable network now has three original series, including the fantasy drama “Game of Thrones” and the comedy “Bored to Death,” that feature narratives about incest. Given the galvanic revulsion that incest yields, it tends to be a taboo subject not widely taken up in contemporary cultural works outside, say, the plays of Tennessee Williams, the fiction of William Faulkner and John Irving, and Roman Polanski’s film noir “Chinatown.” That the theme had turned up in three current shows on a single network, produced independently of one another, was a coincidence, their creative teams said, though they added that these story lines were emblematic of larger ideas on their series. Read more —> NYTimes

A Family Affair as Old as Oedipus

If it was not quite the “ick” heard ’round the world, there was a collective shudder that went up the spines of fans of serialized television at the moment it was revealed in the Dec. 4 episode of “Boardwalk Empire,” the Prohibition-era crime drama on HBO, that Jimmy Darmody, the aspiring young mobster played by Michael Pitt, had had an incestuous relationship with his mother (Gretchen Mol).

Were that not a sufficiently chilling disclosure — one that had further ramifications in Sunday night’s season finale — some HBO aficionados may have realized that this premium cable network now has three original series, including the fantasy drama “Game of Thrones” and the comedy “Bored to Death,” that feature narratives about incest.

Given the galvanic revulsion that incest yields, it tends to be a taboo subject not widely taken up in contemporary cultural works outside, say, the plays of Tennessee Williams, the fiction of William Faulkner and John Irving, and Roman Polanski’s film noir “Chinatown.” That the theme had turned up in three current shows on a single network, produced independently of one another, was a coincidence, their creative teams said, though they added that these story lines were emblematic of larger ideas on their series.

Read more —> NYTimes

  • The New York Times

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