HBO has quickly shit its pants, then promptly apologised after a "severed head" of former President of the United States of America, George W Bush was used as a prop in their hit show, Game of Thrones.
Not only was the head used, but it's actually pointed out in the commentary for the show by the showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Funnily enough, it was not a political statement and they, after a bollocking from HBO, have been quick to apologise. Firstly, HBO said, "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." For their part, creatives Benioff and Weiss said, "We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush," They added, "In the DVD commentary, we mentioned this, though we should not have. We meant no disrespect to the former president and apologize if anything we said or did suggested otherwise."
HBO are a purely subscriber based service; folk pay a monthly fee for the privilege of having the high quality station. So, right-wingers have naturally jumped on this, from the same station that broadcasts the left wing Bill Maher show and the upcoming Aaron Sorkin politically tinged, Newsroom.
