Over at Vox, Aja Romano tells us about the enormous backlash to the casting of non-white actors in a couple of recent high-profile productions:
Detractors of Amazon’s new Lord of the Rings series, which debuted this month, claim that casting Black and Asian actors undermines the show’s faithfulness to Tolkien’s world. Meanwhile, some ostensible fans of Disney’s animated Little Mermaid are rejecting the new live-action version for swapping out the titular mermaid’s famous blue eyes and red hair for the features of Black actress Halle Bailey.
....To anyone who’s paid any attention to geek culture over the past decade or so, these arguments probably feel endless and exhausting....All of this is the stuff of fantasy, so really, who cares whether they’re played by white or Black actors?
As it turns out, the answer is lots and lots of people.
Just for the record, I've watched the first few episodes of Rings of Power, and I can assure you that it has no shortage of white people. There's Galadriel. Elrond. Nori, the woman who leads everyone to safety when the orcs come calling. And her son. And her son's pal. The dwarf king. The dwarf prince. Isildur. The architect guy. Halbrand. Earien. The giant who arrives via meteorite. And a cast of thousands of others. The show is quite safe for white viewing, I'd say.
But that's not why I'm writing about it. The fact that the complaints are both ungrounded and signs of insecurity (or worse) are pretty obvious to everyone. What I really want to know, though, is whether the complaints are widespread. I know there are some complainers. A few thousand at least. But that's a drop in the ocean. Are there more?
That's hard for me to tell, but my sense is no. There's a tiny cadre of shitposters writing about this, an even tinier cadre of committed racists, and a super tiny cadre of people who think they're arguing for being faithful to Tolkien's legacy. But the numbers are so small that it's not clear why anyone is bothering to write about this.
Am I wrong? Are there really hundreds of thousands of these folks around? Where? And if not, why are we bothering to give voice to a minuscule sliver of dickheads who have done nothing except spend ten seconds to write a snarky tweet?
Anyone have any answers?
POSTSCRIPT: And what about Hispanic actors? In big productions like Rings of Power I always see a bunch of Black actors and a few Asian actors, but hardly any Hispanic actors. Why is that?
Can someone explain to me what Rings of Power are? ( is? )
Based off of JRRT's earlier works.
> Who exactly is outraged
People angry about tribal power deltas, and those who wish to leverage the first group into power.
This has been another episodes of easy answers &tc.
Honestly, judging from the LOTR subreddits I frequent, fans are way more upset that elves have short hair than any BIPOC casting.
Also in regards to Hispanic actors, Ismael Cruz Cordova - who plays the elf Arrondir - is from Puerto Rico.
The issue is that Amazon/Hollywood has taken yet another beloved fantasy world and turned it into another front in the culture wars. What kind of reception do you expect when you take established characters and fictional worlds, and then populate it with behaviors (e.g. warrior Galadriel) and races that don't match the established lore? Folks with an emotional investment in the universe have every right to get upset.
People tune into these fantasy shows to get lost in the world. And they also know it makes no sense for isolated populations in a medieval European-like society to be ethnically diverse. So when they're confronted with these inconsistencies, it becomes sneakingly clear the message is about imposing current SJW preferences and not the established story. This is disrespectful to both the audience and the source material. Folks aren't whatever-ists for pointing this out.
The same points basically hold for the Little Mermaid (a Danish fairy-tale with an established Disney character, that was also already a red-head minority). How should red-heads feel? Would it be okay to cast a white girl to play Tiana in a live-action remake of Disney's The Princess and the Frog? Would it make sense to have a bunch of Asian folks sprinkled throughout Wakanda? Does the original story and world-building matter? Or is this really about the DEI message? I think you're being intellectually dishonest if you think otherwise.
Hollywood????? Your first mistake. This is Amazon's production 100%. Hollywood did it far better.
This is true: "Does the original story and world-building matter? Or is this really about the DEI message? I think you're being intellectually dishonest if you think otherwise."
But I think it's worse than intellectual dishonesty. What's going on with Rings of Power is a very clear sign that the Left is deeply inside its own bubble. Think of it: almost a billion dollars spent so far, and several hundred million more on the way, but even with all that money at stake, no one was ready, willing, or able to effectively convey the points you're making to the top managers at Amazon?
Apparently, a hired scholar/consultant named Tom Shippey did try to explain to the showrunners that they were running too far afoul of Tolkien, so they fired him.
And when we reach this point where nothing trumps (pardon the pun) Leftist ideology, the Left is clearly isolated in its own echo chamber.
And that's a serious problem. The backlash to Rings of Power is, as you explain, completely foreseeable and entirely reasonable. One really has to wonder how they did not see it coming. Yet, even now, the only response from Amazon that I'm aware of is to attack and insult anyone who doesn't like the show.
When "our side" indicates clearly that it really and truly can be so out of touch with contrary perspectives that are simply obvious to most other people, we really are leaving ourselves vulnerable for the next populist/demagogue to swoop in ....
The left???? There is no left fag. Taking a bag to your head and bashing until brain death would benefit you
Cleanse nature
This is a mightly big word load to tell us you're bigoted.
Except he misses the point that what really drove these producers was how JRRT segregated the tribes. Much like the supposed black tribes, there were white actors. It's really much simpler to stick to the stories.
It's actually attempting in racial blindness which didn't work.
"why are we bothering to give voice to a minuscule sliver of dickheads who have done nothing except spend ten seconds to write a snarky tweet?"
Good question. Kevin, can you ban bad actors from replying on your blog?
This sort of thing happens all the time in the arts. Audiences have their idea of the story and directors reinterpret it to howls of protest. See, for example, Richard Wagner's operas.
https://operawire.com/bayreuth-festival-2022-review-die-walkure/
"All of this leads me to one question: why does the plot have to be reinvented? Why are the characters singing constantly about actions and things that they are not doing or happening? I have no answers to these questions. This way of staging operas does not add any additional meaning to the opera besides turning it into a complete confusing mess. The job of a stage director should not be to do “original things” but to be expressive and meaningful. To find meaning and interpret what is already there. Otherwise the message is – these are outdated works that we shouldn’t present in their outdated form. The only reason we do it is because the music is popular and people will only come see it because it is a recognizable title. In this context, what directors and theaters are doing is exploiting the original works rather than honoring them. That isn’t to say that there is no leeway for interpretation or questioning of what is presented in the original material, but this production is, in its execution, decidedly NOT Wagner’s “Die Walküre.”
I'm kind of fascinated by the number of people patting themselves on the back for standing with a show that portrays Middle-Earth as an overwhelmingly white world--Elves, Dwarves, humans, and Harfoots; north to south, east to west--with *just* enough nonwhite faces to be able to say "Look at us casting a black elf! Aren't we brave and daring?"
Middle-Earth is as much about the world as the individual characters. Why is there nowhere where black people are in a majority? And those cultures don't have to be the minions of Sauron. Look at the map; Numenor is practically on the equator. It would have made perfect sense to have the Numenoreans be dark-skinned. Instead, we're left wondering why all these white people appear to spontaneously have black kids now and then.
(I suppose making the Numenoreans black would have meant Isildur doesn't look like he does in the movies, but that ship sailed when Robert Aramayo was cast as Elrond, complete with Hair Gel of Doom. At least Morfydd Clark looks somewhat like Cate Blanchett.)
All that said, while putting some real thought into diversity would be nice, far more important would be putting some real thought into the writing. It started mediocre and went downhill fast. I'm giving it one more episode before I call it quits.
How does this become so difficult? If I am a producer for the most expensive show in Amazon Prime history, I need every pair of eyeballs to watch or I may never get a chance like this again. Explain to me why I should make my production welcoming only to white audiences. Honestly. I want people of every culture everywhere in the world to watch, but I'm going to stick to the old time privlidge simply because that's how Tolkein wrote it? Nope. If you don't like it, gather up hundreds of millions of dollars and make your own movie with nothing but white actors. That's the free market.
What you’re basically saying is that people lack empathy, and won’t be able to enjoy the story if their specific race and gender is not represented. That is a cynical view of humanity, and undermined by the success of movies like Black Panther and the Jackson-directed Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Rather, I’d argue that companies modify the source material, and dilute the universal truths that lie there-in, at their own peril, and risk alienating the fan base that made the property so attractive to begin with.
The free market was wrong.
It would be impossible to make a television version of the Appendices that exactly matches the text. This is a fact.
The question is simply how much do you change, and why.
In my opinion, minor casting adjustments are perfectly justified by improving the inclusivity and accessibility. If you feel strongly that the purity of the casting is more important than young people of color having something to identify with in the story, you may want to reevaluate your priorities.
And this is not a lack of empathy, of not being able to identify with people of races not your own. It is a matter of centuries of literature, and decades of movies and TV where there were very few options for people of color besides empathy. I imagine it is nice to take a break from the unrelenting empathy previously required.
I wonder if this nonsense won't protect the show from criticism. You have (1) the racists, who consider a person's race to be the most important thing about them; and (2) the fan purists, who want to talk about female dwarves' beards. These groups overlap, but are not the same. What they share is that they are interested in questions other than "Is this any good?" No sensible person wants to be confused with either group, and so might be led to also avoid the question, as any answer other than "Yes!" might make others suspect ulterior motives.
So is it any good? Based on the first three and a half episodes, maybe? It certainly is not yet compelling viewing. It could hit its stride, but this is already longer than most feature films. The production values are superb. The acting is OK-to-good. The writing I am less sure of. Consider when Galadriel, hearing of orcs, demands to know their "last known location." This strongly suggests that whoever wrote that line is more familiar with crime procedurals than high fantasy.