Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Biomega]

I'm not saying skin color is more important than any other trait. But it's a rather obvious and superficial one.

Sure. So is hair color or eye color, and nobody gives a shit about those (save for the Joffrey Baratheons, as explained earlier). So why is skin color suddenly so special it's a deal breaker?

it takes some strong suspension of disbelief to think that skin color wouldn't be relevant.

Stronger than the existence of dwarves, elves, and dragons?

You're saying you're fine with all the things in fantasy that make not a lick of (RL) sense, but suddenly a black person comes along and you're like hold it, this has gone too far? COME ON.

Physical discrimination and segregation are already established elements of that universe.

Yes, but who says that has to be about skin color? These are different species after all. Why would a BLACK dwarf suddenly be a problem, as opposed to just a dwarf?

Could it be that it's only a problem... FOR YOU? For reasons that have nothing to do with the actual setting/lore?

These writers are the ones introducing new traits that somehow don't play by the same rules

What rules?

The real-world rules of how skin color came to be, that are somehow more important than the real-world rules of physics and biology that no one has a lick of a problem with when it comes to the most quotidian elements of a fantasy setting?

This is the whole "dragons I can accept, but black people make no sense" bullshit all over again.

"the real, modern, world is interracial, so Middle Earth is too, and anyone who questions it is racist".

I don't condone simple cop-outs like that, but I have zero problems with diversity in casting on principle, where there are no real, relevant narrative obstacles. Tolkien barely if ever talks about skin color, and there's nothing that's in the way of having a diverse cast in that kind of narrative. It matters not one bit for the story, because it's about elves, dwarves, and humans, not about black elves or white dwarves or whatever. Never has been, never mattered.

This is a work of fiction, and an adaptation of a work of fiction. Realism is observed to some degree, and ignored to others. If you have no problem with a Germanic person playing Julius Caesar, you shouldn't have a problem with an African person playing him either. And if you do, I'd like to hear a reasonable explanation for why that's not just veiled racism.

It was hyperbole, my the point is that a writer shouldn't lose focus of their universe.

I agree.

Where I don't agree is that "the universe" includes a strict skin color makeup that's not backed by profound and specific narrative reasoning.

This cast isn't going to make or break the show, but it's a symptom that the priority of the producers wasn't making a good LotR adaptation, and probably not even a good story.

I agree that there will likely be many things to criticize about the show, but if you want to call out bad writing, call out BAD WRITING; don't suddenly turn this around and go "the writing is bad because they cast black people!" which is ridiculously incorrect on a logical level, let alone the blatant racism that it implies.

[Nurasu]

They didn't care about his acting ability, only his skin color....

Guess what that makes them.... and you

And if they excluded minorities from these roles? I mean what the fuck man? Also, I'll go ahead and point out that it's pretty fucking racist to critique a minority's acting ability (and only the minority actors) without ever having seen it.

[Biomega]

It would be no more important than if you cast a tall man to play a dwarf. If the role you are casting for is "short stocky man with beard" and you pick a tall lanky guy, does that matter?

I'd just like to point out that John Rhys-Davies who played Gimli in LotR is in fact 6'1" so... yeah.

What about for Black Panther 2? Should they recast T'challa with an Asian actor?

I mean you quoted me but did you READ what I said? I specifically talked about cases where race is narratively important.

Bet you won't

I am in fact doing that for a living.

Diverse casting is used as a shield to prevent critcism of bad writing.

Yes, and I've already said as much (and condemned it) earlier in this thread. That's WHY I say it's a category error. You don't really know what that means, do you.

[Nurasu]

This thread always devolves into mask-off racism. Makes me wonder how many LARP groups are actually neo-nazi incubators. Elves are the last bastion of white supremacy.

[MCMLXXXII]

It would be no more important than if you cast a tall man to play a dwarf.

Someone like John Rhys-Davis?

[s_bushido]

Someone like John Rhys-Davis?

lol

The clueless are adorable sometimes, aren't they?

I remember they specifically mention that his height was great because he could be filmed next to the shorter hobbit actors for group shots without having to do a separate pass to make him look taller.

[VMSmith]

I'd just like to point out that John Rhys-Davies who played Gimli in LotR is in fact 6'1" so... yeah.

Was he portrayed at his full height, then?

I suppose you could make the case that the LoTR movies are sizeist in the sense that they didn't cast actual dwarfish people to play the dwarfs. Since minority parts are only allowed to be played by actors belonging to those minorities, whether it be by race, gender, sexuality, gender expression, religion, disability, etc ... Straight cis white men are the only people on the planet incapable of acting out a role that embodies anything other than their inherent characteristics, and they are thusly not allowed to.

If someone pitched a new version of Roots with Jason Alexander as Kunta Kinte and Idris Elba as a slavedriver, and mixed up both the slaves and slaveowners with an entire variety of races portraying any character all higgledy-piggledy then people would likely fume only about the fact that Alexander and the other white people playing slaves had been cast in those parts. Plus, the show would absolutely suck because no one would buy these actors as those characters. I'm sure there would still be defenders of how brave it was to cast Elba in that part.

Stronger than the existence of dwarves, elves, and dragons?

You're saying you're fine with all the things in fantasy that make not a lick of (RL) sense, but suddenly a black person comes along and you're like hold it, this has gone too far? COME ON.

Make a Lord of the Rings movie with a neon-pink/green/yellow dragon that speaks like Paul Lynde, do you think it would be a success? Would great writing save it? Or would people rebel against it because we have preconceived ideas of what a LoTR dragon looks and sounds like, just like we have preconceived ideas of what LoTR elves and dwarves look and sound like because we've been reading these books for decades.

[Nurasu]

Was he portrayed at his full height, then?

I suppose you could make the case that the LoTR movies are sizeist in the sense that they didn't cast actual dwarfish people to play the dwarfs. Since minority parts are only allowed to be played by actors belonging to those minorities, whether it be by race, gender, sexuality, gender expression, religion, disability, etc ... Straight cis white men are the only people on the planet incapable of acting out a role that embodies anything other than their inherent characteristics, and they are thusly not allowed to.

If someone pitched a new version of Roots with Jason Alexander as Kunta Kinte and Idris Elba as a slavedriver, and mixed up both the slaves and slaveowners with an entire variety of races portraying any character all higgledy-piggledy then people would likely fume only about the fact that Alexander and the other white people playing slaves had been cast in those parts. Plus, the show would absolutely suck because no one would buy these actors as those characters. I'm sure there would still be defenders of how brave it was to cast Elba in that part.



Make a Lord of the Rings movie with a neon-pink/green/yellow dragon that speaks like Paul Lynde, do you think it would be a success? Would great writing save it? Or would people rebel against it because we have preconceived ideas of what a LoTR dragon looks and sounds like, just like we have preconceived ideas of what LoTR elves and dwarves look and sound like because we've been reading these books for decades.

I think the point is that if a black person is to the level of a neon-pink dragon for you then there's something wrong with you, fundamentally.

[Triceron]

Was he portrayed at his full height, then?

I suppose you could make the case that the LoTR movies are sizeist in the sense that they didn't cast actual dwarfish people to play the dwarfs. Since minority parts are only allowed to be played by actors belonging to those minorities, whether it be by race, gender, sexuality, gender expression, religion, disability, etc ... Straight cis white men are the only people on the planet incapable of acting out a role that embodies anything other than their inherent characteristics, and they are thusly not allowed to.

That's quite a lot of splitting hairs with the ultimate point to it being 'it doesn't really fucking matter'.

Like, you're trying to illustrate the existence of rules that don't really exist for the sake of defending a point that really doesn't matter. At the end of the day either you're okay with the choices or you aren't, because there's never going to be some universal rule that defines whether it is 'morally acceptable' for any living Human to portray a fictional non-Human race.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Was he portrayed at his full height, then?

I suppose you could make the case that the LoTR movies are sizeist in the sense that they didn't cast actual dwarfish people to play the dwarfs. Since minority parts are only allowed to be played by actors belonging to those minorities, whether it be by race, gender, sexuality, gender expression, religion, disability, etc ... Straight cis white men are the only people on the planet incapable of acting out a role that embodies anything other than their inherent characteristics, and they are thusly not allowed to.

If someone pitched a new version of Roots with Jason Alexander as Kunta Kinte and Idris Elba as a slavedriver, and mixed up both the slaves and slaveowners with an entire variety of races portraying any character all higgledy-piggledy then people would likely fume only about the fact that Alexander and the other white people playing slaves had been cast in those parts. Plus, the show would absolutely suck because no one would buy these actors as those characters. I'm sure there would still be defenders of how brave it was to cast Elba in that part.

You must be aware that it only hurts what ever point your trying to make when you compare a fantasy setting where race doesn’t matter at all to movies about real time periods and real race based processes.

I mean do you people try and make your selfs look like fools with stuff like this or do you really lack self awareness on such a level?

[Biomega]

Make a Lord of the Rings movie with a neon-pink/green/yellow dragon that speaks like Paul Lynde, do you think it would be a success?

Okay, so clearly some changes make sense and others don't. With you so far.

Now explain why SKIN COLOR is one of those problematic ones, and not one of the ones you wouldn't have a problem with.

Because clearly "well you wouldn't want everyone to be be NEON-GREEN either" is not a good argument, since that doesn't tie into anything and is an arbitrary exaggeration that doesn't explain why, say, some random character being blond instead of brunette WOULDN'T bother you, even though you could leverage the same exaggeration against that.

Why single out skin color?

Would great writing save it?

In principle... yeah, probably. It'd have to be pretty fucking great, and I have no idea how it would work in detail, but I wouldn't categorically exclude a neon-punk version of LotR from ever working period.

But again: you're only explaining that SOME aspects would probably be more problematic than others, which I'm sure no one in their right mind would disagree with.

You're NOT explaining why SKIN COLOR is such a problematic aspect.

just like we have preconceived ideas of what LoTR elves and dwarves look and sound like because we've been reading these books for decades.

So what you're saying is:

1. YOU have preconceived notions about what LotR elves and dwarves look like (despite the rather sparse physical descriptions by Tolkien, who never even mentioned elves having pointed ears, for example)
2. You think that those preconceived notions are a good thing, and shouldn't ever be challenged or changed; despite the fact that numerous adaptations have already changed SOME things that you probably aren't complaining about

I'd like to hear more about why either of those are in fact the case and/or relevant

[Nerovar]

What rules?

The real-world rules of how skin color came to be, that are somehow more important than the real-world rules of physics and biology that no one has a lick of a problem with when it comes to the most quotidian elements of a fantasy setting?

This is the whole "dragons I can accept, but black people make no sense" bullshit all over again.

This isn't really about the "importance" of these rules. It's about which ones are deliberately suspended by the narrative and which ones are not. Different ethnic groups that correspond to geographical locales exist in middle earth analogous to our own world. Different peoples and their appearance and history are often described by the author. Racist notions exist within the setting even if only sparsely explored (description of the men of Far Harad comes to mind). The existence of Elves and Dwarves is expained and explored as part of the narration. Nothing similar exists that would elucidate why the peoples of middle earth would all look like the modern day United States.

I find this whole line of argumentation kind of tiresome. I wonder what kind of inclusion to make Middle Earth "reflect what the world actually looks like" would present a sort of red line for people like you (assuming there even is one). Can we assume wheelchair bound characters would be feasible since the text isn't an exploration of ableism?

[Nurasu]

This isn't really about the "importance" of these rules. It's about which ones are deliberately suspended by the narrative and which ones are not. Different ethnic groups that correspond to geographical locales exist in middle earth analogous to our own world. Different peoples and their appearance and history are often described by the author. Racist notions exist within the setting even if only sparsely explored (description of the men of Far Harad comes to mind). The existence of Elves and Dwarves is expained and explored as part of the narration. Nothing similar exists that would elucidate why the peoples of middle earth would all look like the modern day United States.

I find this whole line of argumentation kind of tiresome. I wonder what kind of inclusion to make Middle Earth "reflect what the world actually looks like" would present a sort of red line for people like you (assuming there even is one).

Why are we even casting humans for fictional races in the first place? Surely they'd be better as full CGI?

Can we assume wheelchair bound characters would be feasible since the text isn't an exploration of ableism?

It wouldn't have been much of a stretch to turn Radaghast into this based off of Peter Jackson's portrayal, and it wouldn't have been any great travesty to have done so.

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Plays / drama presentations/ Broadway must be excruciating for you guys with such limited imaginations.

[rogoth]

This dude kinda ruined any arguments against RoP when he was super fine with Legolas' shenanigans in the LotR movies, tbh.

Why is "artistic license" ok there, but not here?

please post the quote where i say i was ok with it, because unless i need to see an optician, i can't find that in anything i said, the comparison i made was to highlight the difference between the two projects, and the fact you still can't see that point speaks volumes frankly, what PJ did with legolas was artistic license, what Amazon and these clowns called writers/showrunners are doing is rewriting the entire basis of middle earth and how things function, that was the difference i was trying to point out, and yet here you are once again trying to put words in my mouth that never existed, twisting what's written to make yourself look clever when it does the opposite really, and honestly i'm bored of it, you're not the only one that does it but it's sad that that's what you fall back to as your main form of arguement, misquoting and misspeaking, almost as if you are natural born politician.

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Okay, so clearly some changes make sense and others don't. With you so far.

Now explain why SKIN COLOR is one of those problematic ones, and not one of the ones you wouldn't have a problem with.

Because clearly "well you wouldn't want everyone to be be NEON-GREEN either" is not a good argument, since that doesn't tie into anything and is an arbitrary exaggeration that doesn't explain why, say, some random character being blond instead of brunette WOULDN'T bother you, even though you could leverage the same exaggeration against that.

Why single out skin color?


In principle... yeah, probably. It'd have to be pretty fucking great, and I have no idea how it would work in detail, but I wouldn't categorically exclude a neon-punk version of LotR from ever working period.

But again: you're only explaining that SOME aspects would probably be more problematic than others, which I'm sure no one in their right mind would disagree with.

You're NOT explaining why SKIN COLOR is such a problematic aspect.


So what you're saying is:

1. YOU have preconceived notions about what LotR elves and dwarves look like (despite the rather sparse physical descriptions by Tolkien, who never even mentioned elves having pointed ears, for example)
2. You think that those preconceived notions are a good thing, and shouldn't ever be challenged or changed; despite the fact that numerous adaptations have already changed SOME things that you probably aren't complaining about

I'd like to hear more about why either of those are in fact the case and/or relevant

right, lets take this to an extreme, are you familiar with the fairy tale of hansel and gretel by hans christian andersen?

based on his writing the characters of hansel and gretel are portrayed as being your children, one male, one female, both of them are white, both of them are stereotypical of the region of where the author was from (denmark), meaning that they would have been fairly pale and likely blonde haired with blue or brown eyes.

200 years later, lets take this fairy tale and 'have it depict what our modern day looks like' instead of stereotypically scandinavian children, they have been race swapped into african american children, because we all know that black people outside of the USA wouldn't work, and instead of finding a witches cabin made of sweets, they find a crack house and become mules for the druglord (again taking the example to an extreme), how do you think people would react to this change? do you think people would be justified in their anger at having the original characters race swapped?, should we just say 'well it's modern times and people need to get with the times and stop complaining' (like many people have basically said in this thread), should we dismiss the complaints as people being 'racist' because they don't want these new iterations of characters?, i'm genuinely curious why this is such a hard concept for people to get their head around and yet are the ones screeching the loudest about racism and 'why can't *insert POC/minority group here* be "X" character?' despite all written accounts telling us why, i'm genuinely perplexed by the utter moronic arguements being made that defend this garbage project.

[Nurasu]

please post the quote where i say i was ok with it, because unless i need to see an optician, i can't find that in anything i said, the comparison i made was to highlight the difference between the two projects, and the fact you still can't see that point speaks volumes frankly, what PJ did with legolas was artistic license, what Amazon and these clowns called writers/showrunners are doing is rewriting the entire basis of middle earth and how things function, that was the difference i was trying to point out, and yet here you are once again trying to put words in my mouth that never existed, twisting what's written to make yourself look clever when it does the opposite really, and honestly i'm bored of it, you're not the only one that does it but it's sad that that's what you fall back to as your main form of arguement, misquoting and misspeaking, almost as if you are natural born politician.

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right, lets take this to an extreme, are you familiar with the fairy tale of hansel and gretel by hans christian andersen?

based on his writing the characters of hansel and gretel are portrayed as being your children, one male, one female, both of them are white, both of them are stereotypical of the region of where the author was from (denmark), meaning that they would have been fairly pale and likely blonde haired with blue or brown eyes.

200 years later, lets take this fairy tale and 'have it depict what our modern day looks like' instead of stereotypically scandinavian children, they have been race swapped into african american children, because we all know that black people outside of the USA wouldn't work, and instead of finding a witches cabin made of sweets, they find a crack house and become mules for the druglord (again taking the example to an extreme), how do you think people would react to this change? do you think people would be justified in their anger at having the original characters race swapped?, should we just say 'well it's modern times and people need to get with the times and stop complaining' (like many people have basically said in this thread), should we dismiss the complaints as people being 'racist' because they don't want these new iterations of characters?, i'm genuinely curious why this is such a hard concept for people to get their head around and yet are the ones screeching the loudest about racism and 'why can't *insert POC/minority group here* be "X" character?' despite all written accounts telling us why, i'm genuinely perplexed by the utter moronic arguements being made that defend this garbage project.

This is probably the worst example yet. Hansel and Gretel has already been adapted 500 times, including into anime and World of Warcraft, and their ethnicity doesn't change the fact that you can recognize the story in all of them. And no, there probably wouldn't be anger about their ethnicity, just the blatant fucking racism for what you would consider a "black version" of the story. Like seriously, could you people just fuck off with this shit?

[Ausr]

I can actually kinda buy there being black skinned dwarves. Maybe some clans or families have worked exclusively coal mines and maybe throughout the centuries, the coal dust have seeped into their skin and they've become more black as time goes on.

I dunno.

[rogoth]

This is probably the worst example yet. Hansel and Gretel has already been adapted 500 times, including into anime and World of Warcraft, and their ethnicity doesn't change the fact that you can recognize the story in all of them. And no, there probably wouldn't be anger about their ethnicity, just the blatant fucking racism for what you would consider a "black version" of the story. Like seriously, could you people just fuck off with this shit?

thank you for showing everyone you completely missed the point, and by extension failed to understand the point and are instead getting your panties in a bunch over the wrong thing, like so many have done already while trying to argue they in the right, it just goes to show how poor the reading and comprehension skills are in this thread by so many people if this is the kind of response provided.

[Nurasu]

thank you for showing everyone you completely missed the point, and by extension failed to understand the point and are instead getting your panties in a bunch over the wrong thing, like so many have done already while trying to argue they in the right, it just goes to show how poor the reading and comprehension skills are in this thread by so many people if this is the kind of response provided.

It's cute you think you made a point, other than going full mask-off.

[Biomega]

This isn't really about the "importance" of these rules. It's about which ones are deliberately suspended by the narrative and which ones are not. Different ethnic groups that correspond to geographical locales exist in middle earth analogous to our own world. Different peoples and their appearance and history are often described by the author.

So point out where Tolkien talked about the skin colors of dwarves or elves, and how they're different because of where they're located.

I'm happy to be shown references.

There's SOME references to different HUMANS, although with them, too, it's very hard to tell where/if Tolkien is talking about skin color and not something else. Just like him describing elves as "fair" does not have to refer to their complexion, as it can (and most likely does) simply mean "beautiful to behold" rather than "light-skinned". And even where he IS talking about skin color, one group being primarily one skin color would not automatically mean all OTHER groups of humans are ALSO just one skin color.

Skin color wasn't what Tolkien was interested in, it's as simple as that. His narrative revolves around different forms of categorization, and those are preserved even if you have a black dwarf or an Asian-looking elf.

I find this whole line of argumentation kind of tiresome.

You and me both. Mostly because 90% of it isn't an argument, it's just "I don't want black people in my fantasy, because they don't belong in there for... uh... reasons that aren't racist I promise I swear I really do".

I wonder what kind of inclusion to make Middle Earth "reflect what the world actually looks like" would present a sort of red line for people like you (assuming there even is one). Can we assume wheelchair bound characters would be feasible since the text isn't an exploration of ableism?

That's a complete misrepresentation of the argument. It's not about a fictional setting reflecting "what the world actually looks like". It's about removing selection criteria for which there is no good, relevant narrative or artistic justification. What you're suggesting is getting that process entirely backwards.

right, lets take this to an extreme, are you familiar with the fairy tale of hansel and gretel by hans christian andersen?

based on his writing the characters of hansel and gretel are portrayed as being your children, one male, one female, both of them are white, both of them are stereotypical of the region of where the author was from (denmark), meaning that they would have been fairly pale and likely blonde haired with blue or brown eyes.

200 years later, lets take this fairy tale and 'have it depict what our modern day looks like' instead of stereotypically scandinavian children, they have been race swapped into african american children, because we all know that black people outside of the USA wouldn't work, and instead of finding a witches cabin made of sweets, they find a crack house and become mules for the druglord (again taking the example to an extreme), how do you think people would react to this change?

This can and does happen in fiction ALL THE TIME. In fact your example is a pretty good one, as "updated" reinterpretations of classic folk/faerie tales are ubiquitous across all kinds of genres. That's a GOOD thing, and it's done in all sorts of contexts and in all kinds of literary spaces. Some of those stories are great, some are shit; but that's because for ALL stories some are great and some are shit. Nothing new there.

What YOU would need to explain here is how Hänsel and Gretel being white matters to the story. In fact, stories like that are often dissected into constituent parts in academic scholarship, which are largely context-agnostic - i.e. for the vast majority of them the principles at the root of the narrative do not care one bit about whether it's two white kids or whether it's a boy and a girl or whatever, and the story would work just the same - at a fundamental level - if it was two black girls or two Asian boys.

You've effectively demonstrated precisely WHY race does NOT matter for a majority of stories, and is relevant only to those narratives that specifically and profoundly engage with those characteristics themselves. So thanks, I guess!

[rogoth]

It's cute you think you made a point, other than going full mask-off.

once again proving you lack the education needed to understand what was being said, and lack the critical reading and comprehension skills necessary to understand the point, if you can't understand something, the correct response is to ask for clarity and help with that lack of understanding, instead all you have done is berate me for no reason, but carry on, i'm sure it's making you look great.