Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Triceron]

This confuses me a little bit. What do you mean by that? Isn't diversity a goal in and of itself? Do you only support it if it has a narrative function of some kind?

For me, it's a bit more fundamental: I'm all for diversity, for no reason other than that more diversity is a good thing in general - however, I do not support diversity AT THE EXPENSE OF QUALITY. I don't think that diversity in and of itself has to affect quality at all, but neither does it obviate the need for quality. And I get very angry when shows are criticized for quality and try to defend it with "but diversity, though!" as though those two were somehow fungible.

Diversity where it makes sense is going to be better than diversity for the sake of diversity. Both can be good but not both are equal in the eyes of most audiences.

Rough example, a period piece like Robinhood where most of the Merry Men would likely be typical white men from England and its surrounding lands. There are different ways to diversify the cast. If diversity for diversity sake, then just make it anachronistic to the setting and have black and brown and asian actors in place of the roles that traditionally would have been cast (exclusively) white. Or if bridged into the narrative, have minority ethnicities be represented as foreign travellers from other lands who bring their culture with them and are treated as such in the fiction. 'Medieval England' doesn't need to be portrayed as a modern multicultural melting pot just to have a diverse cast. The way the diversity is presented affects the world.

And I'm making this point based on how the adaptation chooses to represent its world. Cuz a play like Hamilton can choose to establish diversity through anachronism and modernization, and it works within the cintext of the setting they choose to portray. But that doesn't work for every fictional setting, and the anachronism and modernization may not work the same for all settings.

To me, if ethnicity is meant to be represented then I think it should respect the ethnicity and not just shoehorn them into white-culture centric roles. I want to be specific, I'm talking more about representations of fictional historic settings, not modern ones

[Adamas102]

Then you say I don't know what Tokenism is when you add a single black elf without president? That is EXACTLY what tokenism is.
You also ignore the fact that I'm not white myself.

No, tokenism is a character trait that has to do with including characters that are irrelevant to the story simply for the representation they serve and typically goes hand in hand with stereotyping in the weak effort to have said character be representative of whatever group is being included. Miriel is NOT a token character as she is central to the Numenorean plot and not defined the actor's skin color as she is simply a Numenorean. Arondir is NOT a token character as he is one of the two primary characters in this show's reimagining of the Aragorn/Arwen and Beren/Luthien stories, and again is not defined by the actor's skin color as he is just an elf. We don't really know how Disa's and the Harfoots' stories will pan out, but they seem central to their sections of the plot and obviously at this point the casting was done with more than just meaningless inclusion in mind. So no, this isn't tokenism.

[UnifiedDivide]

Jesus wept, the pedatry is overwhelming. Excuse me while I go watch Robin Hood: Men in Tights and have a good laugh at the robust comedy of Dave Chappelle's character "Ahchoo."

This shit is just tedious now.

[Biomega]

To me, if ethnicity is meant to be represented then I think it should respect the ethnicity and not just shoehorn them into white-culture centric roles. I want to be specific, I'm talking more about representations of fictional historic settings, not modern ones

I'm 100% on board with preserving specificity where it makes narrative sense.

But I also think that in a lot of cases, it's not the narrative that makes people think certain specifics need to be preserved - it's custom, and tradition. And those are things that change over time, and change can be hindered or facilitated. If all that's standing in the way of more diverse castings is "we're just not used to seeing such people in such settings" then I'm entirely on board with changing it. If there IS a good reason NOT to change things, then I'm fine with that, too; but neither "it's not like that in the original!" nor "this is not how we always did this in the past!" strike me as particularly good reasons. I'd need more.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Jesus wept, the pedatry is overwhelming. Excuse me while I go watch Robin Hood: Men in Tights and have a good laugh at the robust comedy of Dave Chappelle's character "Ahchoo."

This shit is just tedious now.

The post 2012 shift to “anti wokness” really is one of the worse things to happen to the criticism so many great movies from the 80’s-2010’s would have been dogged piled under all of this same sludge if released today.

[Triceron]

Oh, you sweet summer child... I'll certainly admit that you're not in the camp I was referring to, but it would be you who's not listening if you fail to see that the virulence in most of these posters goes far deeper than just "I disagree with some of these changes".

I mean, you have rogoth (peeking his head in here again, I see) who contributes little more than anti-woke rants, lying about Amazon's diversity policy, and thinking that a comparable story to Hansel and Gretel with African American children should involve a crack house. Specialk and Radeghost (both on vacation) because they like to pop in on occasion to stir the pot on the dangers of race-swapping and seem to think that NYC is the only city with black people in it given how many times they like to draw comparisons to it. Varodoc who pretty much went all the way in saying that it's good for elves to be white because they were meant to be attractive. InfiniteCharger tries his best, but can't seem to get away from the idea that skin color isn't the same as culture or ethnicity and from a genetic point of view isn't any more "extreme" than hair color. VHSmith who thinks more diverse casts equates to erasing white people. Sialina who seems to think that minorities having roles that are central to the plot is tokenism. And of course those are just the ones I've responded to these past few days.

And everyone has a right to express an opinion. You have the right to disagree. Just as I had disagreed with many of your points in the past day or so. You're still free to have and express your opinion, just as anyone else does.

I just don't think it's worth antagonizing those who have different opinions.

Yeah, some of it is just plain ignorance, but for most of them the disdain for diversity is rooted in far more than just wanting to adhere to the source material.

Is it really a disdain for diversity though. You're really only presenting your interpretation of other people's arguments.

Have you taken the time at all to ask whether any of these people would accept a diverse cast in any form?

This is weak, and amounts to "we don't really want to try to include you in the main story, so why don't we just segregate you to the most obscure parts of this fictional world".

If that's how you truly feel, then I take this as an example of ignorance on the other side of the spectrum. Instead of plain ignorance in disdain of diversity, you're implying an argument that is plainly ignorant of any alternative or contrary opinion to having Black Dwarves as being anti-diversity. To be honest, it's not segregation at all, because these fictional races are meant to represented as monoethnic cultures (to a certain degree).

And it's very odd to me that you'd apply this at all considering you say you are okay with an all-white cast. Is it a case where you're okay with an all-white cast when presented, but you're not okay with an all-white cast when being requested? Like if a showrunner makes it happen, it's totally okay, but if fans ask for it then they're anti-diversity?

[s_bushido]

The post 2012 shift to “anti wokness” really is one of the worse things to happen to the criticism so many great movies from the 80’s-2010’s would have been dogged piled under all of this same sludge if released today.

Maybe I just wasn't paying attention earlier, but I think the current trend started with Ghostbusters (2016). The people who got the ball rolling were the same ones pointing out the stupid shit Anita Sarkeesian was saying...and now they've all just come full circle to saying the same stupid shit, just from the other side of the political aisle. Only it's much much worse because it's an actual cornerstone of American conservatism. It's just the Satanic Panic all over again.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Maybe I just wasn't paying attention earlier, but I think the current trend started with Ghostbusters (2016). The people who got the ball rolling were the same ones pointing out the stupid shit Anita Sarkeesian was saying...and now they've all just come full circle to saying the same stupid shit, just from the other side of the political aisle. Only it's much much worse because it's an actual cornerstone of American conservatism. It's just the Satanic Panic all over again.

2016 was when things really kicked off proper and every right leaning person with half a brain and a camera figured out that they could make bank off of this stuff which lead to it really blowing up. Before that point though and maybe even before Anita this stuff was starting to rumble with I remember the 2013 tomb raider reboot getting attention of the like though I don't know if SJW or Woke were in common use back then.

[Biomega]

Maybe I just wasn't paying attention earlier, but I think the current trend started with Ghostbusters (2016). The people who got the ball rolling were the same ones pointing out the stupid shit Anita Sarkeesian was saying...and now they've all just come full circle to saying the same stupid shit, just from the other side of the political aisle. Only it's much much worse because it's an actual cornerstone of American conservatism. It's just the Satanic Panic all over again.

It certainly got amplified by the way the media utilizes certain discourses, partly because politics has recognized them as tools of ideological warfare - on ALL parts of the political spectrum (it's important to be clear about that).

I've followed things mostly within academia, and it goes back further than 2016 there for sure. I'm not with people like Jordan Peterson who blame the French poststructuralists for everything, nor am I onboard with the demonization of Marxist thinkers and everyone who's Marxist-adjacent in even some small way; but as someone from the humanities, it's undeniable there's been a shift taking place ESPECIALLY within US academia that's seen frontlines harden and positions become more extreme in SOME prominent cases. It's important to stress that, because by and large, the humanities in the US look nothing close to the "leftist woke extremist training camp" that it's often portrayed as, with the broad average just interested in perhaps left-leaning but not particularly extreme positions; and even there, simply recognizing the importance of things like postcolonialism, feminism, Marxism, etc. in the larger discourse is by no means an endorsement of their more radical positions. And almost no one in academia ever thinks that, or condones that.

The real problem is just the way that selection bias has become a media tool, and that's what we see in this debate about films/TV shows - there's select, prominent examples that are blown up as if they were representative of a larger whole, and suddenly a black dwarf in an Amazon show means all of Hollywood is on an anti-white crusade intent on bankrupting every actor who's not of color and turning your children into America-hating pronoun-zealots who want to fellate immigrant drug dealers in order to apologize for being white. It's patently absurd, untrue, and, most idiotically, PRECISELY the kind of indoctrination machinery they're supposedly railing against, JUST FROM THE OTHER SIDE. And of course we have the same thing taking place at other ends, where everyone who isn't gluten-free by choice and wears a hemp-fiber PETA shirt at the nearest LGBTQ+ rally must automatically be an uneducated Trumpist who can't wait to unload a magazine full of depleted uranium ammo into the nearest black person because FOX News told them to while they were in church.

NOTHING WORKS ANYTHING LIKE THAT, and never will. It's purely the result of increasing extremism in public discourse, fueled by the ubiquitousness of personalized media echo chambers that market themselves based on making everyone feel like they're one proud and special snowflake who deserves to finally have THEIR voice heard because it's the real and true and best one and don't you let anyone tell you different hun. People are being trained to stop differentiating, stop empathizing, and stop critically questioning, because that makes them better consumers who'll pay and vote without looking too closely or demanding actual substance. And that's true for the Ania Sarkeesians of the world as much as it is for the Sean Hannitys, just in different ways.

The real tragedy of course is that many of the ostensible goals ON ALL SIDES are actually noble and praiseworthy. We all want a more moral, more orderly, and safe society. We all want equity, and opportunity, and freedom from want or worry. Yet somehow we've reached a point where we treat things as a zero sum game, and if somehow we cast a black actor to play an elf in a show set in Middle Earth, that must mean we're giving ground to a nefarious agenda somewhere else; or that the only way to increase diversity is to DECREASE quality (or vice versa). It's stupid, it's short-sighted, and it's not how any of it works.

[rogoth]

This confuses me a little bit. What do you mean by that? Isn't diversity a goal in and of itself? Do you only support it if it has a narrative function of some kind?

For me, it's a bit more fundamental: I'm all for diversity, for no reason other than that more diversity is a good thing in general - however, I do not support diversity AT THE EXPENSE OF QUALITY. I don't think that diversity in and of itself has to affect quality at all, but neither does it obviate the need for quality. And I get very angry when shows are criticized for quality and try to defend it with "but diversity, though!" as though those two were somehow fungible.

then this acts as a self admission that you don't support this show because the people behind the project have a literal mandated number of people they must hire as 'diversity quota' tick boxes on the casting sheet, and while you're not the first to miss this point, it should raise a red flag when the show runners came out and said with the audacity and straight face that the people in the main roles were 'the best candidates for the roles' when it quite literally can't be true, because of the mandated requirements to have diversity represented.

[Biomega]

then this acts as a self admission that you don't support this show because the people behind the project have a literal mandated number of people they must hire as 'diversity quota' tick boxes on the casting sheet, and while you're not the first to miss this point, it should raise a red flag when the show runners came out and said with the audacity and straight face that the people in the main roles were 'the best candidates for the roles' when it quite literally can't be true, because of the mandated requirements to have diversity represented.

I was under the impression that this applied to production roles, not casting. I could well be wrong.

You're right, though. I do have a problem with quotas like that. I don't like them one bit. I think everyone should be treated based on merit and achievement, and other things should be disregarded (save a few specific edge cases).

Unfortunately, it's not that easy, and compromises are made in the name of practicality. If your ship has been going off course for decades, suddenly deciding "we'll sail a straight course from now on, no more veering left all the time!" is all well and good, but it's not going to get you back on the actual course. You need to correct in the other direction first, and THEN sail straight. That doesn't mean you suddenly endorse veering off course forever, just in the opposite way.

I hate quotas, but I accept them in some cases out of necessity, with the goal of establishing a new normal. That doesn't change the PRINCIPLE of what I'm talking about and endorsing, though - which is the same as I've always said, i.e. disregard things like gender, skin color, etc. unless you have a good reason not to.

Will that in practice ever be implemented in a perfect way? No. Of course not. Will it sometimes be done poorly and even wrongly? I'm sure it will, and those times must be criticized and called out and resisted, too. But the principle doesn't change just because its implementation can have flaws.

And what's the alternative, really? "We can't make it perfect, so let's just leave it as it is" doesn't exactly help, either. All we can do is find a good, well-reasoned ideal to aspire to, and then try and asymptotically adjust our course to match it as best we can. Even if it means pulling the wheel the other way for a bit.

[rogoth]

Oh, you sweet summer child... I'll certainly admit that you're not in the camp I was referring to, but it would be you who's not listening if you fail to see that the virulence in most of these posters goes far deeper than just "I disagree with some of these changes".

I mean, you have rogoth (peeking his head in here again, I see) who contributes little more than anti-woke rants, lying about Amazon's diversity policy, and thinking that a comparable story to Hansel and Gretel with African American children should involve a crack house. Specialk and Radeghost (both on vacation) because they like to pop in on occasion to stir the pot on the dangers of race-swapping and seem to think that NYC is the only city with black people in it given how many times they like to draw comparisons to it. Varodoc who pretty much went all the way in saying that it's good for elves to be white because they were meant to be attractive. InfiniteCharger tries his best, but can't seem to get away from the idea that skin color isn't the same as culture or ethnicity and from a genetic point of view isn't any more "extreme" than hair color. VHSmith who thinks more diverse casts equates to erasing white people. Sialina who seems to think that minorities having roles that are central to the plot is tokenism. And of course those are just the ones I've responded to these past few days.

Yeah, some of it is just plain ignorance, but for most of them the disdain for diversity is rooted in far more than just wanting to adhere to the source material.



This is weak, and amounts to "we don't really want to try to include you in the main story, so why don't we just segregate you to the most obscure parts of this fictional world". Look, most of the cast is white. Other than Tar-Miriel (whose description comes from a source that Amazon doesn't have the rights to), the series has cast its non-white actors in roles that are wholly original. Dwarves, elves, and hobbits are the core races of Middle-earth, the most recognizable and the most beloved. Just as Tolkien expressly said that this part of Middle-earth wasn't in anyway a home just for white, NorthernEuropean-centric stories, these stories are for everyone (especially the people of England who he dedicated this fictional world to). That of course includes the British actors who also happen to be people of color who now get to participate in an adaptation of this much beloved setting. I don't think "because the source material SUGGESTS they should all be white" is a good enough reason to bar these actors from participating in one of the great literary works of their country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereo...ican_Americans

the very first paragraph: *in the 1980's and following decades, emerging stereotypes of black men depicted them as drug dealers, crack addicts, hobos, and subway muggers.*

i had to look this up because i'm not American, i have no exposure to the utter clownfiesta that is the USA in general, and as someone who doesn't care what colour a person is day to day, i had to look up what stereotypes there are to make a point, a point which you missed like ben affleck missed acting school, you're so hyper fixated living in your pathetic little 'American bubble', you don't or can't fathom that people outside the US don't see things the way you do, and it's seems to be really causing you some distress based on your tired pointless comebacks.

i have explained my stance multiple times now, i have explained why the casting in this show is awful, i have explained why i will be watching this shitshow with glee when it falls flat on its face, i have already looked at the engagement data so far and quite literally less than 10% of people exposed to the promotional media for this project actually 'like' it, i don't just mean clicking a *like* button on youtube, i'm talking positive interaction across all media types, you and the people like you defending this show are in the extreme minority, with approximately 80% of interactions showing dislike or hate for the project, the rest being neutral or not interacting, and yet here you are still using things out of context trying desperately to defend you holier than though mound, i genuinely hope you die on this hill because it will make the points you're arguing against the sweeter when proven right.

if you want to keep having a go at me, go for it, it shows how little of a point you actually have, it also shows just how desperate you are to deflect and ignore the actual points being discussed.

- - - Updated - - -

I was under the impression that this applied to production roles, not casting. I could well be wrong.

You're right, though. I do have a problem with quotas like that. I don't like them one bit. I think everyone should be treated based on merit and achievement, and other things should be disregarded (save a few specific edge cases).

Unfortunately, it's not that easy, and compromises are made in the name of practicality. If your ship has been going off course for decades, suddenly deciding "we'll sail a straight course from now on, no more veering left all the time!" is all well and good, but it's not going to get you back on the actual course. You need to correct in the other direction first, and THEN sail straight. That doesn't mean you suddenly endorse veering off course forever, just in the opposite way.

I hate quotas, but I accept them in some cases out of necessity, with the goal of establishing a new normal. That doesn't change the PRINCIPLE of what I'm talking about and endorsing, though - which is the same as I've always said, i.e. disregard things like gender, skin color, etc. unless you have a good reason not to.

Will that in practice ever be implemented in a perfect way? No. Of course not. Will it sometimes be done poorly and even wrongly? I'm sure it will, and those times must be criticized and called out and resisted, too. But the principle doesn't change just because its implementation can have flaws.

And what's the alternative, really? "We can't make it perfect, so let's just leave it as it is" doesn't exactly help, either. All we can do is find a good, well-reasoned ideal to aspire to, and then try and asymptotically adjust our course to match it as best we can. Even if it means pulling the wheel the other way for a bit.

it begins with production staff, if those criteria are met then it trickles down to the casting staff and other support staff, which is going to be made even stricter in 2024, where even more 'diversity hires' will be mandated regardless of whether they are suitable to the roles they are given.

[Biomega]

it begins with production staff, if those criteria are met then it trickles down to the casting staff and other support staff, which is going to be made even stricter in 2024, where even more 'diversity hires' will be mandated regardless of whether they are suitable to the roles they are given.

Well, that's certainly good to know. Doesn't really change my position (as explained), but it's good to know nevertheless. Assuming this is an accurate representation of the actual rules, of course, because "regardless of whether they are suitable" smells to me of smuggled-in biases suggesting that "suitable" and "diversity" have to somehow be mutually exclusive. It's the kind of language you hear only all-too often when it comes to quotas in hiring practices, as if somehow people decide to skip over the white Harvard graduate to instead take the nearest black person off the street who didn't finish high school.

But that could just be me being oversensitive.

[DarkAmbient]

I just saw this and thought it was pretty funny

[rogoth]

Well, that's certainly good to know. Doesn't really change my position (as explained), but it's good to know nevertheless. Assuming this is an accurate representation of the actual rules, of course, because "regardless of whether they are suitable" smells to me of smuggled-in biases suggesting that "suitable" and "diversity" have to somehow be mutually exclusive. It's the kind of language you hear only all-too often when it comes to quotas in hiring practices, as if somehow people decide to skip over the white Harvard graduate to instead take the nearest black person off the street who didn't finish high school.

But that could just be me being oversensitive.

i used that language specifically with the context of this show where the people they have hired as diversity hires are by most people seen as unsuitable for the roles they are playing, hence in my opinion they are 'not suitable for the roles they are given' based on the precedent of the source material, in other projects it's decided on a case by case basis, i did not say that to be a blanket statement for all projects.

[Biomega]

i used that language specifically with the context of this show where the people they have hired as diversity hires are by most people seen as unsuitable for the roles they are playing

I'm sorry, "most people"? And by "unsuitable" you just mean "not the right skin color" and nothing else?

[bledgor]

I just saw this and thought it was pretty funny

The one redeeming quality of the rings of powers, the memes it is quickly spawning.

[rogoth]

I'm sorry, "most people"? And by "unsuitable" you just mean "not the right skin color" and nothing else?

the overwhelming majority of people based on all forms of engagement metrics used to gather data on how well or how poorly something is received online yes.

ALL casting that is unsuitable, regardless of race/colour/creed, they have cast a guy who looks overweight and nowhere near the kind of 'tall dark and handsome' stereotype for Gil-Galad, the last high king of the Noldor, and from what little they have released regarding his plot points they are trying to paint him as some kind of inept ruler, when the reality of it is he was possibly the greatest high king the Noldor ever had, so in my eyes his casting is 'unsuitable', the casting of the black dwarf and elf has been well explained at this point so i'm not even gonna bother wasting my time repeating it again nor waste your time having to read it again, you have the utterly shambolic casting of a guy who is supposed to be the great celebrimbor?, because they haven't actually said what the fuck their story is supposed to be about, i find half the casting for the main cast of characters to be 'unsuitable', based on the established lore of the characters in the books, so no, it has nothing to do directly with what colour their skin is.

[Biomega]

the overwhelming majority of people based on all forms of engagement metrics used to gather data on how well or how poorly something is received online yes.

I'd like some data on that, please.

so in my eyes his casting is 'unsuitable'

Right. I think I got it now, thanks.

[Adamas102]

I'd like some data on that, please.

I'm sure you won't get it. As for the Amazon Diversity policy, it's publicly available. rogoth has been called out for lying about it before but he keeps on pushing it (never actually linking it himself because actually reading it would invalidate the idea he keeps pushing about Amazon MANDATING the show to cast 30% minorities).

You were right before that the 30% goal (50% by 2024) doesn't apply to actors, just above-the-line roles (directors, writers, and producers). It's also not a blanket policy for every project since it's aimed at series and movies where main cast include roles from underrepresented communities (so the point would be avoiding a show about Latina women where all the above-the-line roles are taken up by men). And when not possible they just have to hire an outside consultant of that underrepresented group.

As for casting they have no such quotas and note that "story comes first" and the inclusion policy should "not compromise the authenticity of the narrative". It also series that focus on a particular racial/ethnic group are exempt. The main part about casting concerns authentic portrayals so that roles are cast with actors who match up with things like gender, nationality, race, sexual orientation, and disability. There's also a goal for including 1-3 characters of underrepresented groups in order to avoid invisibility in entertainment, and the minimum aspirational goal is 60% white people and 40% minorities. None of these are mandates and are always noted as "when possible", "where the story allows", and "where it doesn't compromise the authenticity of the story".

So yeah, like all diversity and inclusion policies in place at large corporations the goal is always to hire people who are qualified. Diversity and inclusion policies are about aspirational goals, not mandates, and the aim is just to open things up (when possible) to communities that in the past were underrepresented either deliberately or due to unconscious bias.