1. #2661
    I dont understand the point of woke people taking over already beloved franchises. Why cant they just make new - woke - franchises that appeal to their demography of 5000 people in the US and 2500 in the EU and be happy with that. Its not like you actually need a huge budget. I'm sure you can find really low budget actors of each race and each gender and so forth. The script doesnt seem to matter at all so you dont even need to hire writers. You can just have the actors improvise some jokes and then thats that. Those 7500 people will be super happy and the rest of us will get to keep franchises where the suspension of disbelief if just a inty but believable.

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    Quote Originally Posted by UnifiedDivide View Post
    I've only watched the video from the timestamp you mentioned, but I agree with him. Especially when he later brings up the quote people liked to parrot and attribute to Tolkien. It is, ironically, a corruption of Tolkien from supposed fans/purists.
    "People soom to hyper fixated on these two characters as a symptom of a wider political...."

    he is wrong. People fixate on the interviews and the "super fan trailer" that shows exactly what the vision of the show is. Diversity for the sake of diversity. This guy is genuinely just confused as to what it is people are angry about and hasnt seen the interviews or fantrailer

    Edit:
    I'm talking about the video you guys are talking about btw.

  2. #2662
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    Quote Originally Posted by ClassicPeon View Post


    "People soom to hyper fixated on these two characters as a symptom of a wider political...."

    he is wrong. People fixate on the interviews and the "super fan trailer" that shows exactly what the vision of the show is. Diversity for the sake of diversity. This guy is genuinely just confused as to what it is people are angry about and hasnt seen the interviews or fantrailer

    Edit:
    I'm talking about the video you guys are talking about btw.
    This video came out before those interviews. This came out when the first trailer dropped. Unless there was interviews before then that I am not aware of. I havent watched or bothered about interviews that are mainly there to appease shareholders and quotas that are not meant for us.

    Also he is right, people are hyper fixated on race, cos look at this damn thread, every post is about diversity or race. Are you blind?
    Last edited by Orby; 2022-08-13 at 01:10 PM.
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  3. #2663
    Quote Originally Posted by Orby View Post
    This video came out before those interviews. This came out when the first trailer dropped. Unless there was interviews before then that I am not aware of. I havent watched or bothered about interviews that are mainly there to appease shareholders and quotas that are not meant for us.

    Also he is right, people are hyper fixated on race, cos look at this damn thread, every post is about diversity or race. Are you blind?
    Pretty sure the superfans trailer came out in february(along with the first few cringe interviews) and has since been removed by amazon LOL.

    Also he is not right - people are angry because the show is fixated on diversity. Which is not what he said at all - are YOU blind?
    Last edited by ClassicPeon; 2022-08-13 at 01:16 PM.

  4. #2664
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    Quote Originally Posted by ClassicPeon View Post
    Pretty sure the superfans trailer came out in february(along with the first few cringe interviews) and has since been removed by amazon LOL.

    Also he is not right - people are angry because the show is fixated on diversity. Which is not what he said at all - are YOU blind?
    You mean deaf? 'are you deaf'. If I cannot hear something that would make me deaf, not blind.
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  5. #2665
    Quote Originally Posted by Orby View Post
    You literally had an elf catching arrows in RoP, I don't think I am gonna be as defensive about RoP than you think. Also Lord of the Rings trilogy is one of my favourite movies of all time, hell I even liked the first movie in the Hobbit trilogy, the rest not so much, just because I am not willing to not jump on the RoP hate train before I see the show doesn't mean I hate the original movies.

    And using words like 'non-Tolkien fans' at people makes you look like you have a superiority complex, who died and made you king of what Lord of the Rings should be?

    And i will stand by thinking some of the Legolas stuff looked dumb, as well as a lot of the CGI that is related to him hasn't held up very well, especially if like me you got the 4k editions. Sure if you are a kid when you watched LoTR it might have been cool, but I was like 20 when the first movie came out and 21 when the second movie came out. and you know what, there might even be a new generation of kids growing up with RoP that will love this 20 years down the line too. We could all maybe hate it, but its future generations that are going to see it differently, or not, who knows. I don't care I'll be like 60 years old by that point lol
    Wasn't speaking to you mate, but if you want to make a shoe fit, all power to you.

    I am not pretending to be king, but certainly the stupid shit some people say to try and pretend RoP is even a tiny bit an accurate adaptation proves to even the most loose Tolkien fan that the people saying this shit are not Tolkien fans. I have literally listed dozens of issues within the 2 minute trailer, and 90% of the comments responding to it are "you just are racist and don't like black people" while ignoring 99% of the things I said.

    Also people weren't sitting there defending the Legolas shit like it was peak cinema/Tokien, it was scoffed at but because the movies were so good we hand waved it away.

    Quote Originally Posted by Orby View Post
    This video came out before those interviews. This came out when the first trailer dropped. Unless there was interviews before then that I am not aware of. I havent watched or bothered about interviews that are mainly there to appease shareholders and quotas that are not meant for us.

    Also he is right, people are hyper fixated on race, cos look at this damn thread, every post is about diversity or race. Are you blind?
    I mean there are dozens of pages of posts were people listed the dozens of issues they have with the show (which does include but is certainly not in the slightest limited to the black dwarf/elf casting) so while the past few days have generated a lot of pages of mostly talking about race, it is far from the only thing people are talking about.

    I have said it once, I will say it again, what gives others the right to bash the fans from wanting a (mostly) accurate Tolkien story? No sane person is asking for a 100% 1-1 adaptation, Jackson hit it out of the park and we know he wasn't 1-1, but the RoP aren't even close to Jackson in being faithful is the issue.

    "The show hasn't come out, how can you know?" well the trailers provide some, leaks provide others, and current Hollywood really seals the deal. Season 1 is going to pretty heavily deviate from Tolkien in so many ways that it can't be faithful, much like Rafe of Time.
    Last edited by bledgor; 2022-08-13 at 01:42 PM.
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  6. #2666
    Quote Originally Posted by Adamas102 View Post
    I copied one line, but it's part of a larger paragraph detailing (sparsely) the events leading up to the downfall. I was merely countering the idea that it wasn't really mentioned at all. There's enough of the barebones story in the appendices for Amazon to work off, and lets not pretend that the Silmarillion is anything close to a fully fleshed out narrative.
    The appendices are not intended to provide the full story of the 2nd Age, the Fall of Numenor, who the Numenoreans were and how the Rings of Power got created. The Simalrillion and other works were created during and after the making of the LOTR as Tolkien fleshed these ideas out more. It would be hard to actually tell the story of Numenor and be "faithful" to Tolkien without rights to all those works. And Amazon is basically just using the appendices as justification to say this show is "Tolkien" when in reality it is only Tolkien in name only.

    Quote Originally Posted by Adamas102 View Post
    Differences in hair color and differences in skin color are on the exact same order in terms of human genetic mutations. Dark skin (lots of melanin) vs light skin (less melanin) is exactly the same as brown hair (lots of melanin) vs blonde hair (less melanin) in terms of phenotype variation. I'll agree that "race" isn't the best term since it's a pretty outdated one. Using "mixed complexion" is fine, but that description is pretty meaningless since it extends to all of humanity. Either the group in question has no variation in genetics that govern melanin synthesis, or it does have variation. The Edain that became the Numenoreans, obviously did have those genetic variations.
    The 3 houses of the Edain are not described as "races", they are 3 different bloodlines of human with descending from 3 different male patriarchs. The "races" in Tolkien are humans, Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, trolls, etc. You are using the term rather inaccurately is my point in relation to the actual works of Tolkien. And the point is that what "swarthy" means is up to interpretation as someone being swarthy could just mean tanned, bronzed or "olive" as opposed to meaning someone who is skin as dark as the darkest skinned person from anywhere on earth. That is you interpreting swarthy to mean that when the text says no such thing. And again, since we are talking about diversity the point was that "swarthy" being open to interpretation could be used as justification for casting any ethnic group from anywhere on the planet, not just "black" skinned people of African descent. That is purely up to those making the show and their ideas of what "diversity" should mean in Tolkiens world.

    I just want to distinguish that the "diversity" in Tolkien's world is different than the real world even though it has similarities. And one aspect of that is the fact that "diversity" in the real world or a fictional world does not necessarily mean "everybody everywhere" in a global melting pot. Historically human populations were relatively homogeneous as Asians were in Asia, Europeans were in Europe, Native Americans were in America and so forth. Implying that "swarthy" means anybody from anywhere with any kind of features could be among the Edain is just reaching way beyond what is even logically possible. And describing that diversity does not mean just dropping some 'black' skinned people of African descent into the show. That is not what "swarthy" means in terms of diversity or the English language. In fact, there are plenty of terms used to describe actual very dark skinned people in European language and 'swarthy' is not really one of them. Just like for many years various Southern Europeans were called swarthy but not necessarily meaning they were as dark as Africans. And certainly in the "real world" a "swarthy" European is not going to be confused with a dark skinned African (ie black person).

    If Amazon wanted to put black people in Numenor then it is because it was a priority for them as a studio not because it was necessarily implied or intended by Tolkien when he wrote swarthy. Just like it was not intended that his description of some Edain as swarthy meant they were a melting pot of various extremely different phenotypes. It contradicts the point that these people being from the same general region would all generally look the same with some variation, but not extreme variation as implied by your use of the term "race" was my point. Because the historical usage of the term race is rooted into categorizing populations by their phenotype and lumping groups together based on certain traits of phenotype. It really wasn't scientific to begin with, but still generally grouped populations together in large regional clusters of shared "racial" characteristics.


    Quote Originally Posted by Adamas102 View Post
    Yes and no.

    Yes, I am fully aware that this is the realm of interpretation rather than simply expanding the sparse descriptions across every thing in the text that didn't get a description. No, the lore and Tolkien still matter since I'm rooting all my arguments in what is found in the text and said by the author in letters and interviews (often in response to questions about exactly what we're talking about).
    It is rooted in subjective interpretation of swarthy as meaning whatever you want it to mean and not even going by its historical usage in the English language. And Tolkien never described Miriel as being dark skinned with black hair, so this is not literally based on the source material.



    Quote Originally Posted by Adamas102 View Post
    It's ridiculous that you keep calling the actor "black" when as mixed heritage she's as black as she is white. It's another problematic issue stemming from how people in our real world see skin color and race. But no, I'm not saying that the House of Beor suggests someone that could look like someone plucked from the Somali bush, but the actor in question fits well within what could be considered "swarthy". And as I said in a prior post, I'm aware of how the Silmarillion describes Miriel, but when you take that text out of consideration (because it's not a source material for the show) the creators of the series have the optionality that the appendices gives them.
    They cast her due to her skin color and ancestry and the fact that she has much darker skin, which is normally called black, not "swarthy", as is common of those of African descent versus the skin color typical of Europeans. Which again proves the point that "everybody wasn't everywhere" in reality because there has never been a dark skinned queen in historical Europe, as that kind of dark skin is not typical in Europe among native Europeans. So it is hard to imagine a European writer like Tolkien imagining Miriel as a woman of this complexion, whether Amazon is only using the appendices or not. Again, they did this because that is what they wanted and not because of any serious attempt to represent what Tolkien wrote, because they just wanted a woman of her complexion in that role, whether or not it is "possible" in the Lore or not. And if they are only using the appendices and not everything else then nothing they produce is literally "cannon" because that "cannon" is defined in all the works of Tolkien and not just the appendices. Again, at the end of the day there is no point trying to add some kind of rationality to this based on lore or what "could" have been possible because that is not how Amazon looked at it. Like I said, if they really intended the Numenoreans to be a population of varied complexion due to them being of "mixed race" Edain heritage, you would see that across the entire population of Numenorans and not just this one woman, which is basically what it looks like from what we have seen so far.



    Quote Originally Posted by Adamas102 View Post
    I'd say that myths belong to the region, not the specific people who first created them. So for instance, I think it's perfectly fine for someone like Idris Elba, as a British man, to play Heimdall (assuming all the aliases of those northern Germanic deities are interchangeable, Wodan/Odin, Thunor/Thor, etc). We've already covered the point that Tolkien dropped the idea of Middle-earth being a "mythology of England" early on in his writings, but if you want to bring that back into the fold then I think it's even more reason to make Middle-earth that much more diverse in order to match the diversity in modern Britain. Like I said, these are the myths of the region and British myths belong to ALL Britons, not just the ones who happen to look similar to the people of 1,000 years ago.
    You are saying you like making up stuff based on your own interpretation. What you may think is perfectly fine has nothing to do with whether it reflects the reality of what the mythology intended was the point. This is the nonsense "anybody can be anywhere" theory of fiction which is not a reflection of the "real world". I as a reader of Asian mythology would not expect those characters to look like Europeans or Africans. Just like as a reader of Pacific Islander mythology, I would not expect them to look like Eskimos or Pakistanis. This is just absurd historical revisionism because the reality is that people of the Pacific never met Eskimos and wouldn't have known what they even looked like. Nor would they have met Africans or Europeans because "everybody wasn't everywhere". And likewise Norse Europeans writing a mythology for their own culture would not be writing about Africans or Asians either. So if you think Eldris Elba is fine as Heimdall it is a reflection of the fact that there are many non European populations that now are members of British society as a result of the last 500 years of history, not because they represent the make up of the indigenous population 1000 years ago as some "melting pot" of diversity, because it wasn't and everybody knows it. And certainly I don't see Tolkien as defining the characteristics of populations as based on 'everybody being everywhere' in terms of diversity either.
    Last edited by InfiniteCharger; 2022-08-13 at 01:56 PM.

  7. #2667
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    Quote Originally Posted by bledgor View Post
    Wasn't speaking to you mate, but if you want to make a shoe fit, all power to you.

    I am not pretending to be king, but certainly the stupid shit some people say to try and pretend RoP is even a tiny bit an accurate adaptation proves to even the most loose Tolkien fan that the people saying this shit are not Tolkien fans. I have literally listed dozens of issues within the 2 minute trailer, and 90% of the comments responding to it are "you just are racist and don't like black people" while ignoring 99% of the things I said.

    Also people weren't sitting there defending the Legolas shit like it was peak cinema/Tokien, it was scoffed at but because the movies were so good we hand waved it away.



    I mean there are dozens of pages of posts were people listed the dozens of issues they have with the show (which does include but is certainly not in the slightest limited to the black dwarf/elf casting) so while the past few days have generated a lot of pages of mostly talking about race, it is far from the only thing people are talking about.

    I have said it once, I will say it again, what gives others the right to bash the fans from wanting a (mostly) accurate Tolkien story? No sane person is asking for a 100% 1-1 adaptation, Jackson hit it out of the park and we know he wasn't 1-1, but the RoP aren't even close to Jackson in being faithful is the issue.

    "The show hasn't come out, how can you know?" well the trailers provide some, leaks provide others, and current Hollywood really seals the deal. Season 1 is going to pretty heavily deviate from Tolkien in so many ways that it can't be faithful, much like Rafe of Time.
    I am aware, I also listed my issues with the show, including overuse and reliability on CGI over practical effects (despite the fact I think the orcs looks awesome here) and the armour looking too clean and printed on. But its clear those arguments are being smothered by 'black man bad' arguments. Because I would love to discuss my reasons for being sceptical but who the fucks cares in this thread, only thing people care about is one black elf and one black dwarf. And that's okay on its own, but its like the main issue! And then you disguise it as 'amazon forcing diversity' like what does that even mean these days? Like its in everything grifters use, like woke and sjw, its lost all meaning. You get accused of pushing diversity when one trans person is given a role in a show these days.

    As you said, yes, there is way more to criticize. Can we put away the 'black man bad' arguments for like 50 pages now please? I aint here defending the show (I havent seen it), I am just tired of the same song and dance like its the only issue this show faces, or you would think so if some new comer cam to this thread.
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  8. #2668
    Quote Originally Posted by Orby View Post
    I am aware, I also listed my issues with the show, including overuse and reliability on CGI over practical effects (despite the fact I think the orcs looks awesome here) and the armour looking too clean and printed on. But its clear those arguments are being smothered by 'black man bad' arguments. Because I would love to discuss my reasons for being sceptical but who the fucks cares in this thread, only thing people care about is one black elf and one black dwarf. And that's okay on its own, but its like the main issue! And then you disguise it as 'amazon forcing diversity' like what does that even mean these days? Like its in everything grifters use, like woke and sjw, its lost all meaning. You get accused of pushing diversity when one trans person is given a role in a show these days.

    As you said, yes, there is way more to criticize. Can we put away the 'black man bad' arguments for like 50 pages now please? I aint here defending the show (I havent seen it), I am just tired of the same song and dance like its the only issue this show faces, or you would think so if some new comer cam to this thread.
    Ive said it once I will say it again, CGI should only be used to enhance what is there, not to replace/make things that aren't there, the abuse of CGI is one of the biggest degradation of media for me.
    Quote Originally Posted by Xarim View Post
    It's a strange and illogical world where not wanting your 10 year old daughter looking at female-identifying pre-op penises at the YMCA could feasibly be considered transphobic.

  9. #2669
    Quote Originally Posted by Orby View Post
    I am aware, I also listed my issues with the show, including overuse and reliability on CGI over practical effects (despite the fact I think the orcs looks awesome here) and the armour looking too clean and printed on. But its clear those arguments are being smothered by 'black man bad' arguments. Because I would love to discuss my reasons for being sceptical but who the fucks cares in this thread, only thing people care about is one black elf and one black dwarf. And that's okay on its own, but its like the main issue! And then you disguise it as 'amazon forcing diversity' like what does that even mean these days? Like its in everything grifters use, like woke and sjw, its lost all meaning. You get accused of pushing diversity when one trans person is given a role in a show these days.

    As you said, yes, there is way more to criticize. Can we put away the 'black man bad' arguments for like 50 pages now please? I aint here defending the show (I havent seen it), I am just tired of the same song and dance like its the only issue this show faces, or you would think so if some new comer cam to this thread.
    They didn't lose any meaning you are simply frustrated on their honed accuracy. It's a massive red flag when any production pushes it over the actual plot.

    Becoming increasingly annoyed that " grifters" as you call them are correct should lead to you being more critical of token actors.

  10. #2670
    Quote Originally Posted by Orby View Post
    You mean deaf? 'are you deaf'. If I cannot hear something that would make me deaf, not blind.
    I see this post and all i get from it is "you are right, i was wrong".

  11. #2671
    Quote Originally Posted by Orby View Post
    As you said, yes, there is way more to criticize. Can we put away the 'black man bad' arguments for like 50 pages now please? I aint here defending the show (I havent seen it), I am just tired of the same song and dance like its the only issue this show faces, or you would think so if some new comer cam to this thread.
    That's probably simply a result of the show, well, not being out yet. There isn't that much else to talk about because we haven't seen enough.

    CGI is a tricky thing to discuss outside of the actual show, because both promotional stills and trailers tend to not accurately reflect how it'll end up working for the actual show in the end. Both because sometimes CGI isn't finished when we see it in promos, and because CGI is contingent on integration into a larger visual whole, and something that may look weird if you only see it in a 3-second shot or a single picture might actually not feel that bad in a 50-minute episode. Or it might still be grating, of course, and not work at all. The point is, we don't really know until we see it.

    I'm with you on the skepticism - I'm very anxious about how this aesthetic and level of CGI will actually end up working, or rather, NOT working. But until I see it in action I can't say that much about it other than exactly this: I'm scared, and I'm apprehensive, and I'll have to wait and see.

  12. #2672
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    Quote Originally Posted by Celement View Post
    They didn't lose any meaning you are simply frustrated on their honed accuracy. It's a massive red flag when any production pushes it over the actual plot.

    Becoming increasingly annoyed that " grifters" as you call them are correct should lead to you being more critical of token actors.
    No one is right because the show isn't even out yet lol. But I guess it doesn't have to be, I guess people like you have made your mind up already. Rather than give it a chance when its out.

    I think its safe to say we know its not going to be faithful to the books. so people spurting this like they just found out when we all know the material they are working with they don't have the rights to. so we knew this from the get go, what we now need to find out is what they intend to do with what they don't have, and that's something worth discussing.


    Quote Originally Posted by ClassicPeon View Post
    I see this post and all i get from it is "you are right, i was wrong".
    In case of the quote I am. As for the show, none of us know. I could be singing a different tune after the show is over. But we know little outside of the trailers right now.
    Last edited by Orby; 2022-08-13 at 03:35 PM.
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  13. #2673
    Quote Originally Posted by Orby View Post
    No one is right because the show isn't even out yet lol. But I guess it doesn't have to be, I guess people like you have made your mind up already. Rather than give it a chance when its out.

    I think its safe to say we know its not going to be faithful to the series, so people spurting this like they just found out when we all know the material they are working with they don't have the rights to. so we knew this from the get go, what we now to to find out is what they intend to do with what they don't have, and that's something worth discussing.




    In case of the quote I am. As for the show, none of us know. I could be singing a different tune after the show is over. But we know little outside of the trailers right now.
    If the show is good - the show is good and i'l watch it. With the current direction i have my doubts however.

    After the boys and invincible i was kinda hoping amazon would stay away from wokeness.

  14. #2674
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    Quote Originally Posted by ClassicPeon View Post
    If the show is good - the show is good and i'l watch it. With the current direction i have my doubts however.

    After the boys and invincible i was kinda hoping amazon would stay away from wokeness.
    the word 'woke' has no meaning anymore. Its so misused. I would ask people to tell me what woke actually means or its purpose but we are using the internets so you'll all just look it up anyway. The term woke isn't bad to anyone. 'Woke' isn't casting a trans character in a show you like, 'woke' isn't race swapping characters, and woke isn't about forced diversity. Woke was a term that isn't even new, as black Americans used to use the word when fighting against racism and the social injustices in the 1940's. The term like a lot of terms over time has shifted and in this case to be weaponised against the very people they used to use it against.
    Last edited by Orby; 2022-08-13 at 04:26 PM.
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  15. #2675
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    Quote Originally Posted by ClassicPeon View Post
    If the show is good - the show is good and i'l watch it. With the current direction i have my doubts however.

    After the boys and invincible i was kinda hoping amazon would stay away from wokeness.
    Both those shows are fine, Invincible is definitely a lot better and I thought some aspects of The Boys seasons 2 and 3 were kinda shite, but it was still entertaining. Shows can be woke and be entertaining, so I'm gonna hard disagree. I just don't expect this show to be anywhere in the ballpark of being interesting considering the IP that is being used.

    The only thing "woke" about Invincible was that they race swapped Mark's girlfriend and that she's a social justice activist.
    Last edited by Rennadrel; 2022-08-13 at 04:10 PM.

  16. #2676
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rennadrel View Post
    Both those shows are fine, Invincible is definitely a lot better and I thought some aspects of The Boys seasons 2 and 3 were kinda shite, but it was still entertaining. Shows can be woke and be entertaining, so I'm gonna hard disagree. I just don't expect this show to be anywhere in the ballpark of being interesting considering the IP that is being used.

    The only thing "woke" about Invincible was that they race swapped Mark's girlfriend and that she's a social justice activist.
    I had no real issue with that, the onyl issue I had was she came off as a bit of an asshole towards the end of the show towards mark. Although I put that down to her being a teen and teens are generally selfish so maybe it was realistic :P
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  17. #2677
    Quote Originally Posted by Orby View Post
    the word 'woke' has no meaning anymore. Its so misused. I would ask people to tell me what woke actually means or its purpose but we are using the internets so you'll all just look it up anyway. The term woke isn't bad to anyone. 'Woke' isn't casting a trans character in a show you like, 'woke' isn't race swapping characters, and woke isn't about forced diversity. Woke was a term that isn't even new, as black Americans used to use the word when fighting against racism and the social injustices in the 1940's. The term like a lot of terms over time has shifted and in this case to be weaponised against the very people they used to use it against.
    I'm mainly using it in the definition of the word and not as a slur - although i do tend to look at that word with a negative opinion but thats just my subjective take.

    Its an umbrella term for lgtb+ diversity and inclusivity but in rather radical ways(if you ask me).

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Rennadrel View Post
    Both those shows are fine, Invincible is definitely a lot better and I thought some aspects of The Boys seasons 2 and 3 were kinda shite, but it was still entertaining. Shows can be woke and be entertaining, so I'm gonna hard disagree. I just don't expect this show to be anywhere in the ballpark of being interesting considering the IP that is being used.

    The only thing "woke" about Invincible was that they race swapped Mark's girlfriend and that she's a social justice activist.
    Oh but thats exactly what i meant - sorry if it didnt come off like that.

    I dont mind diversity in shows - just not diversity for hte sake of diversity.

    So i thought with shows like the boys and invincible(not really anything to do with woke but more as in an adult and graphical direction) that i had found a streaming service that really catered to my needs and wants.

  18. #2678
    Quote Originally Posted by ClassicPeon View Post
    I dont mind diversity in shows - just not diversity for hte sake of diversity.
    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.

  19. #2679
    Quote Originally Posted by Biomega View Post
    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
    Last edited by Triceron; 2022-08-13 at 05:10 PM.

  20. #2680
    Quote Originally Posted by Sialina View Post
    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.

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