That PTSD-stricken Elf is one missed meal away from completely losing it
September 9, 2022 9:32 AM Subscribe
Pajiba: "I think J. R. R. Tolkien, enemy of industrialization and pointless waste, would find Musk more unbearable than Elon finds his characters."
BoLS: "No, casting a white actor as Black Panther is not the same as casting a Black actor as a non-canonical Elf created just for a TV series."
FanFare is also discussing The Rings of Power!
BoLS: "No, casting a white actor as Black Panther is not the same as casting a Black actor as a non-canonical Elf created just for a TV series."
FanFare is also discussing The Rings of Power!
It's worth drilling in a bit on Musk's stated reason for not liking it
posted by Nelson at 9:39 AM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both. Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice.I don't think he's said the racist part, at least not out loud. But that comment alone is appalling enough. (Also ignorant, it's not clear he even watched the show to come away with that opinion.)
posted by Nelson at 9:39 AM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
The second link quotes one of Neil Gaiman's tweets in response to the backlash - but failed to mention that one of the people responding to him read him the riot act for thinking he knew better than what Tolkein wanted! He was just a SJW, obviously.
Neil's sarcastic response to that was a tweet that basically said: "Okay, you win. I promise that from this day forward I will not make any episodes of THE RINGS OF POWER."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:42 AM on September 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
Neil's sarcastic response to that was a tweet that basically said: "Okay, you win. I promise that from this day forward I will not make any episodes of THE RINGS OF POWER."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:42 AM on September 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
I, for one, welcome this cross-posting of FanFare to the Blue. FanFare doesn't get enough attention!
posted by chavenet at 9:47 AM on September 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 9:47 AM on September 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
Gaiman Tweet in question.
He's been entertainingly salty about all this backlash. I've often been ambivalent about his celebrity chief nerd persona, but at least he uses his powers for good!
posted by mark k at 9:49 AM on September 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
He's been entertainingly salty about all this backlash. I've often been ambivalent about his celebrity chief nerd persona, but at least he uses his powers for good!
posted by mark k at 9:49 AM on September 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
non-canonical Elf
I just....everything is too stupid anymore.
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 9:51 AM on September 9, 2022 [23 favorites]
I just....everything is too stupid anymore.
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 9:51 AM on September 9, 2022 [23 favorites]
Like, people who enjoy fantasy with fantastical elements (dragons, elves, or whateverthefuck) but cannot wrap their heads around a black elf or hell, any person of colour in those fantasy worlds, is one of the most idiotic missing the point things I have ever seen.
posted by Kitteh at 9:57 AM on September 9, 2022 [19 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 9:57 AM on September 9, 2022 [19 favorites]
I've often been ambivalent about his celebrity chief nerd persona, but at least he uses his powers for good!
You've suddenly got me wondering - has Stephen Colbert weighed in on the non-canonical elf issue yet? (It's pretty obvious he's all in on the series existing in general.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:58 AM on September 9, 2022
You've suddenly got me wondering - has Stephen Colbert weighed in on the non-canonical elf issue yet? (It's pretty obvious he's all in on the series existing in general.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:58 AM on September 9, 2022
"brave, smart and nice"
Are you 5 years old, Elon?
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:02 AM on September 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
Are you 5 years old, Elon?
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:02 AM on September 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
Elon Musk is so incomprehensibly rich that he could be doing anything he wants with his copious free time. And he chooses to shit post on Twitter.
Wealth is wasted on the rich.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:02 AM on September 9, 2022 [23 favorites]
Wealth is wasted on the rich.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:02 AM on September 9, 2022 [23 favorites]
To paraphrase:
"If seeing Black people in science fiction/fantasy ruins science fiction/fantasy for you, thank you for explaining why you enjoy science fiction."
posted by lalochezia at 10:05 AM on September 9, 2022 [30 favorites]
"If seeing Black people in science fiction/fantasy ruins science fiction/fantasy for you, thank you for explaining why you enjoy science fiction."
posted by lalochezia at 10:05 AM on September 9, 2022 [30 favorites]
To quote Marlon James:
"If the shire was multi-racial nobody would have cared. Everyone would have just moved on. My friend's response was 'The Lord of the Rings, it's based on Celtic mythology. It's European.' And I was like 'Lord of the Rings isn't real. You can do whatever you want with it.' And then I was like, 'You know what, I'm getting tired. Keep your hobbits.'"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:06 AM on September 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
"If the shire was multi-racial nobody would have cared. Everyone would have just moved on. My friend's response was 'The Lord of the Rings, it's based on Celtic mythology. It's European.' And I was like 'Lord of the Rings isn't real. You can do whatever you want with it.' And then I was like, 'You know what, I'm getting tired. Keep your hobbits.'"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:06 AM on September 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
I'm a little frustrated that the best Elijah Wood et al can do is wear shirts that say "You are welcome here" in a made-up script and add hashtags to their twitter posts. It'd be nice if one of them would be bold enough to just say "Hey, fuck you and your stupid racism."
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:09 AM on September 9, 2022
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:09 AM on September 9, 2022
Well, maybe Elijah Wood and friends were trying to say what they were _for_ rather than repeating what they were _against_. The thing you repeat, whether it's the thing you like or the thing you hate, gains more currency and normalcy. If you repeat the thing you hate more than the thing you love, then the thing you hate ends up taking up your and others' thoughts, leaving less, or no, room for the creative and hard work needed to build up the thing you love.
posted by amtho at 10:23 AM on September 9, 2022 [36 favorites]
posted by amtho at 10:23 AM on September 9, 2022 [36 favorites]
My favorite tweet about this racist stupidity was from actor David Harewood: I remember when I played Lord Asriel in @PhilipPullman's brilliant His Dark Materials at the National Theatre years ago and an usher told me an audience member couldn't handle the fact that I was black. I asked the usher "Did she mention anything about the talking Polar Bear?"
posted by ceejaytee at 10:26 AM on September 9, 2022 [53 favorites]
posted by ceejaytee at 10:26 AM on September 9, 2022 [53 favorites]
If I may offer an opinion: I think it would have been OK if the Quenyan elves were portrayed as "fair" while the Sindarian elves were darker. The elves have a complicated history in Middle Earth and having one group look different from the other would have conveyed that.
Regarding the Harfoots (or, perhaps more correctly, Harfeet), given that they are migratory, it only makes sense that a given community will have members collected from different parts of the continent. In fact, I wondered if a Harfoot community has an upper limit to how many members can belong to it. It's hard to stay hidden if the group gets too big. (The Efrafa scenario.) Harfoot collectives may break up and merge all the time, perhaps as often as every season.
posted by SPrintF at 10:26 AM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
Regarding the Harfoots (or, perhaps more correctly, Harfeet), given that they are migratory, it only makes sense that a given community will have members collected from different parts of the continent. In fact, I wondered if a Harfoot community has an upper limit to how many members can belong to it. It's hard to stay hidden if the group gets too big. (The Efrafa scenario.) Harfoot collectives may break up and merge all the time, perhaps as often as every season.
posted by SPrintF at 10:26 AM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
As a friend pointed out, Cheddar Man (who lived about 9000 years ago) had dark skin. The appearance of light skin among northern Europeans was relatively recent. So if LOTR is depicting a fantasy version of British pre-history, more of the cast should probably be dark-skinned.
I mean, yeah, sure, I get it, fantasies of the past are often not "the past, plus fantastic elements" but "an idealized misrepresentation what the past was like." And if that's the fantasy of the past you want LOTR to be, and you specifically idealize an all-white past, then the above argument won't do anything to convince you.
My own feeling is that it's weird for human ethnic divisions to be reflected among elves, dwarves, and hobbits. Those non-human races shouldn't map comfortably to any of our ethnic groups.
posted by adamrice at 10:28 AM on September 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
I mean, yeah, sure, I get it, fantasies of the past are often not "the past, plus fantastic elements" but "an idealized misrepresentation what the past was like." And if that's the fantasy of the past you want LOTR to be, and you specifically idealize an all-white past, then the above argument won't do anything to convince you.
My own feeling is that it's weird for human ethnic divisions to be reflected among elves, dwarves, and hobbits. Those non-human races shouldn't map comfortably to any of our ethnic groups.
posted by adamrice at 10:28 AM on September 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
The Harfoots are a whole different problem. The Irish Times: The new hobbits are filthy, hungry simpletons with stage-Irish accents.
The accents embark on a wild journey from Donegal to Kerry and then stop off in inner-city Dublin. The harfoots themselves are twee and guileless and say things like: “Put yer backs into it, lads.” One is portrayed by Lenny Henry, a great comedian and actor who deserves better than having to deliver lines such as “De both of ye, dis does not bode will” (in an appalling Irish accent). Scouring the internet, there is no evidence of any Irish actors having been involved.posted by Nelson at 10:38 AM on September 9, 2022 [13 favorites]
It needs more dwarves.
posted by oddman at 10:41 AM on September 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by oddman at 10:41 AM on September 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Nelson, thanks for posting that link.
According to the show’s Australian dialect coach, the accents are intended to be “familiar but different” – and the harfoots are meant to have an “Irish base to their accent”, but they do not speak as though they’ve walked out of a “particular cross street in Dublin”.posted by spamandkimchi at 10:44 AM on September 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
The portrayal of “Irish” characters as pre-industrial and childlike – simpletons, really – threads neatly into the Anglosphere’s rich tapestry of disdain for Celtic peoples. It brings us all the way back to the 70s – the 1870s. There’s an early scene in which we see the harfoots, wearing filthy rags, scrabble in the ground for food. What is this, Famine cosplay?
posted by flamewise at 10:53 AM on September 9, 2022
"If seeing Black people in science fiction/fantasy ruins science fiction/fantasy for you, thank you for explaining why you enjoy science fiction."
Exactly right, exactly right. When decidedly non-Roman British actors are cast as Romans, like the legionaries in the show Rome, nobody blinks an eye.
But god forbid any non-white actors are cast in a fantasy show.
posted by ishmael at 11:03 AM on September 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
Exactly right, exactly right. When decidedly non-Roman British actors are cast as Romans, like the legionaries in the show Rome, nobody blinks an eye.
But god forbid any non-white actors are cast in a fantasy show.
posted by ishmael at 11:03 AM on September 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
According to the show’s Australian dialect coach, the accents are intended to be “familiar but different”
I think they've done a decent job with most of the characters, they're consistent and good approximations of different English accents but the Oirish accents are standout dreadful. Noticeably, distractingly bad in every scene. Have they met any real Irish people?
posted by biffa at 11:14 AM on September 9, 2022
I think they've done a decent job with most of the characters, they're consistent and good approximations of different English accents but the Oirish accents are standout dreadful. Noticeably, distractingly bad in every scene. Have they met any real Irish people?
posted by biffa at 11:14 AM on September 9, 2022
Having David Boreanaz doing "Angelus" as their voice coach was in retrospect possibly ill-considered.
posted by Shepherd at 11:21 AM on September 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Shepherd at 11:21 AM on September 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
And then I was like, 'You know what, I'm getting tired. Keep your hobbits.'
Q: You know why the CIA trusts them with state secrets?
A: Because hobbits are hard to break.
posted by chavenet at 11:29 AM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
Q: You know why the CIA trusts them with state secrets?
A: Because hobbits are hard to break.
posted by chavenet at 11:29 AM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
Elon Musk is so incomprehensibly rich that he could be doing anything he wants with his copious free time. And he chooses to shit post on Twitter.
Vinny Thomas: I know for a fact money doesn’t buy happiness because these billionaires are on here tweeting just like the rest of us
posted by Lexica at 12:14 PM on September 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
Vinny Thomas: I know for a fact money doesn’t buy happiness because these billionaires are on here tweeting just like the rest of us
posted by Lexica at 12:14 PM on September 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
When decidedly non-Roman British actors are cast as Romans, like the legionaries in the show Rome, nobody blinks an eye.
As mentioned in the Irish Times, it’s the British class system again. For whatever reason this is translated, nearly untouched, time and time again, accents included, into fantasy, SF, historical drama, even modern period pieces like Chernobyl.
I don’t have any particularly good explanation for why, but one of the (many) annoying aspects is how often it is used uncritically and left uninterrogated.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:34 PM on September 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
As mentioned in the Irish Times, it’s the British class system again. For whatever reason this is translated, nearly untouched, time and time again, accents included, into fantasy, SF, historical drama, even modern period pieces like Chernobyl.
I don’t have any particularly good explanation for why, but one of the (many) annoying aspects is how often it is used uncritically and left uninterrogated.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:34 PM on September 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
The whole faux-Irish thing is really bothering me. From the bonkers accents, vaguely Traveller flourishes and echos of the Star Trek TNG Quiet Man stoic Hibernian. And don’t get me started on soundtrack. Just pasting some generic tin whistle does not make something Irish or Celtic or whatever. It doesn’t need to be that hard. I mean, was Davy Spillane busy or something?
posted by misterpatrick at 12:36 PM on September 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by misterpatrick at 12:36 PM on September 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
the British class system again. For whatever reason this is translated, nearly untouched, time and time again, accents included, into fantasy, SF, historical drama, even modern period pieces like Chernobyl
Which accent is the High Fantasy Person Being Serious, to a Brit? Has it always been a theatrical accent? My hypothesis is that our confusion is because it's also a register, and modern society has given up that register almost completely and we only have theatrical examples and the US+UK probably chose a high class British accent in 1870 repertory and haven't ever switched.
The only similar register I can think of in the US are a couple kinds of preaching. But that can happen in any accent, and be non-religious, though it often has KJV-influenced grammar for historical reasons. In subbed Chinese movies, it seems to often come across in a four-character rhythm. (Poetry? Apophthegms? Formal register?)
posted by clew at 1:22 PM on September 9, 2022
Which accent is the High Fantasy Person Being Serious, to a Brit? Has it always been a theatrical accent? My hypothesis is that our confusion is because it's also a register, and modern society has given up that register almost completely and we only have theatrical examples and the US+UK probably chose a high class British accent in 1870 repertory and haven't ever switched.
The only similar register I can think of in the US are a couple kinds of preaching. But that can happen in any accent, and be non-religious, though it often has KJV-influenced grammar for historical reasons. In subbed Chinese movies, it seems to often come across in a four-character rhythm. (Poetry? Apophthegms? Formal register?)
posted by clew at 1:22 PM on September 9, 2022
Color-blind casting, folks. It's a thing and it's no big deal. Maybe we need accent-random casting too.
posted by chavenet at 1:34 PM on September 9, 2022
posted by chavenet at 1:34 PM on September 9, 2022
"We don't like Black elves!"
"What about Drizzt?"
"... that's not the same."
Sigh. Idiots.
posted by SunSnork at 1:58 PM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
"What about Drizzt?"
"... that's not the same."
Sigh. Idiots.
posted by SunSnork at 1:58 PM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
maybe Elijah Wood and friends were trying to say what they were _for_ rather than repeating what they were _against_. The thing you repeat, whether it's the thing you like or the thing you hate, gains more currency and normalcy. If you repeat the thing you hate more than the thing you love, then the thing you hate ends up taking up your and others' thoughts, leaving less, or no, room for the creative and hard work needed to build up the thing you love.
Well, maybe, but this seems a bit too much like saying "let's hold hands and sing kumbaya to solve institutional racism." Sure, positivity is a great thing, but when have positive sentiments -- especially when expressed in the form of milquetoast hashtags on twitter -- ever solved an actual problem? Is this really all that different from the outpouring of thoughts and prayers after a mass shooting?
Don't get me wrong, I am glad that they are the right side here. But I see little evidence of Amazon or Elijah Wood or whoever actually doing any of that "creative and hard work needed to build up the thing you love." I'd argue that racism must be confronted directly, and all the nice welcoming sentiments in the world aren't going to do that, no matter how many times they are repeated.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:03 PM on September 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Well, maybe, but this seems a bit too much like saying "let's hold hands and sing kumbaya to solve institutional racism." Sure, positivity is a great thing, but when have positive sentiments -- especially when expressed in the form of milquetoast hashtags on twitter -- ever solved an actual problem? Is this really all that different from the outpouring of thoughts and prayers after a mass shooting?
Don't get me wrong, I am glad that they are the right side here. But I see little evidence of Amazon or Elijah Wood or whoever actually doing any of that "creative and hard work needed to build up the thing you love." I'd argue that racism must be confronted directly, and all the nice welcoming sentiments in the world aren't going to do that, no matter how many times they are repeated.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:03 PM on September 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
"We don't like Black elves!"
"What about Drizzt?"
"... that's not the same."
Sigh. Idiots.
It's worth noting that until recently (and by recently I mean the last year or two) that D&D made their dark elves canonically evil, aside from a handful of known major characters.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:18 PM on September 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
"What about Drizzt?"
"... that's not the same."
Sigh. Idiots.
It's worth noting that until recently (and by recently I mean the last year or two) that D&D made their dark elves canonically evil, aside from a handful of known major characters.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:18 PM on September 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
Like, people who enjoy fantasy with fantastical elements (dragons, elves, or whateverthefuck) but cannot wrap their heads around a black elf or hell, any person of colour in those fantasy worlds, is one of the most idiotic missing the point things I have ever seen.
I don't think anyone who is rational (and certainly there are plenty of fantasy/sci-fi fans who are not rational) has a problem with making any character any race so long as the world building supports it. It's also okay to say that we don't want to break the world-building of a property just for the sake of diverse casting.
Now, if the world we're using for IP doesn't support other races, then that's an entirely different conversation altogether, and we should choose some different, not-so-racist sources for intellectual property. And we should also be okay to say that.
posted by parliboy at 2:26 PM on September 9, 2022
I don't think anyone who is rational (and certainly there are plenty of fantasy/sci-fi fans who are not rational) has a problem with making any character any race so long as the world building supports it. It's also okay to say that we don't want to break the world-building of a property just for the sake of diverse casting.
Now, if the world we're using for IP doesn't support other races, then that's an entirely different conversation altogether, and we should choose some different, not-so-racist sources for intellectual property. And we should also be okay to say that.
posted by parliboy at 2:26 PM on September 9, 2022
"Color-blind casting" makes me a little uncomfortable, because it sounds a bit too like "I don't see color." To truly present diversity, you need to present different sorts of folks (across color, across race, across class, across wealth) actually finding common cause across their differences. Treating color like a hair style or a clothing option feels like erasure to me.
posted by SPrintF at 2:53 PM on September 9, 2022
posted by SPrintF at 2:53 PM on September 9, 2022
Saxon Kane: Not everybody has to do the same thing. I certainly wouldn't recommend that _nobody_ say "racism is bad", or "X thing is racist". But if plenty of other people are already saying it, and someone (maybe an actor) has a talent for being likeable and making things seem worthy and positive, why not let that person focus on positive things? In fact, why not encourage it? The people who are ready to do the hard work will have a hard time persevering if everything in their lives is about awfulness.
posted by amtho at 2:57 PM on September 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by amtho at 2:57 PM on September 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
To truly present diversity, you need to present different sorts of folks (across color, across race, across class, across wealth) actually finding common cause across their differences.
As if to form a Fellowship, if you will.
posted by linux at 2:58 PM on September 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
As if to form a Fellowship, if you will.
posted by linux at 2:58 PM on September 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
Metafilter - blue elf needs food badly
posted by Chuffy at 3:46 PM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Chuffy at 3:46 PM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
Um, are they forgetting that LOTR does, in fact, engage with race -- there's an implicit moral geography in the books themselves, and the bad guys are always black/dark/swarthy. Not quite as bad as the Calormen in Narnia, but still.
This carries into the Peter Jackson adaptations, which are pretty amazing overall, but it was extremely disappointing to see the Haradim portrayed as Stereotypical Evil Arabs. (Remember, too, these came out right after Sept 11; there was even discussion of whether they were going to change the title of The Two Towers because of it.) Like, yeah, there's a Fellowship, but to the viewer, it's a Fellowship across class (Elves = nobility, Men = middle-class, Dwarves = industrial working-class, Hobbits = farmers) rather than race in any meaningful sense of the word.
Which is to say that the folks getting all het up about a Black Elf are really reacting to their cognitive dissonance that a Black person could socially outrank a white person. And instead of unpacking that, they're whining about how they think there weren't any people of color in the source material. (Narrator voice: there were.)
posted by basalganglia at 4:02 PM on September 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
This carries into the Peter Jackson adaptations, which are pretty amazing overall, but it was extremely disappointing to see the Haradim portrayed as Stereotypical Evil Arabs. (Remember, too, these came out right after Sept 11; there was even discussion of whether they were going to change the title of The Two Towers because of it.) Like, yeah, there's a Fellowship, but to the viewer, it's a Fellowship across class (Elves = nobility, Men = middle-class, Dwarves = industrial working-class, Hobbits = farmers) rather than race in any meaningful sense of the word.
Which is to say that the folks getting all het up about a Black Elf are really reacting to their cognitive dissonance that a Black person could socially outrank a white person. And instead of unpacking that, they're whining about how they think there weren't any people of color in the source material. (Narrator voice: there were.)
posted by basalganglia at 4:02 PM on September 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
Prolly covered here before, but Bill Gaines editing EC comics took the comics code to task fot being threatened for featuring a gorgeously drawn sci-fi story that featured a black astronaut.
posted by lkc at 5:40 PM on September 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by lkc at 5:40 PM on September 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
oh, and the blackity blackness of the character was irrelevant, just that he was human.
posted by lkc at 5:41 PM on September 9, 2022
posted by lkc at 5:41 PM on September 9, 2022
That's a great comic, lkc, thank you for posting it. But I'd argue that the Blackness of the character is the whole point -- the story is an anvilicious critique of then-current US segregation, and at the end the reader finds out that the critic is himself Black. This, in the era of Amos n Andy. The story wouldn't have the same impact on the reader is the astronaut were some generic white dude. (Sounds like the comics code people tried to get him to make the astronaut white, and he refused.)
Also, a kid from West Philly, about 12 years old at the time (i.e. target age for sci-fi comics), grew up to become the first African-American astronaut for real, which is pretty dang cool.
posted by basalganglia at 4:56 AM on September 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
Also, a kid from West Philly, about 12 years old at the time (i.e. target age for sci-fi comics), grew up to become the first African-American astronaut for real, which is pretty dang cool.
posted by basalganglia at 4:56 AM on September 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
"Oh no! Not another non-canonical fucking elf!"
posted by loquacious at 6:23 AM on September 10, 2022
posted by loquacious at 6:23 AM on September 10, 2022
I would like to think that most viewers understand that art grows or it dies and that using LOTR material to tell stories that engage a wider contemporary audience is infinitely better for LOTR itself than using the material to tell little stunted pallid stories about blandly heroic white men.
If LOTR exists in the popular consciousness mainly as a generic proto-Europe where white peoples duke it out with intrinsic evil while racist stereotypes menace them from the borders then it will become less and less distinct from any other high fantasy and less and less interesting to anyone but nerd-variant chuds and historians of the genre. There's lots of forgotten fantasy that was a big deal in its day but is now of merely academic interest.
Pulling out alternative and counter-readings, using LOTR to tell stories that engage more people, digging in for the odd little moments - that's what keeps the books alive. The chuds, as usual, are necrophiles who would rather have a rotting, decaying culture shambling around, bits dropping off, than run the risk of a living culture that they can't predict.
I'm not the world's biggest fan of infinite sequels and honestly what I've seen of Rings of Power seems just so-so, but what's good in it is definitely the use of the source material to create a more expansive world.
posted by Frowner at 6:36 AM on September 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
If LOTR exists in the popular consciousness mainly as a generic proto-Europe where white peoples duke it out with intrinsic evil while racist stereotypes menace them from the borders then it will become less and less distinct from any other high fantasy and less and less interesting to anyone but nerd-variant chuds and historians of the genre. There's lots of forgotten fantasy that was a big deal in its day but is now of merely academic interest.
Pulling out alternative and counter-readings, using LOTR to tell stories that engage more people, digging in for the odd little moments - that's what keeps the books alive. The chuds, as usual, are necrophiles who would rather have a rotting, decaying culture shambling around, bits dropping off, than run the risk of a living culture that they can't predict.
I'm not the world's biggest fan of infinite sequels and honestly what I've seen of Rings of Power seems just so-so, but what's good in it is definitely the use of the source material to create a more expansive world.
posted by Frowner at 6:36 AM on September 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
I also love FanFare and wish it saw more activity. I've discovered some fun and interesting content on that part of MeFi. I suggest that everyone go check it out. And post and comment!
I'm enjoying the new LotR series on Amazon. It's not super amazing perfect. But it looks really good and at least has an emerging spirit and identity of its own and doesn't feel like a spin off of something else. I look forward to more episodes. Any tale this sprawling is going to need a great bit of setup. It's not surprising to me that it hasn't (yet) grasped me by my TeeVee Critic lapels and shaken me to my core.
It's a fun fantasy show. If you want something profound and deep, there's all kinds of Great Literature and Serious Films out there that you are free to consume in its stead! Meanwhile, join us over at FanFare.
posted by SoberHighland at 6:37 AM on September 10, 2022
I'm enjoying the new LotR series on Amazon. It's not super amazing perfect. But it looks really good and at least has an emerging spirit and identity of its own and doesn't feel like a spin off of something else. I look forward to more episodes. Any tale this sprawling is going to need a great bit of setup. It's not surprising to me that it hasn't (yet) grasped me by my TeeVee Critic lapels and shaken me to my core.
It's a fun fantasy show. If you want something profound and deep, there's all kinds of Great Literature and Serious Films out there that you are free to consume in its stead! Meanwhile, join us over at FanFare.
posted by SoberHighland at 6:37 AM on September 10, 2022
A lot of people put weight on the fact that Tolkien, by the standards of a politically inactive English don who did no work on the topic, was anti-racism. That's good, but to be perfectly honest, I do think he'd mind if the Elves weren't pearly white as per spec.
The thing is: I don't care. Or rather, I've made the choice not to find that crucial any longer. It's not as important as giving good actors good work, creating new ideas and visions, and representation. If you're the kind of person who thinks "woke" is an insult, then that's what you'd call it, but it's not even that entirely. It's better art. It's more interesting. It's more whole.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:56 AM on September 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
The thing is: I don't care. Or rather, I've made the choice not to find that crucial any longer. It's not as important as giving good actors good work, creating new ideas and visions, and representation. If you're the kind of person who thinks "woke" is an insult, then that's what you'd call it, but it's not even that entirely. It's better art. It's more interesting. It's more whole.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:56 AM on September 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
"Color-blind casting" makes me a little uncomfortable, because it sounds a bit too like "I don't see color." To truly present diversity, you need to present different sorts of folks (across color, across race, across class, across wealth) actually finding common cause across their differences. Treating color like a hair style or a clothing option feels like erasure to me.
I think N K Jemison (?) made a similar point and I doubt she's the only one.
But, what does it mean to be a black hobbit or elf? Does it have meaning to them? What about in the moderately diverse world of The Expanse? What's more important, that you are dark-skinned or that you are fourth generation Martian? Is "belter" a race? Or Bridgerton, where the creators said "Eh, it's set in a parallel universe England that is and always has been multi-racial. Oh, and everyone is super-hot". Is that good? Bad? Missing the point? Walking straight up to the point and nuzzling its neck?
Honestly, haven't a clue. As your standard-issue white dude I'm fairly sure my input is not required, but it seems to me that even if the art itself doesn't deal with the racial issues, a lot of non-white actors are getting jobs that they might not have gotten ten years ago and that's got to be a good thing.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:23 AM on September 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think N K Jemison (?) made a similar point and I doubt she's the only one.
But, what does it mean to be a black hobbit or elf? Does it have meaning to them? What about in the moderately diverse world of The Expanse? What's more important, that you are dark-skinned or that you are fourth generation Martian? Is "belter" a race? Or Bridgerton, where the creators said "Eh, it's set in a parallel universe England that is and always has been multi-racial. Oh, and everyone is super-hot". Is that good? Bad? Missing the point? Walking straight up to the point and nuzzling its neck?
Honestly, haven't a clue. As your standard-issue white dude I'm fairly sure my input is not required, but it seems to me that even if the art itself doesn't deal with the racial issues, a lot of non-white actors are getting jobs that they might not have gotten ten years ago and that's got to be a good thing.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:23 AM on September 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
it was extremely disappointing to see the Haradim portrayed as Stereotypical Evil Arabs
There are some brief moral statements I roped on to in LOTR as a child, and one of them is Sam and Frodo being scared by the Haradrim but agreeing that they are merely human at home and are also victims of the long evil. Did that make it into the movie? Is it weaker than I remember?
posted by clew at 10:22 AM on September 10, 2022
There are some brief moral statements I roped on to in LOTR as a child, and one of them is Sam and Frodo being scared by the Haradrim but agreeing that they are merely human at home and are also victims of the long evil. Did that make it into the movie? Is it weaker than I remember?
posted by clew at 10:22 AM on September 10, 2022
I don't wholeheartedly endorse Tolkien's value system, lol.
Still, it seems obvious to me that Elon is the opposite of a hobbit, and in fact his career is filled with stuff that the pastoralist, anti-progress Tolkien would regard as satanic. For example, Neuralink is one of the the most obviously satanic technologies in the mainstream. Even if (as seems likely) it never actually does anything, the tremendous cruelty done to its experimental subjects (so far, pigs and monkeys) in service of its nature-negating aspirations is already a monument to evil.
So for Elon to take this purist pose ostensibly on behalf of Tolkien is like Saruman making a speech for "traditional Shire values."
Irl of course it's just culture war bullshit and dog whistle racism and brand-building but the irony stings.
posted by grobstein at 10:45 AM on September 10, 2022
Still, it seems obvious to me that Elon is the opposite of a hobbit, and in fact his career is filled with stuff that the pastoralist, anti-progress Tolkien would regard as satanic. For example, Neuralink is one of the the most obviously satanic technologies in the mainstream. Even if (as seems likely) it never actually does anything, the tremendous cruelty done to its experimental subjects (so far, pigs and monkeys) in service of its nature-negating aspirations is already a monument to evil.
So for Elon to take this purist pose ostensibly on behalf of Tolkien is like Saruman making a speech for "traditional Shire values."
Irl of course it's just culture war bullshit and dog whistle racism and brand-building but the irony stings.
posted by grobstein at 10:45 AM on September 10, 2022
Sam and Frodo being scared by the Haradrim but agreeing that they are merely human at home and are also victims of the long evil. Did that make it into the movie?
Yes, it's in the film, but Sam's words are spoken by Faramir.
posted by SPrintF at 11:03 AM on September 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Yes, it's in the film, but Sam's words are spoken by Faramir.
posted by SPrintF at 11:03 AM on September 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
I promised myself, upon debuttoning, that I would engage here in the best-faith, most honest way I could whatever the potential results, because the worst that can happen is most likely someone thinking I'm wrong and being hostile about it. That's fine. I believe what I believe. It's just my job to express it defensibly, and in a defensible manner. But this is the most racecraft-y thing that ever race-crafted and it just sort of rubs our collective noses in what is so appalling, tragic, and perplexing about our collective, woeful embrace of "race."
The desire -- yearning -- for representation is so poignant and can be so fucking heartbreaking. It's basic and universal. Someone like me sees, I dunno, Aragorn, or T'Challa, or Wong Kei-ying, and feels something because there's some part of my idealized self on the screen. I see values I was raised with reflected back at me. I get to see a story about how I hope I would be if circumstances called. What's "me" in that moment? I dunno ... a man, for sure. Also someone strong and empowered to contribute to change around me for the good of others, or people who can't change things for themselves, or protect themselves. I don't think those things are unique to men, but they were things I was raised to want for myself. I remember how proud I felt when my CO at Ft. Bragg said "I know if I fell you'd pick me up and carry me up that hill." It was fine to her that I could and would do that. She was glad to have me around. That would have been a fine culmination of the ideals I was raised with and the body I was born into for both of us.
But as we know, representation is unevenly distributed. Honestly, I didn't like the gender-flipped Ghostbusters and thought it wasn't very funny. I wasn't mad about the casting decisions -- I had a long sit and think about that and my conscience is clean. It just wasn't my cup of tea (minus, maybe the subversion of expectations around Chris Hemsworth's character). But the afternoon I got home from the theater the community coordinator at my company tweeted about how it was the funniest movie ever, and that tears were streaming down her face the whole time and she was going to drag all her friends to it. I think I got it. I thought the whole No Doubt bit in Captain Marvel was obvious and clunky, but I felt the ripple through the audience and I think I got that. I really enjoy She-Hulk, but also feel like some of the lines and plot points can be spotted coming in from over the horizon and wonder, as we sit there watching, if my wife feels pandered to. I've asked, though, and she doesn't. She appreciates a lot of it. Feels seen and understood by the production. (She had a different take on Wandavision, who also helped a lot of people feel like they were seen and understood by a piece of popular entertainment.)
Representation is powerful and meaningful and it has been withheld from all kinds of people for a very long time, and it should be better distributed because everyone should get to feel like some part of themselves is being held up as good and worthy of a story, or that they can be anything, including a mighty elven warrior. We should do it because race is a mass delusion we can only break by sweetly and naively denying it exists, the better to smash racism.
But the weird race talk about Black elves, Black Heimdahl and assorted other things that "break immersion" is just tragic, because it takes a thing in the material world -- some Black actors get to play elves and some other people get to see people who look like them be on the screen playing characters they could not have until recently -- and furthers the reification of race, (sometimes even among the people rightly saying "how are you okay with cursed rings and dragons but not elves with brown skin?")
Race isn't material. Skin color is real and material. Things that happened -- continue to happen -- to people of a certain heritage and skin color -- racism -- is real and material. But the elves in that Amazon show are just, like, elves with brown skin. It is weird to me to even say they're "Black" elves, because it is weird to me, if this is a fantasy world that existed long before our own -- or our current Age, anyhow -- to imagine that those elves could possibly have had a "Black" experience or identity. "Blackness" as it exists today is the product of historical and cultural forces that are unique to out here in the real world. Those historical and cultural forces are not at all a part of Middle Earth as created or intended. To recreate them in that environment isn't illegal or anything, but it would be weird and stubborn to insist on that recreation. I do understand the actors portraying the elves with brown skin are Black and have had some kind of Black experience. Further, out here in not-Middle-Earth they are a manifestation of more representation of Black people in popular entertainment, and are hence worthy of celebration out here in not-Middle-Earth.
But it's all sort of a magic eye trick, made harder by hyper-simplified dictums:
People of a certain generation were taught that they "shouldn't see race." That could have meant, "don't impute motives or characteristics to broad categories of people -- define them by what they do." It became, "just normalize your stuff you were raised to consider normal and get uncomfortable when you encounter stuff that's not normal to you and can't help but notice despite being told not to notice."
I think the crude "just don't acknowledge differences" anti-prejudice we were taught in the 20th century probably produced more racists from simple cognitive dissonance alone than any number of Birth of a Nation screenings.
So that was a bad idea, and it led to a reasonable idea, which is that "being colorblind" isn't super restorative, because it ultimately erases the experiences of whole groups of people when we need awareness of those experiences (and awareness of many other experiences from many other kinds of people) to make a more just society.
The magic eye trick is that sometimes you should see it -- more people who aren't white people ought to be able to play more kinds of roles, and it's worth a moment of satisfaction and approval when that happens -- and sometimes you should not see it, like when you think an elf with dark skin is weird because how could there be Black elves in Middle Earth. Or even when you think an elf with dark skin is cool because finally Black elves in Middle Earth. There cannot be "Black" people in Middle Earth. I say that advisedly having decided to open myself to bad-faith charges of "erasure." I don't mean to erase anybody's experiences or cultural identity out here in this world, the real one, and I'm not. I do mean to say that the breadth of experiences, heritages, bloodlines, and geographies we admit into the circle of "Blackness" ultimately reduce it to the broadest possible designation, and it would take some really weird and anachronistic thinking to believe Blackness could exist in Middle Earth. It would take a bloody-minded insistence on re-creating the superstition of race as we created it in recent European history, and a recreation of racism, which is also a human invention, not an immutable element in the natural world.
So, you're good with Balrogs, dragons, cursed rings, and wizards. Be good with there just being a lot of skin tones. Maybe accept that it's as "realistic" to have brown-skinned elves as it is to see a Black person in Mayberry, and that getting all weirded out by it may not "make you racist," but definitely makes you complicit in the ongoing reification of race, which depends wholly on human imagination and will to exist, because it is not otherwise material. Same goes for trying to explain elves with brown skin into some elven sub-species so you can preserve the notion of race and fit it into this fictional place.
Bibliography:
The desire -- yearning -- for representation is so poignant and can be so fucking heartbreaking. It's basic and universal. Someone like me sees, I dunno, Aragorn, or T'Challa, or Wong Kei-ying, and feels something because there's some part of my idealized self on the screen. I see values I was raised with reflected back at me. I get to see a story about how I hope I would be if circumstances called. What's "me" in that moment? I dunno ... a man, for sure. Also someone strong and empowered to contribute to change around me for the good of others, or people who can't change things for themselves, or protect themselves. I don't think those things are unique to men, but they were things I was raised to want for myself. I remember how proud I felt when my CO at Ft. Bragg said "I know if I fell you'd pick me up and carry me up that hill." It was fine to her that I could and would do that. She was glad to have me around. That would have been a fine culmination of the ideals I was raised with and the body I was born into for both of us.
But as we know, representation is unevenly distributed. Honestly, I didn't like the gender-flipped Ghostbusters and thought it wasn't very funny. I wasn't mad about the casting decisions -- I had a long sit and think about that and my conscience is clean. It just wasn't my cup of tea (minus, maybe the subversion of expectations around Chris Hemsworth's character). But the afternoon I got home from the theater the community coordinator at my company tweeted about how it was the funniest movie ever, and that tears were streaming down her face the whole time and she was going to drag all her friends to it. I think I got it. I thought the whole No Doubt bit in Captain Marvel was obvious and clunky, but I felt the ripple through the audience and I think I got that. I really enjoy She-Hulk, but also feel like some of the lines and plot points can be spotted coming in from over the horizon and wonder, as we sit there watching, if my wife feels pandered to. I've asked, though, and she doesn't. She appreciates a lot of it. Feels seen and understood by the production. (She had a different take on Wandavision, who also helped a lot of people feel like they were seen and understood by a piece of popular entertainment.)
Representation is powerful and meaningful and it has been withheld from all kinds of people for a very long time, and it should be better distributed because everyone should get to feel like some part of themselves is being held up as good and worthy of a story, or that they can be anything, including a mighty elven warrior. We should do it because race is a mass delusion we can only break by sweetly and naively denying it exists, the better to smash racism.
But the weird race talk about Black elves, Black Heimdahl and assorted other things that "break immersion" is just tragic, because it takes a thing in the material world -- some Black actors get to play elves and some other people get to see people who look like them be on the screen playing characters they could not have until recently -- and furthers the reification of race, (sometimes even among the people rightly saying "how are you okay with cursed rings and dragons but not elves with brown skin?")
Race isn't material. Skin color is real and material. Things that happened -- continue to happen -- to people of a certain heritage and skin color -- racism -- is real and material. But the elves in that Amazon show are just, like, elves with brown skin. It is weird to me to even say they're "Black" elves, because it is weird to me, if this is a fantasy world that existed long before our own -- or our current Age, anyhow -- to imagine that those elves could possibly have had a "Black" experience or identity. "Blackness" as it exists today is the product of historical and cultural forces that are unique to out here in the real world. Those historical and cultural forces are not at all a part of Middle Earth as created or intended. To recreate them in that environment isn't illegal or anything, but it would be weird and stubborn to insist on that recreation. I do understand the actors portraying the elves with brown skin are Black and have had some kind of Black experience. Further, out here in not-Middle-Earth they are a manifestation of more representation of Black people in popular entertainment, and are hence worthy of celebration out here in not-Middle-Earth.
But it's all sort of a magic eye trick, made harder by hyper-simplified dictums:
People of a certain generation were taught that they "shouldn't see race." That could have meant, "don't impute motives or characteristics to broad categories of people -- define them by what they do." It became, "just normalize your stuff you were raised to consider normal and get uncomfortable when you encounter stuff that's not normal to you and can't help but notice despite being told not to notice."
I think the crude "just don't acknowledge differences" anti-prejudice we were taught in the 20th century probably produced more racists from simple cognitive dissonance alone than any number of Birth of a Nation screenings.
So that was a bad idea, and it led to a reasonable idea, which is that "being colorblind" isn't super restorative, because it ultimately erases the experiences of whole groups of people when we need awareness of those experiences (and awareness of many other experiences from many other kinds of people) to make a more just society.
The magic eye trick is that sometimes you should see it -- more people who aren't white people ought to be able to play more kinds of roles, and it's worth a moment of satisfaction and approval when that happens -- and sometimes you should not see it, like when you think an elf with dark skin is weird because how could there be Black elves in Middle Earth. Or even when you think an elf with dark skin is cool because finally Black elves in Middle Earth. There cannot be "Black" people in Middle Earth. I say that advisedly having decided to open myself to bad-faith charges of "erasure." I don't mean to erase anybody's experiences or cultural identity out here in this world, the real one, and I'm not. I do mean to say that the breadth of experiences, heritages, bloodlines, and geographies we admit into the circle of "Blackness" ultimately reduce it to the broadest possible designation, and it would take some really weird and anachronistic thinking to believe Blackness could exist in Middle Earth. It would take a bloody-minded insistence on re-creating the superstition of race as we created it in recent European history, and a recreation of racism, which is also a human invention, not an immutable element in the natural world.
So, you're good with Balrogs, dragons, cursed rings, and wizards. Be good with there just being a lot of skin tones. Maybe accept that it's as "realistic" to have brown-skinned elves as it is to see a Black person in Mayberry, and that getting all weirded out by it may not "make you racist," but definitely makes you complicit in the ongoing reification of race, which depends wholly on human imagination and will to exist, because it is not otherwise material. Same goes for trying to explain elves with brown skin into some elven sub-species so you can preserve the notion of race and fit it into this fictional place.
Bibliography:
- Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life, Barbara and Karen Fields
- Identity Politics and Elite Capture, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò (book form)
Forgive me, but I'm going to describe this in terms of my long-running D&D campaign.
I have two dwarven cultures. The Northern dwarves are your basic tribe of Gimli's: short, broad, fair, bearded, equipped with axes and aggressive attitudes. The Southern dwarves though are short, broad, dark-complected, have close-trimmed or no beards, and are equipped daggers and diplomacy. Similar in some ways (both carve stone, each in their own way), different in others (the Southern dwarves prefer brighter clothes and less armor). Their different skin tones just signal that they are from different parts of the world, a real-world thing that makes complete sense in a fantasy setting.
The idea that one is "better" than the other doesn't come up. They are just culturally different. Mashing folks together and saying, "Everyone's the same!" misses the true strength of diversity. And a less interesting world as well, I think.
(Oh, and don't even get me started about my orcs. I've played orcs as good guys, bad guys, barbarians and effete city dwellers. In each setting they are distinctly "orcish", as I define it, but they are all over the place in terms of their presentation.)
posted by SPrintF at 5:02 PM on September 10, 2022
I have two dwarven cultures. The Northern dwarves are your basic tribe of Gimli's: short, broad, fair, bearded, equipped with axes and aggressive attitudes. The Southern dwarves though are short, broad, dark-complected, have close-trimmed or no beards, and are equipped daggers and diplomacy. Similar in some ways (both carve stone, each in their own way), different in others (the Southern dwarves prefer brighter clothes and less armor). Their different skin tones just signal that they are from different parts of the world, a real-world thing that makes complete sense in a fantasy setting.
The idea that one is "better" than the other doesn't come up. They are just culturally different. Mashing folks together and saying, "Everyone's the same!" misses the true strength of diversity. And a less interesting world as well, I think.
(Oh, and don't even get me started about my orcs. I've played orcs as good guys, bad guys, barbarians and effete city dwellers. In each setting they are distinctly "orcish", as I define it, but they are all over the place in terms of their presentation.)
posted by SPrintF at 5:02 PM on September 10, 2022
SPrintF: that's really interesting. It sounds like the elves of Elfquest, who are dark brown where they live in deserts, ruddy where they live in forests, and pale where they live in caves. (That IP would have made a great fantasy show for some streamer, but I feel that it probably missed its moment, plus it has some Problems.)
posted by Countess Elena at 5:16 PM on September 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 5:16 PM on September 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
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posted by seanmpuckett at 9:34 AM on September 9, 2022 [14 favorites]