Amazon has reportedly sunk $1 billion into their new streaming series, The Rings of Power, a prequel to The Lord of the Rings (LOTR). More than 25 million viewers clicked on the first two episodes, making it the most-watched streaming series in Amazon history.
But the series failed to impress Elon Musk. The “richest man in the world” believed the author of the LOTR fantasies, J.R.R. Tolkein, would have been unhappy with the way the series portrayed male characters.
Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both. Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 5, 2022
Galadriel, you may recall from the original LOTR, was the elf queen of the forest. In Amazon’s Rings, she’s a thousand years younger and apparently something of a warrior-queen.
Some of the “Lord of the Rings” fandom is upset with the show for turning Galadriel, played by Cate Blanchett in Peter Jackson’s film trilogy as a serene and regal elf, into a full-blown action hero. Galadriel is played by Morfydd Clark in the Amazon series. Clark previously defended her interpretation of the character.
“I would say that her serenity is hard earned,” Clark told Variety. “I don’t think you get to that level of wisdom without going through things. She actually speaks about [how] with wisdom, there is a loss of innocence, which was a really good thing for me to find in the lore. Because, like, how young are you when you’re still thousands of years old? So it was thinking of what innocence she lost during this time.”
Undeterred, Bezos did some cheerleading.
Go Middle-earth!https://t.co/SbJrAJ05mw
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) September 3, 2022
Naturally, any big entertainment project based on such a beloved literary work would draw criticisms. And because this is the first quarter of the 21st century, some of that criticism is that The Rings of Power is racist.
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Tolkien was not an outspoken racist like H.P. Lovecraft, but there’s a fairly straightforward case to be made that his books include racist ideas. The evil wizard Sauron is associated with darkness. His cannon fodder are orcs, debased humanoid creatures who live only to fight and hate. Tolkien described them in a letter as “squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.”
In contrast, the elves, the epitome of purity and good, are associated with whiteness and fair skin. Elrond and Arwen (technically half-elven characters) are unusual in being part human and having dark hair.
So anything in literature “associated with darkness” is racist? Are they sh**ting us?
The evil answer is no, they’re not. This fallacious thinking has been a staple of racialism since Malcolm X noticed the definition of “black” and “white” in the dictionary and declared society evil for describing “black” as “dark” and “white” as “good” and “pure.”
I haven’t had time to stream the series yet although after reading some reviews, I plan to watch the first couple of episodes. And I could give a flying fig if characters who are neither black nor white are seen as representative of all the sins committed by the white race.
It’s a fantasy, for god’s sake. Chill.
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