- Joined
- Oct 18, 2021
That is something I have hated about modern entertainment now is that the writers, show runners andCheck out the cast interviews where there is so much self-congratulatory nonsense about being "the first Puerto Rican elf!" (lol) or "the first female dwarf color!" (that one isn't even an exaggeration) or how so many of thetrained monkeysactors are "activists" and you'll see where some of the dread is coming from.
There are also just a lot of red flags for people who've been sandbagged by this crap before in multiple franchises that went woke. Elrond, a character who at the time of this series should be anywhere from around 1800 to over 3000 years old, and who should be an established, seasoned, elder, is depicted as something out of a Middle-earth boy band, and looking hopelessly naive to the much savvier Galadriel (whose depiction as an armored warrior leading armies has got a whole host of problems of its own).
Some of the criticism is overblown -- although the actress playing the black dwarf Disa is the most obnoxious on this stuff by a wide margin, there's really no lore problem with having dark-skinned dwarves, especially if they want to flesh out the various dwarven bloodlines beyond the line of Durin depicted in LotR. Similarly, I don't think the occasional dark-skinned elf is anything to get worked up about.
For more concrete criticisms, wait until the show comes out. But the cast interviews and the nasty defensiveness of the showrunners is plenty of cause for concern.
EDIT: One specific line from the Disa actress -- not sure if it's been echoed by her castmates -- is especially obnoxious, and that is showing more characters "of colour" and of course female characters with so much "agency" makes this version of Tolkien so much more accessible ... as if the most popular fantasy novel ever written was so occulted and closed off because it didn't have a fat loudmouth black dwarf in it somewhere. It's the elevation of superficial qualities of race and gender over the universal human experience that afflicts every franchise that goes to the mat on "representation" and it's hitting the last franchise that needs it.
Ok that's enough. Go watch a Nerdrotic video or something if you want more.
EDIT 2: Bob is fat and 99% has never read Lord of the Rings. Might have gotten a third of the way through The Hobbit when he was in high school.
When modern writers and show runners talk about making a classic work or history "accessible" and "relatable" what they really mean is that they are trying to rewrite history. Progressives hate how "white" , "hetero" and "problematic" the past and many classic works of art are and seek to rewrite them to make it seem like the past was always this progressive melting pot. It is disgusting and shows how modern progressive can not just let the past be. "He who writes the past writes the future" as they say.
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