XPost: rec.arts.tv, rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.non.racism   
   From: psperson@old.netcom.invalid   
      
   On Fri, 9 Sep 2022 05:22:01 -0500, trotsky  wrote:   
      
   >On 9/8/2022 10:31 PM, Louis Epstein wrote:   
   >> In alt.fan.tolkien Ubiquitous  wrote:   
   >>> "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" drama drags on as its   
   >>> official Twitter account just posted a statement of unity with its   
   >>> cast, denouncing any fans who are allegedly harassing them.   
   >>>   
   >>> "We, the cast of `Rings of Power,' stand together in absolute   
   >>> solidarity and against the relentless racism, threats, harassment, and   
   >>> abuse some of our castmates of color are being subjected to on a daily   
   >>> basis," the Twitter post begins.   
   >>>   
   >>> "We refuse to ignore it or tolerate it. JRR Tolkien created a world   
   >>> which, by definition, is multi-cultural. A world in which free peoples   
   >>> from different races and cultures join together, in fellowship, to   
   >>> defeat the forces of evil. `Rings of Power' reflects that."   
   >>>   
   >>> The statement assures, "Our world has never been all white, fantasy has   
   >>> never been all white, Middle-earth is not all white. BIPOC belong in   
   >>> Middle-earth and they are here to stay."   
   >>   
   >> JRRT didn't portrary M-E as all white by any means,   
   >   
   >   
   >Damn, you went off the rails right off the bat.  (Sorry for mixing   
   >metaphors.)  If characters that were non-white were cast as such,   
   >there'd be no problem, at least theoretically.  But characters that were   
   >white, or characters that were "invented" for this story aren't true to   
   >Tolkien's amazingly detailed vision, and as such diehard fans have every   
   >reason to complain.  Hope this helps.   
      
   Except, if I understand some of the information on this topic   
   correctly, they mostly are /not/ criticizing it for the daring of   
   their casting but rather for the tepidness of the result.   
      
   As least, explicitly. It is, of course, possible that they regard the   
   result as tepid because of the daring of the casting.   
      
   >and he didn't   
   >> portray nonwhites as intrinsically evil...but he DID portray some   
   >> societies that were ethnically homogeneous and not thereby evil...   
   >> and those devoted to the uncritical worship of diversity can not   
   >> abide such a thing even as a fantasy.   
   >>   
   >> -=-=-   
   >> The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,   
   >> at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.   
   --   
   "In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant   
   development was the disintegration, under Christian   
   influence, of classical conceptions of the family and   
   of family right."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)