'Social justice warrior garbage': Outrage over WOKE ‘Lord of the Rings’ TV series casting
There has been a huge response to 'The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power’ series, set to release in September, after the teaser trailer dropped online. However, many fans were not very kicked with its woke themes and the inclusion of the first-ever Black elf in Middle Earth's history. As per reports, the new series is set thousands of years before J.R.R. Tolkien's ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’.
Co-produced by New Line Cinema, ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ will be about major events that happened during the Second Age of Middle Earth. Along with featuring Morfydd Clark as a younger version of Cate Blanchett’s Elvish queen Galadriel, Benjamin Walker as heroic Elven-King Gil-Galad, and Maxim Baldry as human king-to-be Isildur, it also has Sophia Nomvete as a dwarven princess named Disa, and Lenny Henry as a harfoot elder.
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Talking about the inclusiveness reflected in the casting, executive producer Lindsey Weber said: “It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien's work would reflect what the world actually looks like. Tolkien is for everyone. His stories are about his fictional races doing their best work when they leave the isolation of their own cultures and come together.”
But hardcore fans of the franchise have lashed out on YouTube with one saying, “Either going to be a masterpiece or a complete trainwreck, no middle ground for TV shows like this one.” Another one wrote, “Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made.” A comment read: “Imagine spending millions of dollars to promote your woke social justice warrior garbage of a film. Way to tarnish a good franchise.” Another comment was “Amazon decided to destroy Tolkien’s work. Because why do a good job when you can just be corrupt and force your political beliefs.”
A person said, “We all already know how this ends up. Luckily we have our immortal, perfect trilogy from Peter Jackson to always go back to. Everyone will forget this show even existed in a year, but Peter's LotR is forever.” The second one noted, “I just have absolutely no faith amazon is capable of telling a compelling new story set within Tolkien’s world that both makes sense and is respectful of the source material.” “I hope they do Sauron right. He should not look like a evil monster or a sleazy person. He should be very good-looking, and his character should be made in a way that the viewer likes him. Everything he says should seem wise and right,” a comment stated.
Ebony Thomas, author of ‘The Dark Fantastic’ and an associate professor at the University of Michigan, told The Guardian, “The history of fantasy is racialized. People are used to seeing fantasies and fairytales as all-white, particularly in faux-medieval or magical-medieval settings.” He continued, "We’re taking them out of the dream space. We’re taking them out of how they imagined it could be, and so it feels off to them. So that’s why they’re saying, you know, ‘Who are these people? This is not what Tolkien intended! It’s not accurate!’” Thomas explained.
