re: 'Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' Ep 1 Negativity Thread. Enter at your own risk

quote:

---

How in the world can you call a show woke, just because a show set on a fantasy world has a multi-racial cast? Or because it has a female action heroine?

---

Let's say we re-make The Jeffersons - a groundbreaking african-american comedy series - and make Mrs. Jefferson asian, their children adopted brazilian children and make the focus of the show some random neighbor that was only in a few minutes of the original rather than how the original show was played.

Call it whatever you want, it was manipulated for a reason. That REASON... sucks. It's stupid. It's anti-art, anti-dignity and anti-intellectual. If you don't want to call it woke, fine. But this isn't someone writing original material with modern political overtones. This is SHOVING modern social sentiment into someone else's work and telling critics to shut up and live with it. If that doesn't bother you, enjoy. Amazon needs your money.

quote:

---

quote:

---

That's the crazy part. It's not!

At least as far as we know. How in the world can you call a show woke, just because a show set on a fantasy world has a multi-racial cast? Or because it has a female action heroine? That's insane.

---

I'm not calling it woke, I was just meaning even if you put their main gripe aside. I haven't seen the show so I'm not going to judge it yet although I'm not getting my hopes up. But I'm going to give it a fair shot. If I don't like it, it certainly won't be because of black elves and dwarves though, that doesn't bother me.

---

I think people are wary, because there HAS been an increase in stuffing social messages in various media (movies, TV shows, etc. Probably games too).

Probably the main reason Top Gun Maverick did so well, is it's devoid of any such preaching. There's a chick pilot and a black pilot (and Hispanic, etc), but they're cast honestly. You could swap them for anyone else, and you get the same movie... no specific lines of dialogue anywhere. The only message being pushed is-
live pilots may become outdated, but they aren't yet.

But if you search 'woke' by company, Amazon has been surprisingly good about it. While Disney has been pushing Girl Power etc since the Princess days (trying to increase market), Amazon has plenty of stuff that isn't woke. Reacher is a good ol boy, Terminal List is a pissed off SEAL on a revenge rampage (and actually has a message about 'stolen valor' wannabes in it). I think Amazon is still more about making money (and thus, appealing to the target audience).

quote:

---

The only message being pushed is-
live pilots may become outdated, but they aren't yet.

---

LOL

I loved the movie, but it is barely a step removed jingoistic/American imperialist military propaganda. The film literally had a DoD script advisory and thematic oversight contract with the filmmakers and studio in exchange for certain usage rights. The Navy had actively pushed for this movie for over a decade to help recruitment and branding.

But I guess stuffing that message into a movie is different, and somehow honest lol

quote:

---

every main character having internalized misogyny as a theme of their arc.

---

I said pretty much every female character touched on themes of patriarchy or internalized misogyny, some small, some large, some direct, some indirect, and I showed my receipts for it.

quote:

---

There were 4,000,000,000,000 pages of Game of Thrones threads over the course of the series and not a single time did I see internalized misogyny mentioned

---

Probably because the anti-woke movement wasnt a thing. For much of GoT's run the white identity culture wars were centered around keeping Mexicans and Islam away, and frick your feelings. Now, certain conservatives have done a 180 and get all in their feels for even the most minor of thematic exploration on topics of things like race, misogyny, and social injustice or how they are reflected in media.

And this is because if you zoom out and look at the history of right wing culture wars, they are reactionary in nature. They catastrophized and hyper focused in on gays in the military, rap music, Marilyn Manson, satanic panic, and school prayer as those became hot social topics or going ons in the 90’s. Catastrophized and hyper focused on gay marriage, Islam, and sufficient patriotic adherence in the 00's as momentum for gay marriage picked up and in reaction to 9/11. Catastrophized and hyper focused on the rise in Hispanic immigration in the 10's. Now in the 20's they are catastrophizing in response to Trans rights movements, BLM and Me Too. Just give it a few years and all the concern over "wokeness" will be shifted to the next big thing that needs some reactive outrage.

quote:

---

said pretty much every female character touched on themes of patriarchy or internalized misogyny, some small, some large, some direct, some indirect, and I showed my receipts for it.

---

I know I meant to say female. But this will just have to agree to disagree, I'm not going to make something a thing now that wasn't a thing at the time, especially in indirect ways.

quote:

---

Probably because the anti-woke movement wasnt a thing. For much of GoT's run the white identity culture wars were centered around keeping Mexicans and Islam away, and frick your feelings. Now, certain conservatives have done a 180 and get all in their feels for even the most minor of thematic exploration on topics of things like race, misogyny, and social injustice or how they are reflected in media.

And this is because if you zoom out and look at the history of right wing culture wars, they are reactionary in nature. They catastrophized and hyper focused in on gays in the military, rap music, Marilyn Manson, satanic panic, and school prayer as those became hot social topics or going ons in the 90’s. Catastrophized and hyper focused on gay marriage, Islam, and sufficient patriotic adherence in the 00's as momentum for gay marriage picked up and in reaction to 9/11. Catastrophized and hyper focused on the rise in Hispanic immigration in the 10's. Now in the 20's they are catastrophizing in response to Trans rights movements, BLM and Me Too. Just give it a few years and all the concern over "wokeness" will be shifted to the next big thing that needs some reactive outrage.

---

This pretty much sums up why I'm neutral politically. I enjoy having perfectly normal friendships with people on the left and right and being able to laugh at both without getting offended. Or go tbrough life hating people because of their political beliefs. Hell my dad is right and my brother is left. I'd rather watch Battlefield Earth over and over than listen to them talk about politics, and that's family. Now you get on tigerdroppings, never visit the poli board, and you get politics on every board. This used to be a board where if something political was said, the response was take it to the poli board. Now it pretty much breaks out into a trump v biden, left v right debate with the original topic being irrelevant. O well.

quote:

---

Woke," as used as a pejorative, is basically just the newest catch all term always angry right-wing culture warriors use to describe the social and racial changes being reflected in modern society that annoy them.

And you are 100% right about things like Star Trek. I mean hell, it is literally a show about a socialist utopian society of space explorers with some often fairly and deliberate liberal messaging. And we had a 13 page thread the other week with people freaking out because the cast of House of the Dragon said the show will illicit discussions about misogyny and patriarchy, which, required pointing out, the show and series has ALWAYS done that, and people should calm down.

But, I think there is just that period in some people's mental life cycle where they progressively don't want to deal with shifting internal tolerances, biases, and just generally shut down mentally or lash out when perceived social changes are presented in their environment or challenge their default ways of thinking.

---

You can come up from sucking Karl Marx’s cock now.

quote:

---

Because even fantasy universes with completely imaginary things must still follow rules for us to care about them.

---

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: the Marvel movies have changed a number of the rules.

In fact, they have used "multiverse" crap to change all kinds of rules and literally rewrite history.

A few posts ago, I referenced Star Trek. Do you realize that they did the same thing with it? They went back in history and retroactively blew up the Romulans. They totally rewrote all the rules.

If you can't watch Rings of Power because Galadriel uses a sword or because there are black elves, then that says more about you than it says about the show.

It's not just LOTR, people are exhausted from Hollywood pushing these skinny little women being bad arse physical fighters so aggressively the past 5-7 years.

They don't know how to competently write strong female characters without turning them into wanna be men.

quote:

---

It's not just LOTR, people are exhausted from Hollywood pushing these skinny little women being bad arse physical fighters so aggressively the past 5-7 years.

They don't know how to competently write strong female characters without turning them into wanna be men.

---

Understood, but both Tolkien himself, and then PJ with his films, opened the door to Galadriel being VERY badass.

Simply put- Galadriel is a Noldor, from Valinor, who lived amongst the Trees.

Legolas, a mere Silvan Elf, was written to have some skill far superior to Men (in the books, it's his light steps that allow walking on snow, running on ropes, his skill as an archer surpassing any mortals, etc). PJ made him a super-ninja badass.

The Noldor are generally seen as far superior to the Silvan Elves. They rolled back Morgoth's armies with ease when they arrived, after he was having his way with the Elves that were present in Middle Earth. They almost all died, but not without some serious heroics... Fingolfin wounded Morgoth, Finrod broke iron chains and killed a werewolf with his bare hands, Glorfindel took out a Balrog, etc.

Galadriel is a female, yes; but not just any random chick. Remember she's not human...

quote:

---

she is described as "the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth"

---

quote:

---

During the Darkening of Valinor, she was very independent and visionary. She swore no oaths, but the words of Fëanor concerning Middle-earth kindled a desire in her heart, as she was eager to see those wide unguarded lands and rule a realm of her own. During the troubles that followed, even though she participated in the revolt of the Noldor,[9] she fought against Fëanor in defence of her mother's kin in the Kinslaying of Alqualondë.

---

quote:

---

the White Council was formed. Galadriel, being one of the Wise and the greatest living threat to Sauron, was one of the members

---

quote:

---

Galadriel was especially tall and beautiful, even among the Noldor, and her hair was the most notable feature about her. It reminded the Eldar of the light of the Two Trees.[8]:229-230 At least in her earlier years, was of a somewhat proud and rebellious nature. She was free-spirited, and during her time in Aman had many dreams of wide unexplored lands. In her youth, she was very willful and of an "Amazon" disposition; and bound up her hair as a crown when taking part in athletic feats.[21] Her favourite brother was Finrod, for he, too, shared this vision. She could explore the minds and hearts of others, and her gaze was seeing. It may have been because of her unusual beauty and power that she became proud.

---

quote:

---

At the time of her birth, Finarfin named his only daughter Artanis. Her father-name meant "Noble Woman" in Quenya, from arta + nís.
Due to Artanis's height and her great strength of body and will, Eärwen chose the Quenya name Nerwen, meaning "man-maiden"

---

There's a ton of descriptions of "early" Galadriel as "strong", "powerful", athletic, etc. One of her early names meant "man-maiden", and certainly not in a derogatory or LGBT way, but more like "comparable to" in strength.

I'd say she might be at least as strong as Gil-Galad, and he and Elendil took Sauron down in a fight.

She ought to be able to frick up some orcs and the occasional troll.

quote:

---

says just as much about you that you don’t.

---

Thanks for proving my point.