Lord of the Rings TV series gets multi-season order at Amazon

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

People are... disgusting. Nor is it even 'passionate about the source material'; there are no sources claiming that all seven houses of the dwarves were pale, and frankly I doubt there's even one for the Longbeards! It's just knee-jerk racism.
hS

I rather take exception to that. There can be other motivations which have nothing to do with "knee-jerk racism," starting with a wish to see Middle-earth rendered as its creator envisioned it. And while, no, T never said explicitly that the Seven Houses were all pale-complected, within the overall structure of the world -calqued upon Europe as it expressly is - it would take a direct counter-statement for me to accept it (e.g. T telling us point blank that Dwarven women had beards).

But more than that, there is the aesthetic objection to everything in pop culture being arbitrarily sploodged in Diversity Ketchup, the universal condiment of the 2020s. This is not casting-Sidney-Poitier-in-the-Sixties social courage; it's just more pumpkin spice product.

Does it represent an artistic improvement? No. It is an entirely political superimposition; and its defenders tend to react to artistic objections in (insulting) political terms.

Would it be "racist" to object to an adaptation of Things Fall Apart including white and Asian and Latino actors, because "diversity?" Should Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon be castigated because there isn't a single non-Chinese character anywhere? Should Moby-Dick (which always had a racially diverse crew) be re-shot with women whalers interjected, and would objections thereto be "sexist?"