5 ms·

What other word would you describe when people cry over "lack of diversity" when the story is set in a fantasy world that did not have such type of diversity to

What other word would you describe when people cry over "lack of diversity" when the story is set in a fantasy world that did not have such type of diversity to begin with?

AlexandrB 4y ago
I love how it's fine for there to be dragons and magic in fantasy. But minorities? That's a bridge too far.
- Akronymus 4y ago
  Tolkien wrote from a perspective of what he experienced. That being early to mid 1900s england. Which simply didn't have many nonwhite people. Also, I think most aren't actually opposed to minorities being in the show, but rather the hamfisted way they think theyll be included with. (I personally expect racism being a big part of the show that will need to be fought.)
  - rsynnott 4y ago
    > That being early to mid 1900s england. Not that I think this is _particularly_ relevant (as mentioned elsewhere, most of the characters aren't even _human_, and it's not like he generally specified "but if they _were_ humans, the Ringwraiths would definitely be white"), but LoTR was finished in 1949. There were lots of non-white people in the UK in 1949; if you've heard of the Windrush scandal, the people impacted by that arrived the year before, and it's not like they were the first non-white people in the UK...
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    > I personally expect racism being a big part of the show that will need to be fought. I agree that this would be extremely hamfisted. Especially considering the books already have some metaphors for racism like the strained relationship between elves and dwarves. However, I also think this kind of a thing is just a symptom of bad writing - not some woke conspiracy.
- rsynnott 4y ago
  Most of the characters in LoTR weren't even _humans_, were they? It's hard to see what issue people would have with minority actors playing an elf or whatever.
  - freilanzer 4y ago
    If I write a (non-human, not that that matters anyway) race and describe them as being of "ivory skin" vs "ebony skin" then it matters. If it's just regular people then it doesn't. It depends on the setting.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      It matters if it's a key plot point. If it's got no impact on the plot, there's no harm in changing it a little. Plenty of other things described in the books get tweaked for TV/film; it's a little sus if only skin color changes get you upset. If you did a find/replace on LOTR for "ivory" with "ebony", zero elements of the story would be impacted.
      - rsynnott 4y ago
        Well, the oliphaunts might be a bit happier, unless that was The Hobbit (I haven't read these for about 20 years). But yeah, it'd be pretty weird if a TV adaptation _was_ word-for-word the same as the book, honestly. That's virtually never done, and rarely ends well when it is.
      - freilanzer 4y ago
        It's also sus if the only thing that gets changed is the skin colour for no apparent reason, other than to appease twitter. Like I said, the setting is important. The world was designed in this way for a reason, by the author. It's the same thing the other way around: changing every character from black or 'asian' to white, if the story is otherwise unaffected, would be ridiculous.
        ceejayoz 4y ago
- rglullis 4y ago
  Oh, please... no one is complaining about having minorities. The point is retconning a different type of "diversity" into a story just for the purpose of marketing for the current consumer base and its cultural sensitivities. Taking a cultural landmark and just repackaging it (new version with 20% more "minorities"!) where the race of the actors does not change anything for the story being told is just cheap tokenism. By all means, I'd love to see new stories and new characters, and these stories could benefit greatly from a diverse cast. You can use the diversity then to show how different people value different things, how conflict can come up due to these differences, how conflict can be solved despite these differences, and so on... let's just not pretend that this crap that Hollywood wants to shove down our throats is any good just because it ticks the right woke checkboxes.
  - workingon 4y ago
    There is a long history in theatre of casting people in roles who aren’t the same as the character. Notably men would often be cast in female roles. Maybe, just maybe, if seeing a brown elf ruins a show for you the problem isn’t with the show.
    - rglullis 4y ago
      "Fun" fact: men would play women because acting was considered a very low class activity, and women that acted were seen as prostitutes. Anyway, you just missed the point and I am not in the mood of arguing with someone who can't understand nuance in thought. Have a good day.
      - workingon 4y ago
        Yeah, the guy who can enjoy a show with a brown person playing an elf is the one who can’t understand nuance in thought.
        rglullis 4y ago
        Precisely. The same guy who thinks that parroting their self-righteousness is a virtue. The same guy who can not understand the difference between diversity and tokenism. That's the guy who can not understand nuance in thought.
- prepend 4y ago
  I hear this argument quite a bit and think it’s shallow. Of course, I’m not against diversity in casting, but am against bad arguments. Stories have internal consistency. So while Tolkien has dragons and magic, they all make sense together. If a character pulls out an iPhone it doesn’t fit and detracts from the stories. Saying “but iPhones? That’s a bridge too far, how can you believe in dragons but not iPhones.” The story isn’t random and it’s not everything. Tolkien goes into genealogy of characters so switching the skin color requires lots of other changes to maintain that sense of reality. If a character now has purple skin instead of green skin, then that might mean something. I think this also applies to any story and it’s not so much about changing characters demographics and more about bad storytelling that detracts from the reality of the story.
  - runarberg 4y ago
    > Tolkien goes into genealogy of characters so switching the skin color requires lots of other changes to maintain that sense of reality. But Tolkien didn’t specify what traits inherit in which races did he? How do you know how skin tone inherits in this magical world? Even in our universe we have species such as Chimpanzees which grow darker skinned as they age? How do you know the same doesn’t happen with wizards? In our natural world color is indeed quite dynamic. Even human skin tones, hair colors, etc. are quite dynamic in our world (even among related individuals). In a magical world there is nothing preventing the different races from being even more dynamic and diverse.
    - AlexandrB 4y ago
      Indeed. There are elves that live for thousands years and have magic powers. There are some humans who have a normal lifespan and others, like Aragorn, that live for hundreds of years. Elves and humans can somehow cross-breed. Why should we assume that Middle Earth genetics work anything like normal Earth genetics? It's so weird to insist on keeping this one aspect of human genetics when everything else seems to be up for grabs.
      - cygx 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- samatman 4y ago
  There are plenty of minorities in Middle Earth. The Rohanim, for instance. Or, in the racist euphemism way you've chosen to use it, the Haradrim.
roflyear 4y ago
What prevents you from casting minorities b/c it is fantasy? What crazy logic is that?

What other word would you describe when people cry over "lack of diversity" when the story is set in a fantasy world that did not have such type of diversity to begin with?

AlexandrB 4y ago

I love how it's fine for there to be dragons and magic in fantasy. But minorities? That's a bridge too far.

Akronymus 4y ago
Tolkien wrote from a perspective of what he experienced. That being early to mid 1900s england. Which simply didn't have many nonwhite people. Also, I think most aren't actually opposed to minorities being in the show, but rather the hamfisted way they think theyll be included with. (I personally expect racism being a big part of the show that will need to be fought.)
- rsynnott 4y ago
  > That being early to mid 1900s england. Not that I think this is _particularly_ relevant (as mentioned elsewhere, most of the characters aren't even _human_, and it's not like he generally specified "but if they _were_ humans, the Ringwraiths would definitely be white"), but LoTR was finished in 1949. There were lots of non-white people in the UK in 1949; if you've heard of the Windrush scandal, the people impacted by that arrived the year before, and it's not like they were the first non-white people in the UK...
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  > I personally expect racism being a big part of the show that will need to be fought. I agree that this would be extremely hamfisted. Especially considering the books already have some metaphors for racism like the strained relationship between elves and dwarves. However, I also think this kind of a thing is just a symptom of bad writing - not some woke conspiracy.
rsynnott 4y ago
Most of the characters in LoTR weren't even _humans_, were they? It's hard to see what issue people would have with minority actors playing an elf or whatever.
- freilanzer 4y ago
  If I write a (non-human, not that that matters anyway) race and describe them as being of "ivory skin" vs "ebony skin" then it matters. If it's just regular people then it doesn't. It depends on the setting.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    It matters if it's a key plot point. If it's got no impact on the plot, there's no harm in changing it a little. Plenty of other things described in the books get tweaked for TV/film; it's a little sus if only skin color changes get you upset. If you did a find/replace on LOTR for "ivory" with "ebony", zero elements of the story would be impacted.
    - rsynnott 4y ago
      Well, the oliphaunts might be a bit happier, unless that was The Hobbit (I haven't read these for about 20 years). But yeah, it'd be pretty weird if a TV adaptation _was_ word-for-word the same as the book, honestly. That's virtually never done, and rarely ends well when it is.
    - freilanzer 4y ago
      It's also sus if the only thing that gets changed is the skin colour for no apparent reason, other than to appease twitter. Like I said, the setting is important. The world was designed in this way for a reason, by the author. It's the same thing the other way around: changing every character from black or 'asian' to white, if the story is otherwise unaffected, would be ridiculous.
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
rglullis 4y ago
Oh, please... no one is complaining about having minorities. The point is retconning a different type of "diversity" into a story just for the purpose of marketing for the current consumer base and its cultural sensitivities. Taking a cultural landmark and just repackaging it (new version with 20% more "minorities"!) where the race of the actors does not change anything for the story being told is just cheap tokenism. By all means, I'd love to see new stories and new characters, and these stories could benefit greatly from a diverse cast. You can use the diversity then to show how different people value different things, how conflict can come up due to these differences, how conflict can be solved despite these differences, and so on... let's just not pretend that this crap that Hollywood wants to shove down our throats is any good just because it ticks the right woke checkboxes.
- workingon 4y ago
  There is a long history in theatre of casting people in roles who aren’t the same as the character. Notably men would often be cast in female roles. Maybe, just maybe, if seeing a brown elf ruins a show for you the problem isn’t with the show.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    "Fun" fact: men would play women because acting was considered a very low class activity, and women that acted were seen as prostitutes. Anyway, you just missed the point and I am not in the mood of arguing with someone who can't understand nuance in thought. Have a good day.
    - workingon 4y ago
      Yeah, the guy who can enjoy a show with a brown person playing an elf is the one who can’t understand nuance in thought.
      - rglullis 4y ago
        Precisely. The same guy who thinks that parroting their self-righteousness is a virtue. The same guy who can not understand the difference between diversity and tokenism. That's the guy who can not understand nuance in thought.
prepend 4y ago
I hear this argument quite a bit and think it’s shallow. Of course, I’m not against diversity in casting, but am against bad arguments. Stories have internal consistency. So while Tolkien has dragons and magic, they all make sense together. If a character pulls out an iPhone it doesn’t fit and detracts from the stories. Saying “but iPhones? That’s a bridge too far, how can you believe in dragons but not iPhones.” The story isn’t random and it’s not everything. Tolkien goes into genealogy of characters so switching the skin color requires lots of other changes to maintain that sense of reality. If a character now has purple skin instead of green skin, then that might mean something. I think this also applies to any story and it’s not so much about changing characters demographics and more about bad storytelling that detracts from the reality of the story.
- runarberg 4y ago
  > Tolkien goes into genealogy of characters so switching the skin color requires lots of other changes to maintain that sense of reality. But Tolkien didn’t specify what traits inherit in which races did he? How do you know how skin tone inherits in this magical world? Even in our universe we have species such as Chimpanzees which grow darker skinned as they age? How do you know the same doesn’t happen with wizards? In our natural world color is indeed quite dynamic. Even human skin tones, hair colors, etc. are quite dynamic in our world (even among related individuals). In a magical world there is nothing preventing the different races from being even more dynamic and diverse.
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    Indeed. There are elves that live for thousands years and have magic powers. There are some humans who have a normal lifespan and others, like Aragorn, that live for hundreds of years. Elves and humans can somehow cross-breed. Why should we assume that Middle Earth genetics work anything like normal Earth genetics? It's so weird to insist on keeping this one aspect of human genetics when everything else seems to be up for grabs.
    - cygx 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
samatman 4y ago
There are plenty of minorities in Middle Earth. The Rohanim, for instance. Or, in the racist euphemism way you've chosen to use it, the Haradrim.

roflyear 4y ago

What prevents you from casting minorities b/c it is fantasy? What crazy logic is that?