In the Atlantic "Ideas" section, Adam Serwer wrote Fear of a Black Hobbit, with the premise, "The demand to keep politics out of art is too often a demand for art to conform to conservative politics."
"Maybe you’ve heard that people are mad about Black actors being cast in Lord of the Rings. Or Game of Thrones. Or maybe it was Star Wars. Or perhaps Thor. Wait, maybe it was Titans, or Superman. The Witcher? Or maybe you heard that people are angry that Black Panther got made in the first place, because Wakanda is fictional, unlike one of those fantasy countries authors seem to think will seem more mysterious if you add enough accents or apostrophes, like Warthéréth’rién. (I just made that up.) Maybe you’re wondering why adults care about a Disney mermaid being Black.
Earlier this month, CNN published a news story featuring an interview with Brandon Morse (
When 'wokeness' comes to Middle-ear...ruins the new 'Lord of the Rings' series), an editor for the right-wing website RedState, in which he complained that Amazon’s new Lord of the Rings show, The Rings of Power, is integrated: “He says ‘The Rings of Power’ producers have cast non-White actors in a story based on European culture and who look wildly different from how Tolkien originally described them,” CNN reported. “He says it’s an attempt to embed ‘social justice politics’ into Tolkien’s world.” Morse told CNN that “if you focus on introducing modern political sentiments, such as the leftist obsession with identity issues that only go skin deep, then you’re no longer focusing on building a good story.”
It’s worth noting how rapidly right-wing language about colorblind meritocracy melts away when it does not produce the desired results. Perhaps the actors cast were simply the most qualified?" (Emphasis, mine)
The debate is not just silly (although it is certainly that, since we're discussing fictional characters in fictional universes), it is dangerously, and deliberately, racist. As a counterbalance to the kvetching about Ariel being a black girl, there are innumerable videos of little black girls' reactions upon seeing a black Ariel for the first time. (They are quite adorable.) But, the larger point is that as the entertainment industry works hard to become, or at least seem, more diverse, there is a countercultural effort, as Serwer puts it, "Demanding Jim Crow casting requirements". The same effort was made about Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton, and the movie version of In the Heights.
Serwer writes, "The interesting thing about this particular sort of backlash is that someone is willing to express such sentiments so explicitly." And that is what brings this article into this topic.
"Backlashes against Black actors being cast in prominent genre roles are almost reflexive at this point, but the critics usually avoid stating outright that the integrity of the work requires an all-white cast. Most of the time, they stick to the argument that inserting politics into art diminishes the quality of the acting or storytelling, even if the shows merely acknowledge the existence of people who are not white or straight or men. The benefit of Morse’s candor is his clarity that his demand to keep politics out of art is itself a demand for art to conform to conservative politics.
There are a number of reasons these reactionary backlashes happen so often. The first, obviously, is that some people lack the imagination to see themselves in protagonists they do not aspire to resemble, at least in their mind’s eye. Another is that some conservative outlets see the screen as just another front in the culture war. They aim to convince the corporations that make television shows and films that their products will fail commercially if they do not conform to conservative politics, while convincing devoted fans of these properties that the reason newer interpretations are unsatisfying is because of diverse casting."
