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Of course it is not scholarship! It's in The Conversation, not in a scholarly journal or other scholarly outlet.northman wrote:
As for diversity in casting that's no big deal for me. I still think Morgan Freeman would have made the best Gandalf. But the wider debate about racism in Tolkiens works is something else. What i hope was rock bottom was just reached with Dimitra Fimi and Mariana Rios stating that "Despite Tolkien’s overall message of friendship and co-operation, and despite his raging against the Nazis, the face of evil in Middle-earth is invariably non-white/non-European.". This isnt scholarship, this is activism, and the TS doesnt take a stand at all.
It seems to be an example of affirming the consequent, a logical fallacy, I agree, though unfortunately not uncommon in literary scholarship (by which I mean in actual scholarly publications). It would have been correct to say that any non-white/non-European face in Middle-earth is invariably associated with (e.g. fighting for) evil, but the other way around is, as you imply, incorrect.
I am, however, more inclined to let it go as a reaction to a number of truly racist reactions to Amazon's casting choices – unfortunate, certainly, and a regrettable inaccuracy, but, in an article in The Conversation, hardly worthy of severe critique. After all, I have still to see a negative reaction to the casting of black actors as Dwarf & Elf that is not at some level based on a racist bias, but some are more radically so than others.
The wider discussion of racism in Tolkien's work is interesting – he definitely believed that biological heritage accounted for much more of our personality (including ethics), than what is generally accepted today, but that is probably not a discussion for this place
Dale Nelson wrote:
I sent this comment to Beyond Bree, the monthly Tolkienian newsletter:
In the April 2022 BB, persons uneasy about the imminent Amazon Middle-earth series are admonished thus: “Adaptations are original cultural entities that can imitate, question, rewrite, or reinterpret their source material for a new audience.”
That assertion grants a great deal of license indeed! It immediately reminded me of Evelyn Waugh’s 1947 essay. "Agents negotiate, a price is fixed. And from that moment the story belongs to the studio to deal with as they please. Each of the books purchased has had some individual quality, good or bad, that had made it remarkable. It is the work of a staff of 'writers' to distinguish this quality, separate it and obliterate it" ("Why Hollywood Is a Term of Disparagement," in The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyan Waugh, 1984, p. 328).
Dale Nelson
Thank you for this, Dale.
For me, the assertion that “Adaptations are original cultural entities that can imitate, question, rewrite, or reinterpret their source material for a new audience” grants me freedom to like or dislike adaptations for whatever reason I care for – or, indeed, for no reason whatsoever, other than just “I like it” or “I don't like it”.
Specifically, it allows me to say that I dislike an adaptation because it fails to capture aspects of the original work, that are important to me, but it also requires of me that I assert that without claiming this to be a failure of the adaptation per se, or, indeed, implying that failing to satisfy my limited sympathies somehow constitutes a moral failure on the part of the people doing the adaptation. At one level it is, of course, Jackson's “fault” that I detest his Hobbit adaptation, but I'll concede that he was entitled to make the films he thought he should make rather than imply that failing to satisfy me is an artistic or moral failure
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