Fellowship of the Fans

Rings of Power - Is the Criticism "Ist"? (11/07/24

There is a question on Quora called, "Are criticisms of The Ring of Power series motivated by racism?" I wanted to quote something from one of the answers -- which, there is a resounding no, the criticisms aren't. But there is the quote.

"The way that diversity is presented in the series actually takes me out of the story. Not because I don't like people of different races on the screen, but because I know enough about biology that seeing diversity triggers my thinking brain - people with lighter or darker skin evolved that way as large groups across vast areas for environmental reasons."

And this is a major fundamental problem those pushing for diversity in every form of entertainment fail to understand. Fundamentally, in the case of this particular show, the world we live in is shrunk down to the size of Europe if not smaller. It doesn't take much to google up that Europe in turn only makes up 6.8% of the land area in the world, yet the show is trying to make that 6.8% that Tolkien's work represents (keep in mind it is actually smaller) represent 100% of the world. That means the work represents in scope more than ten times the scope it should represent, so there is a fundamental flaw to this.

To which I saw a video clip of one of the founders from Sweet Baby Inc complaining when she's told she can't have another Black character when one out of twelve of the characters is already Black. Yes, 8.3% of the characters in a game is certainly less than the 13.7% of the population that Black people comprise, yet by the same token, 16.6% is also above the population, yet who isn't going to be represented because of that additional Black character in there?

The push for 20% of representation in media started back in 2010 because of a niche theory that the Black population would one day comprise that much of the population in the United States in what is now ten years from now, and yet the population in 2010 has only gone up from 12.6% by 1.1%. Still, at that rate it, it will take 50 to 60 years from now to reach that percentage of the population, if the Black population reaches that at all, particularly if we don't know how much freer specific mixed-race individuals would be in declaring themselves as Black played a factor in the population increase.

Truth - if one of the twelve characters is Black, then the other characters' ethnicity has already been selected, so when they tell this DEI consultant from Sweet Baby Inc that they can't have another Black character it is because they've already done all that work on the characters and they're being forced to add another, either by changing another characters ethnicity or by adding a thirteenth character.

This is a form of censorship as it is forcing the creator(s) of a given fandom, in this case, a gaming fandom, to change their story to suit  Sweet Baby Incs rules regarding what is an acceptable form of diversity, rather than letting the diversity in the story stand on it's own, not to mention the addition of a second Black character is definitely forced into the narrative without any consideration to how the narrative would change.

It's censorship because the original creation is being suppressed because certain people didn't think it was politically correct enough, but part of the problem with the woke ideology is this idea that certain companies like Sweet Baby Inc get to gatekeep what is or isn't successful in a given industry, with actual attempts to boycott games that don't play their game, including games from Korea, Asia and Japan which has too much Asian diversity with the idea that Black characters are necessary additions despite the populations having far less than even the UK.

United States - 13.7%
United Kingdom - 3.7% (4.2% in England; 1.2% in Scotland, .8% in Wales and .6 in Ireland)
China - 0.04%
Japan - 0.02%
South Korean - Unknown, but likely similar to China and Japan

So we're talking about something that stands out even more in Asian media than Western media, yet they're pushing for it, sending their journalists after games like Black Myth: Wukong which is based on a classic Chinese tale because the game company remained faithful to the source material which is now villified.

I mean, we're talking Rings of Power where in the second season a future son-in-law kisses his future mother-in-law and this is supposed to be okay, something nobody bats an eye at.

Which, uh - yeah. Saw that one coming a mile away as those playing into woke ideology play into the kink side of fandom.