I have a dear friend, who shall remain nameless, who was utterly outraged by Amazon Prime’s adaptation of JRR Tolkein’s work into the blockbuster show “Rings of Power”. The source of their irritation, I was surprised to learn, was not the generally poor acting and awful writing that plagued at least the first season of that show. Rather, they were outraged by what has become known as “diversity casting”.
In “Rings of Power”, some of the woodland elves are portrayed as dark skinned, and are portrayed by actors of African heritage. The same is true of the hobbits, with Lenny Henry giving a particularly irritating performance in the first season as some sort of Hobbit tribal elder. Lenny Henry’s performance on its merits was, in my view, terrible. But what annoyed my friend and many like her was that he was cast to begin with: The hobbits in JRR Tolkein’s work are very clearly white skinned. So are the Elves. So why are the producers of that show changing his vision?
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