Blatant Tolkienism!

Look, I know it's kind of an obvious opinion to hold, but for real, anyone whining about people of color in Middle-Earth can go--I don't know--not watch it?

"You're going to watch the Lord of the Rings TV show, or else."

-An Amazon spokesperson, evidently

"Must express outrage...it sustains me..."

My instinct there was to opt for harsher language. "Fuck off" for example. But it's just not worth it at this point. Anyone working themselves up into a rabid foam lather about Black elves or whatever and raving on the internet about it is doing so out of the performative rage that insecure white conservatives feel because a fascist gameshow host tells them to. The rabid foam was already there, collecting around their rage-twisted mouths ever since Trump first upward failed his way into the White House.

Above: British actor Sir Lenny Henry as
Hobbit-like Harfoot Sadoc Burrows, seen here
ruining Tolkien and white culture forever.

According to CNN, Brandon Morse, editor or bullshit right-wing site Red State was complaining about the new show back in February when the first Super Bowl ad released, so it's not like--huh? Oh, sorry, we're talking about the redundantly named "Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power." It's on Amazon and yes I'm watching it, but if it makes you feel any better, I'm using someone else's login, so in a sense I'm stealing from Jeff Bezos. Which is basically heroic. Now, where was I? Right, Brandon Morse's screed which, to be clear, he had already formulated without having seen the show. Which, ok, cool. 

Pictured: the Secret Woke Council
who meet once a year under a full moon to
subvert Brandon Morse's favorite brands.

His argument is that LOTR: TROP (yikes, but I guess that's the acronym), and really all the:

"...brands and franchises that our culture holds up in high regard are being repurposed in order to create pre-made delivery systems for their message. It's an attempt to normalize their politics by embedding them in things we love."

-Brandon Morse, butt-hurt over Hobbits

Above: Brandon's culture.

So, couple of things. First, what does he mean by "our culture?" Normally I'd assume American culture, but this is a right-wing thing so it kind of feels like code for white. Similarly, the they of "their message" and "their politics" can, I believe, be presumed to mean progressives like us whose sinister agenda includes things like not bullying trans kids, guaranteeing bodily autonomy to women, and sometimes yes, fantasy TV shows with Black elves. We're, as you can imagine, monsters. 

You know, it's almost like Brandon Morse is just uncomfortable with people who don't look like him. "It's an attempt to normalize their politics by embedding them in things we love." Ok, but why does he love Lord of the Rings? Is it because of Tolkien's super-white fantasy realm? Or is he into the deep--at time incomprehensible--world building and stories.

Pre-wikipedia, your best bet for lore was to try and
make it through The Silmarillion. It was...dense. 

Congratulations uncredited background actor!
You are no longer single handedly responsible for
all representation in the entire LOTR series. 

Look, when Peter Jackson failed to cast a single person of color in the first three film versions of Tolkien's novels it was an error in judgement. He attempted to correct this with the (kinda mediocre) Hobbit prequels, but it just felt half-hearted. I mean, would an Asian dwarf have really thrown the verisimilitude of this fantasy world out the window? But now in 2022 it would have been downright unforgivable for LOTR: TROP's producers to cast an all-white Middle-Earth. We're just not having it.

I think we can all agree that Legolas
headshoting an oliphant and then surfing
down the trunk is, objectively, dumb.

But the argument that the producers of the new show are betraying Tolkien's work by casting people of color in roles that readers have either interpreted as, or Tolkien expressly described as, white is just frustrating. Sure, Tolkien constantly equated "fair" and "blond" with goodness and blackness with evil. He was also born in 1892 and couldn't write female characters to save his life. And, he'd be spinning in his grave had he lived to see the movies. 

Peter Jackson's plan was to put the Haradin in
masks and hope no one asked too many questions.

Was Tolkien a racist? I don't know. He did list the Haradin or "Swarthy Men" alongside orcs and goblins as servants of Sauron. But I'm not sure I'm qualified to sum up Tolkien as a person. Neither is Morse, but I do know that some elements of his work are hard to view otherwise. But we don't not enjoy them. We ignore the shitty bits or chalk it up to Tolkien writing in a less enlightened time. The TV show is a product of this time and as such is made with an understanding of both the lore and of the world as it is now. I mean, sometimes you have to cast a female X-Wing pilot. 

Lando Calrissian: also a trailblazer in the
under-represented Cape Enthusiast Community. 

Lemme explain. Take the original Star Wars . It has--and I'm sure someone can correct me on this--not a single character who isn't white. The Empire Strikes Back gave us Lando, but that's a lot for one actor to carry, even if he is Billy Dee Williams. Now take the prequels, the sequels, and the one-offs that followed in the twenty-first century. They're far more reflective of the world as it is today than the originals. Does this betray George Lucas? Of course not, he just wasn't thinking in the same terms back then as we do now and that's not a bad thing, that's progress. 

But does it violate continuity to suddenly insert Black Imperial officers into Star Wars or Brown Hobbits into Middle-Earth? Eh? Maybe, but no more than it does to suddenly switch to CGI spaceships or to film against an LCD wall. Diverse casting is just another filmmaking technology that has improved over time. It's a richer, more detailed world and if that's upsetting to the kind of person who would hate-watch Rings of Power just to complain about it on the internet, I'm fully behind it. 

"I mean, a Black hobbit? How am I supposed to relate
to fictional characters in a fantasy world if they're not cis
hetero white men with carefully manicured beards?" 

-Brandon Morse, noted

victim of wokeness

Today in vacation photos you didn't ask for:

Huh? What? Yes I'm still here. Sorry, I was gone for a week, but I'm back now. Well, I'm not sorry I was gone, but-wait, no, actually I am kind of sorry because it was brutal.

Turns out that an arid desert isn't maybe the best vacation spot?

Above: Baaahs. It's an art car designed
to look like a sheep for reasons we're
not allowed to know. 

Where? Uh, fine, but don't judge me, ok? Burning Man. Yes. Again. I know. But everyone's got their thing. Some people play sports, other people, I don't know, raise children. I and a few friends go hang out with people on drugs in an inhospitable environment, unable to sleep because every four minutes or so, a bus made up to look like a pirate ship or a polygonal sheep drives by thumping base at a frequency so low that it's still reverberating in my molars hours later. And the heat. Sweet mother of Willian Thompson, 1st Baron Kelvin, the heat.

Anywhere else it would be weird to spray
strangers in the street, but here we are.

I know that we knew what we were getting ourselves into by going to a dry lake bed in Nevada in the worst part of the summer during a climate crisis centuries in the making, but hot. So hot. I've been nearly a dozen times now, and it's certainly been hotter on one or two days, but this was a constant, unyielding heat that hung on until well after dark. Days were useless and I spent most of them in a folding camp chair, misting myself with a hardware store garden sprayer and remarking on how death might be preferable. It kind of helped, but not much.

Pictured: most of what we
were looking at all week. 

The sprayer I mean, although the complaining was therapeutic as well. The downside though was that the water mixed with the alkaline dust to form an ever-present, desiccating layer of mud on all exposed surfaces. And this dust was everywhere. The winds were something of a mixed blessing as while the breeze was nice, it usually carried with it the dust which, in particularly dense moments reduced visibility so that you only could only navigate by electronic house music. 

"You people understand that we serve
coffee, right? Hot coffee? Ok..."

-us

It wasn't all bad. I mean, I got to see some friends I only see once a year. We have a theme camp, which is a kind of camp where you offer something to attendees. In our case coffee. Piping hot coffee. In the middle of a dry desert in unseasonably warm weather. That part didn't go too well. It's a good thing Burning Man rejects commerce and monetization because this would have been a disastrous business if we'd had to charge people. I mean, some people showed up. We made some new friends. We mostly sat around commiserating about how it was too hot to do anything, but still, new friends. 

As I write this, I'm home and recovering. The heat was--huh? I know, I'm talking about it a lot, but you did keep reading after I said I was going to talk about my vacation so this is on you--anyway, the heat takes a lot out of you so since I've been back I've been sleeping, eating, and showering the dust off. And I know there are plenty of good reasons to actively try and course correct our species' carbon impact. Rising seas, extinctions, not leaving our children a dry-burnt out husk of a planet. But if you needed one more, it's really screwing up my yearly excursion to go be weird in the desert for a week. 

If you won't do it for the children, then do
it for the weirdos who act like children.

Today in the pearls I clutch:

It took the zombies eight seasons
to get to the wall? G.R.R. Martin could
have written a whole book by then.
He didn't But he could have...

I do not care for Game of Thrones. That's not to say that I didn't watch it in its entirety, but I did so whilst actively disliking the characters, story, and pacing. Yeah, I'm not sure why I stuck with it either, nor do I fully understand why I watched the prequel show the other night. It, like the over-long, over-grim nonsense that preceded--succeeded? Prequels, amiright?--was full of unlikeable characters, gratuitous violence, and appalling wigs. And the part where--oh, wait, I'm going to spoil somethings now, so bail out if you care--still with me? Super.

Because holy shit, I looked away during Matt Smith's medieval cops crackdown scene where goon start hacking off offending limbs and nearly turned it off during the childbirth scene. Sorry to get all pearl-clutchy here but I mean, holy shit.

Defund the Gold Cloaks!

Don't even Arya me. She baked someone's
kids into a pie. They were dicks and deserved
it, but still, a pie. And she made him eat it.
That's some Titus Andronicus shit right there.

It's not the violence that bothers me, well, ok, it is the violence, but it's the cruelty maybe that bothers me more? Particularly because I presume someone here is supposed to be a protagonist. And it's just hard to root for someone who just summarily executed a bunch of suspects without trial or someone who made decisions about his wife's health and safety without consulting her, and then let her die without answering her incredibly reasonable questions about what was going on. And yet I kept watching it, so I guess this is all on me. Like, HBO tells us right off the bat that the show is rated TV-MA. 

Almost makes me miss Joe Lieberman
loosing his shit over Night Trap. Almost.

Which is weird because I also watched the second season of Only Murders in the Building, which was also rated TV-MA. And what the actual? How are these both on the same level? Look, I'm not disputing the utility of a ratings system. People can decide how much mutilation is too much mutilation for them and that's great. Whatever. But I think I have a problem with our stupendously screwed up priorities. Violence, Nudity, Sex, drug and tobacco use, and language seem to be the only criteria we're worried about, but shouldn't there be some, I don't know consistency?

The locker room at 24-Hour Fitness is
rated TV-MA for gratuitous wing-wangary.

First of all, I think it's preposterous that nudity results in a more or less guaranteed MA rating. People have hootenannys and wing wangs and if that sets you off, fine, but surely violence is more of an aberration in our culture (kinda), and if nudity was the only thing in House of the Dragon, I wouldn't be harping on this right now. Same same with the swears. I honestly don't know how one goes through live in twenty-first century America without uttering five or six "fucks" an hour and one certainly can't avoid words in public. If I'm not greeted with "Welcome to fucking Starbucks" when getting coffee, I don't even tip.*

But the repeated, relentless murder in House of the Dragon was just, I don't know, unsettling. And that's fine, I'm not saying don't make your dumb War of the Roses with Ice Zombies shows, I'm just saying that it's way, way worse than Martin Short saying fuck.  

Only in America is a septuagenarian swearing held on the same
level as Doctor Who castrating criminals on television.

*I'm kidding, I always tip. I'm not a monster.

Schadenfreude Shindig

No no no no no. No. Just, no. Look, I know we've all long-suspected that noted rich Elon Musk was kind of, you know, terrible--as a person I mean--but I mean, c'mon:

Lix Cheney was the left half of the Republican Party.

If you're trying to keep your MAGA leanings 
on the down low, maybe don't pose for selfies?

And he made this ludicrous claim after being outed as having attended Kevin McCarthy's garden party thrown in celebration of the defeat of Liz Cheney. And I mean, I'm not a fan of Cheney's politics, but at least she isn't a batshit lunatic like the rest of the GOP. And showing up at a celebration of the removal of the last Republican who can carry on a discussion without parroting Trump's deranged claims about the election or foaming at the mouth over his persecution complex is a public demonstration of support for the fascist shitshow the party has become.

Pictured: that time an actor convinced 
America of the good intentions of the 1%.

I'm sure there are plenty of reasonable people who are still clinging to the idea that one can be socially progressive but fiscally conservative. It's preposterous, but whatever. Fine. I mean, we're sitting here picking over the ruins of the American Century because people calling themselves social progressives/fiscal conservatives voted for Reagan in the 80's. Twice. A demonstrably disastrous choice, by the way, but sure, you do you. But that's not an option here. Not anymore. 

I'm not like an economist. I just have an internet connection and as such feel qualified to voice sweeping, and uninformed opinions, but the thing that allowed Republicans to get where they are today is an all or nothing mentality. You're either with Donald Trump or you're getting primaried out of your congressional seat. 

Above: the look of someone who just got run out of Crazytown
for daring to question the wisdom of leaning into the crazy.

Anyone else hearing strains of Sarah
McLachlan's "In The Arms of an Angel"
playing softly over a montage of sad Elon?

Evidently, Musk told attendees at McCarthy's Schadenfreude shin-dig that the country would be doing fine if Republicans would "stay out of people's bedrooms" and Democrats would "stay out of people's wallets." Great, world's richest man is butt-hurt over having to pay taxes like the rest of us. How novel. But since the only way Republicans get elected is by stirring up the religious right's homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny, that's not going to happen. Ever. This is who they are now.

Republican performative outrage over liberals and our vision of turning America into a socialist utopia of tolerance and gay stuff is what gets the MAGA goons out of their rapture bunkers long enough to toddle down to the polling stations, assault rifles in hand, to vote for actual fascists. They're not going to give that up because some rich guy who smokes weed and launches electric cars at Mars tells them too. They'll take his money, snap their selfies, and continue to dismantle democracy. 

This guy in Florida is running on a platform of shooting Federal Agents.
So no, Elon Musk isn't going to convince the GOP to change course.

Is it ghoulishly shameless or shamelessly ghoulish?

What the actual? How long has Murder House Flip been a thing? Well, ok, two seasons, but I think my question stands: what the actual?

"Hmm...yes. Yes, let's go with the logo where the house
is bleeding. It's perfect. So tasteful, you know?"

-A Roku marketing person who

might possibly be a sociopath

"Wait 'till you hear where they found
the torso, you're going to love this."

I ask because evidently someone, somewhere, saw the morbid fascination we Americans have with murders that aren't happening directly to us (yet anyway), and the equally morbid fascination with trying to afford housing and thought that these two great tastes would taste great together. And the result is Murder House Flip--which does exactly what it says on the tin: a show where two hosts, Sarah Listi and Mikel Wellch try to rehab house where gruesome killings have taken place. I wish I were kidding.

Well, probably not them, I mean, I think contractors usually do the actual work, but the hosts are also there. So they're kind of like the Property Brothers if the Property Brothers used UV lights to detect bodily fluids. Which I don't think they do, I don't watch TLC so who knows?

Look, if you're going to pretend to do the work at least dress like it.
Nobody's ever installed luxury vinyl plank flooring in a polo.

Unspeakable sure, but
what a deal!

Anyway, I watched an episode about a couple who bought the scene of a triple homicide and it's quite a thing watching people rationalize their decision to live with blood-soaked wainscoting. 

"We feel really sad about happened here and um, we feel sad for the neighborhood...like, it's unspeakable."

-Alex, speaking about it

"The right backsplash tiles can really
make you forget about the brutal slayings."

"The front yard is a metaphorical graveyard, obviously." Says Alex and I have to disagree with him there. Disagree and be super-pedantic. The front yard is where two of the victims were gunned down, not buried, so it's not a metaphorical graveyard so much as it is a literal crime scene. He goes on: "We're just trying to create like new memories that will help us replace all the trauma and everything that happened here." To which his partner Britt adds: "And just not have that one afternoon be like, the only thing that this house in known for."

I get that the housing situation in is brutal. And while I can blame Roku for making a show that exploits actual crimes, I don't really blame the people for overlooking a house's faults, even murder. But I'm sorry, because there is no backyard barbecue, elaborate annual Christmas lights display, or 70's style key party that will ever make this house not be forever known as the triple murder house.

Unless someone pulls off a quadruple murder down the street?
Which, this being America, isn't really a long longshot.

How Chris-appointing...

We've already discussed how sometimes critics and viewers can be kind of far apart on something and how just because critics by and large dismissed Chris Pratt's The Terminal List as a Right-wing wank-fest and-what? 

Relax, it's just an expression. Although I do believe conservatives
get sexual pleasure from watching TV shows about shooting terrorists.

Is it that people used to throw tomatoes at
poor performances? I don't see how rottenness
 comes into play. Like, a tomato's a tomato.

I'm paraphrasing, but for real, they also called it "incoherent," a conspiracy theorist's wish fulfillment, and "nonsensical." And that's just a lazy glance at the Rotten Tomatoes entry. Like, I didn't even do research. I'm simply not paid enough. Anyway, it's got a 39%. And yes, some critics liked it. That's fine, but the overwhelming majority of them, not so much. But whatever. Like Jack Carr, the writer whose book the series is based on said: "We didn't make it for the critics. We made it for those in the arena." 

I never understood regular football, so...

And then we all had a good laugh at Carr's use of the word area. Like he made it for gladiators or people who played that weird, late nineties arena football thing. So why are we talking about it again? Because Chris Pratt, that's why. I like Chris Pratt. His work I mean. I think he's very funny and I mean, Guardians of the Galaxy, right? Everybody loves Chris. Except you kind of have to ignore the homophobic Hillsong Church, which he doesn't belong to, right? 

Because he attends a different church founded by a guy who broke away from Hillsong, but also made a documentary about the evils of homosexuality. But fine, whatever. Chris Pratt's beliefs, whatever they are aren't on trial here. In fact, nothing is on trial here. Except maybe Pratt's less than well thought out instant grams.

Above: Pratt's response to critics for, you know, criticizing.

Beard: check. Gun: check. 

The actor evidently--I say evidently because I'm not on Insta that much. Wait, do the kids still call it "Insta?"I'm hopelessly out of touch. Where was I? right--like I was saying, he apparently leapt to the defense of his dumb guys with beards and guns shooting stuff show, which is understandable. A lot of people worked very hard on it and he, as a famous with a large following, should support the work. Even though lots of people whose job it is to evaluate artistic works find it, you know, unwatchable. 

They had to tell the entire story on the title
page back then. You never knew when you
were going to die of consumption.

But it's the way he defended it, you know? He posted an article entitled:

"The new Yellowstone: Christ Pratt's new Navy thriller 'The Terminal List' defies woke critics scathing reviews to shoot up ratings chart with 1.6 Billion minutes of streams."

-TheDailyMail.com's preposterously

 long title for an article

Wait, except there already is a new
Yellowstone. It's called 1883 and also
has guys with guns shooting things.

So, couple of things. For one, that's too much title. It sounds like an eighteenth century novel: The New Yellowstone, or Chris Pratt's New Navy Thriller Being a True and Fulsome Account of the Defiance of Yon Wokest of Critics Who Doth Disparage The Same. Secondly, I don't know how they do things at the Daily Mail, but we typically don't count the minutes streamed. I think it's something like 330 million views, which, I have no idea if that's good, but it sounds less impressive than 1.6 billion minutes. 

And yeah again, critics can dislike a thing that everyone else likes. That doesn't mean they're wrong. Look, I know it's not Chris Pratt's job to share our worldview, but I'm not going to pretend it wouldn't bother me if he's a secret anti-gay, Right-wing, Trumpy MAGA goon. And throwing out articles about how the woke libruls are hating on his guns, god, and glory streaming show that real America adores isn't helping. 

Just throw us a Tweet saying Trans Rights, or I stand with Roe v Wade
and we can all go back to looking forward to Guardians 3, ok?

Could have at least called it "Shmamilton..."

Look, I don't want to tell anyone how to sermonize--that's a lie, of course I do, everyone does--but seriously The Door McAllen Church? I almost admire the sheer, unmitigated hutzpah on display by this McAllen, Texas Church who not only put on and streamed an unauthorized production of Hamilton, but also changed the lyrics to shoe-horn in references to Jesus, but we'll get to that.

"Nobody needs to know...about our copy-write
infringing and unauthorized production..."

"I also dreamed the rights to Hadestown
and Cabaret, so remember to get your
season tickets before they sell out!"

How this went down, is that pastor Roman Gutierrez got permission to perform the play. Or at least he said he did. Or maybe he had a dream in which he secured the rights? Either way, the rights-holders later clarified that no, of course Gutierrez had done no such thing because they don't now, nor have they ever, licensed the rights to anyone. When word got out that the church had put on a production, the rights holders sent a cease and desist letter, but later grudgingly allowed them to finish provided they abide by some stipulations.

To be clear: they thought they'd rip-off an
incredibly popular and profitable musical about
a lawyer and not get sued for it?

Specifically don't stream it, don't post photos, and for the love of theatre god (Dionysus, I guess?), don't do this again. Ok, great. That's downright magnanimous. I've read that religious organizations can make use of some copyrighted material without permission if it's part of a larger service, although it's apparently dicey territory, legally speaking, and that exemption may or may not apply to plays, at least not in their entirety and certainly not if they streamed it. But maybe the church thought they were covered because they tacked on a sermon at the end? Who knows? Seems like if I could do a quick internet search and discover it was a bad idea, they could too, but here we are.

In any case, the rights holder's good deed--not suing the be-Jesus out of The Door McAllen Church--went swiftly punished.  The Saturday show went up as stipulated--that is, no video or streaming--but it was full of inserted references to Jesus and anti-gay lines which the production company was evidently unaware of when they agreed to let them finish the run.

"Excuse me, are you Aaron Burr sir? And have you heard the good news?"

-Hamilton, making Aaron Burr...uncomfortable

Pictured: that time the cast of Hamilton
called Mike Pence (who was in the audience)
out on the GOP's record of homophobia.

Which, couple of things. First of all, Hamilton as a production, is about inclusion and diversity and playwright Lin Manuel Miranda has been incredibly vocal about his support of LGBTQIA+ rights. So while nobody but Right-wing MAGA goons complaining about everyone's wokeness even uses the word woke anymore, Hamilton (despite glossing over slavery and straight up omitting references to the treatment of indigenous peoples) is, pretty famously, woke (or was, for 2015 anyway). Which makes it a somewhat odd choice to appropriate and shove in a bunch of anti-gay messages. 

"Willkommen, bienvenue, praise Jesus..."

-The Church, meeting

 the kids half way

But more importantly--and this is what I'll never get about American Evangelicals--why do they feel the need to be so, I don't know, sneaky? Like, if their message is such a good one, why do they need to hide it like a de-worming pill in the peanut butter of popular culture? The answer, I suspect, has something to do with plummeting church attendance and ok, that's fair. But do they really think that the youths aren't showing up because there aren't enough off-brand productions of Broadway shows? 

"Yeah, but if you close one eye and squint..."

-someone trying very, very hard to 

rationalize Christians with money

Because, if I may, I'd like to offer an alternative explanation: maybe the kids just aren't into hearing sermons about how gay and transpeople are going to hell? Particularly since the religious basis for these and a lot of the other things the Christian Right harps on all the time is dubious at best. Somehow a religion about being kind to one another and giving up all your money is presented as an excuse to be shitty to queer people and hoard wealth. Kids are smart, and they can smell a scam. Usually. I mean, explain Minions, but generally speaking, smart.

My sense is that Jesus, as a first century Judean and anti-capitalist would probably not care about intellectual property, so if that was this church's excuse, I'd almost give them a pass. But instead they took someone's--admittedly commercial--artistic work and tried to use it to sell homophobia to young musical theatre fans, and that just sucks. 

"Pastor Gutierrez, I'd like you to meet my client Jesus Christ.
He tells me you've been mis-representing him in your sermons..."

-Jesus's lawyer