Join the Random Show!!

Stop backing up my fucking files.

Stop asking me to back up my fucking files.

Stop taking my fucking files off my fucking computer.

I don't want a fucking reminder in three fucking days. Let me fucking say no.

Here's a text tutorial to get rid of that shit on Windows 11.

Here's a video tutorial to get rid of that shit on Windows 10.

Here's a video tutorial to get rid of that shit on Windows 11.

Let me explain.

Tolkien wrote about the machines that are corrupting people (Saruman and his industry, Sauron in Mordor, but also the Ring itself as a machine to gain more power)

[Selected excerpts from Tolkien's Letter 131 to Milton Waldman, 1951]

That's exactly what AI is all about: the Machine "with destructive and evil effects" and which reduces "to a minimum (or vanishing point) of the gap between the idea or desire and the result or effect".

Of course, back then, Tolkien wasn't talking about gen AI, but about industrialisation at large... but I think that his argument can perfectly apply to gen AI. And if you can't see the similarities, then I can't do anything for you.

Using gen AI to adapt Tolkien's work is not just disrespectful, it's also offensive. It's like stepping on his legacy and the points he was trying to explore through his work.

Besides, we all know why Andy Serkis does this: because he wants the P. Jackson's cast to come back, toying with people's nostalgia to better sell his movie. It's pure marketing, manipulating the fanbase's sensible cord to better sell his movie. He isn't creating anything new, he rebrands PJ's work and uses AI to make it fit our times. (I'm not fond of the Rings of Power series, but at least it offers something new - even if it draws on PJ's work, it's a different, diverse cast, a kinda new proposition based on Tolkien's work).

Tolkien's work focuses on creativity, on the power of imagination and creation. He praises it as a highest type of magic.

Using AI is all but creation.

And don't let me start on Serkis's whitewashing discourse. He made it clear that he didn't want any actor of colour in his movie... which is basic racism.

Not only because there are mentions on brown skins in Tolkien's work, but also (mostly) because this man disregards the importance of inclusivity and representation. Middle-earth is a world in which dragons exist... How dare you say the presence of black or brown people would be "unrealistic" in that world??

So I'm going to say it once and for all: Andy Serkis is a racist, an opportunist, and someone who doesn't give a shit about Tolkien's legacy or about inclusivity at large. I don't need more to know where this man stands on the political umbrella.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/05/what_state_prisoners_get_to_wo.html

in 2009 he worked with the ultra conservative organization focus on the family to produce an audio adaptation of a c.s lewis book.

in 2026 andy serkis released an animated adaptation of animal farm that has been lamblasted for it's defanging of the books original message. the distribution rights for this film are bought by the conservative media companay angel studios, best know for such hits as the sound of freedom.

later in 2026 angel studios released a right wing historical revisionist movie called young washington. andy serkis stars in a supporting role alongside infamous trumper kelsey grammar. kelsey grammar even visits the white house during the press tour to do a screening of the movie for trump. what's especially interesting about this is that serkis had apparently signed up to work with angel studios on this film before they even bought the distribution rights to animal farm. i guess he was already chummy with them.

and of course most recently serkis responded to criticism regarding the lack of diversity in his upcoming live action hunt for gollum movie and how the main cast is exclusively white, by making vague indications that "tolkien himself was influenced a lot by norse mythology, there’s a lot of that feeling" and that "the shire feels very, very much like a very, a very white, you know…” or "they’re not very concerned about what goes on beyond the borders of the shire, but they know they don’t want people coming in" before finally stating "i don’t think we will be doing a politically correct just-casting-for-the sake-of-casting-and-ticking-boxes version of the film. so, it’s where relevant basically."

the problem of racism in tolkien fandom will not be resolved for as long as people believe that the mere act of critique is a violence in itself, and that therefore having made a critique, the person who has made a critique can either be unpersoned or that norms of politeness no longer apply. of course, this fandom is too "polite" to do slurs in askboxes for the most part, but there are other mechanisms of rude communications that fly in the name of "debate". do you think its polite to misread someone and then accuse them via that misreading, of not extending enough grace to a dead historical figure? personally, i think that's quite rude as a quibble, not least because of the total disengagement with the actual arguments being made. do you think its polite to send people snide asks for weeks on end, insisting on them defending their viewpoint, their specifically racial critique of the canon? personally, i think not! but you know, ymmv.

the problem of racism in tolkien fandom will not be resolved for as long as it takes (primarily) non-white fans doing the careful work of exposition and critique in order to uncover and engage with tolkien's racism and genealogies of his thinking for any non-apologetic engagement with tolkien and race to occur in fandom. and what do i mean by non-apologetic engagement? i mean that so far outside of a very small selection of tolkien academics (and a tiny handful of white fans) who i can all roughly count on my fingers, very few expositions of race in tolkien's work are not accompanied by a cringing apology that insists that a) tolkien was not racist himself personally and b) he was a man of his time and c) that there clearly were "exceptions" to his racial ideology in his works. this defensive pose allows the protective psychological mechanisms of political whiteness to continually step in and therefore absolve itself of engagement with race in tolkien's text. to put it plainly: i am claiming that the problem of racism in tolkien fandom, in specifically making tolkien fandom a hostile space for fans of colour, will not be resolved for as long as white fans cannot call tolkien a racist. if that sounds hardline, so be it.

the problem of racism in tolkien fandom will not be resolved for as long as it is largely only non-white fans investing the time and energy in expositing and critiquing race and tolkien specifically within a fandom space. it will not be resolved for so long as non-white fans are forced to rehearse and explain racist ideas, histories and thinking to white fans who refuse to do any amount of research themselves, or who settle on an anodyne "listen to non-white voices". believe me it is not very hard to do the research if you are actually interested in creating a non-hostile atmosphere and space for non-white fans. but that process has to be co-creative. i am inviting you to participate in actually doing this hard work of critique and conversation because you care about race and because, hopefully, you care about your non-white brethren within fandom spaces.

the problem of a hostile atmosphere towards non-white fans in tolkien fandom is not a problem that non-white fans can resolve, but one that i think falls to white fans to police, resolve and make socially unviable. if there is something i want to communicate persuasively, i think it would be this: what exactly do the norms of "politeness" in the fandom serve? how are you thinking about what is polite and what is not? what feelings are you prioritising when any attempt to engage with race is treated as "hurting" people's feelings or making things "less fun"? what feelings are being prioritised when discussions abt race in the texts are labelled "fandom discourse" or "fandom wank"? what feelings are being prioritised when a non-white fan is being asked to extend grace to a dead white historical figure? are you able and willing to police such communications even internally, even when you think non-white fans are absent from your conversations? when they aren't watching? or is it only something you become aware of when a non-white fan turns their eyes on you? these are questions i would like liberal white fans to ask themselves and to have a serious debate about.

I didn't want to get into this on my main post/s because every time I tried, I ended up on a tangent that derailed the point of my slamming Andy Serkis.

-Okay, I did touch a little on the first bit without explicitly saying it, but the other points I did not.

(I really don't think "they were cast almost exclusively as the villains" needs to be expanded upon or debated. It is a terrible, deeply racist look under the modern lens. There is no nuance to explore. We are better than that. Plain and simple.)

As for the Haradrim/Southron's, I want to add that not only did they switch to Kiribati influence, but they also used the Aztec Empire for inspiration. Which I cannot stress enough, IS NOT BETTER PHILIPPA BOYENS.

Additionally, does anyone else remember the production team wearing dark makeup and dreads for a cameo as the crew of the Corsair Fleet? Just me?

There is an extended segment in the Appendices about this cameo where they laugh about how much brozer and dark makeup they had to put on them.

I will push back on the last part of what you wrote. This problem is rooted in the way Tolkien wrote about the Harad and the People of Rhûn (and even Orcs and Goblins) and how it creates difficult situations for people adapting/writing about his works. On one hand, there are parts of Tolkien's text that read deeply racist, on the other his characters are capable of recognizing each other's worth despite cultural divides and he also was about as staunchly anti-white supremacy as a middle class middle aged white man could be at the time.

This does not absolve the production team in the same way it doesn't absolve Tolkien, but it gives context to their ignorance.

We have room to consider this and improve upon the flawed base. The 2000s brought more female representation into the fold. It's time to reckon with the racist and ableist tones. And I truly don't care if we have to actually consider George RR Martin's shit eating quip about Aragorn's tax policy and his treatment of orcs. Tolkien included diversity in his world, accidentally or not, and you can no longer ignore it. We are fully capable of putting good representation into Middle Earth and even as the biggest continuity snob alive I could care less if they blind-casted Aragorn.