The debate about racism in the film industry reignited when Vanity Fair released images from the set of the new Amazon series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Segments of the audience openly spoke out against the presence of people of colour in the casting, regardless of how non-white cultures are indeed present in Tolkien’s writing, however not always pictured in the most flattering way.
“Although incredible and wonderful, it is still fiction, and the colour of the skin of the person who plays a character that exists only in the pages of a book shouldn’t matter,” says Malane Quadros, software developer, and longtime Tolkien fan.
She said that kind of criticism is the epitome of the most blatant racism, including comments about the appearance of Black actors, particularly in regards to actress Sophia Nomvete.
“On Reddit, there were a lot of comments insinuating that the Black actors cast should be playing the roles of evil and/or ‘inferior’ races in Tolkien universe and that if they were playing roles with greater prominence and protagonism, it would ruin the show,” she said.
Graphic designer Cris Trentini, 30, who has been a fan of Tolkien’s universe since she was 11, said that having representativity in the media is important.
“It’s important that we have this variety because how many people don’t identify with Tolkien’s work, don’t see themselves represented in it, and will never see themselves in the characters because there is no physical resemblance?” she said.
“If we’re going to talk about respect for lore, a dwarf woman without a beard is a thousand times more serious than some diversity in the skin tones of the cast,” she said. “What’s the problem of, in a work of fantasy, having fantastic beings with different skin colors?”
The controversy about diversity in the series is similar to other incidents where characters belong to a minority.
In the film industry, structural racism seems to directly affect the lives of Black professionals trying to find space in the job market.
Mckinsey Global Institute released its report Black representation in film and TV that gathered data on thousands of productions and included more than 50 interviews with industry professionals.
The results show a substantially lower number of Black-led stories get told and those projects receive less funding. Black-led stories also have a greater tendency of being shelved in comparison to non-Black narratives.
Sociologist Pedro Ferreira believes structural racism is the basis for both the reception of the public and the situation in the job market.
“When the public realizes that a Black person is occupying what is supposed to be a place occupied by white people, there is often a shock in society. Especially if that place is the spotlight,” he said.
Ferreira believes a Black person in a prominent role often causes more of an impact since Black people have always been on the sidelines.
“When we have a Black actor playing a character that has been described as phenotypically white, the public’s resistance is clear. The opposite doesn’t happen, when we have, for example, a white actor playing a character described as Asian or Black,” Ferreira said.