What’s up with all the racist hate of ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power?’

by Therese Odell, posted in Uncategorized

Here’s A BUNCH OF TV News

Today is the end of the second round of TV Foolishness Tournament, so be sure to vote. Today’s winner will compete against yesterday’s winners (see below) for the category prize on Monday — so this is BIG STAKES.

In the event that yesterday’s results are not visible for some dumb reason, we have some exciting — and unexpected results:

New Fall TV Shows: The Real Love Boat

Classic Shows I Should Have Recapped, but Didn’t: Game of Thrones

Shows I Began Recapping, and Then Gave Up On, Including Hate Blogs: American Horror Story (Over The Orville! I can’t believe it either!)

Reader Suggestions: Fleabag

H’oh boy, I really didn’t want to spend the majority of this post talking about Queen Elizabeth, but here we are.

The Queen’s funeral is expected to take place ten days from now, the exact date to be announced sometime soon by Buckingham Palace (but likely, the 18th or 19th.) The full plans for her lying in state and funeral can be found here.

Here is a roundup of tributes planned for the Queen to air this weekend on the major broadcasters.

The Crown is going to halt production temporarily out of respect.

This England, the limited series about Boris Johnson and the pandemic, is going to premiere a week later than originally planned.

The Premiere League is postponing this weekend’s games “as a mark of respect.” (The husband is very mad.)

BAFTA has canceled this weekend’s scheduled TV Tea Party.

The announcement of the Queen’s death was viewed live by some 33 million people in the United Kingdom. The news that her health was an issue of concern threw U.K. televisions schedules into chaos yesterday (and overtook American news, as well).

And just today, King Charles’ speech today cut off the final scene that Days of Our Lives will ever air on NBC.

The NFL honored her with a moment of silence which … whaaaaaaat? I mean, but, why?

James Corden, I get. But the NFL?

Um, guys? Do you know what your musical is about?

HOLD UP, The Queen’s death has caused Kanye West to stop beefing? Alright, this is funnier than the NFL’s moment of silence.

Here is a collection of portrayals of Queen Elizabeth in films and TV.

A look back on all the SNL impersonations of the Queen — but truly, it was Scott Thompson of Kids in the Hall who did her best:

I take that back … The Queen herself was the best spoof of the Queen. It was her idea to do that James Bond bit for the Olympics, by the way, and who can blame her for wanting to hang out with Daniel Craig?

And then, of course, there was this:

In terms of gossip, Meghan Markle was not invited to join Harry when he visited the Queen on her deathbed, so, yeah, Elizabeth’s death is probably not going to mend any familial fences anytime soon.

Only tangentially related, the BBC has donated £1.42 million ($1.6 million) to charities to make amends for that Princess Diana interview. 

So I was going to spend most of today talking about the new The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series since it premiered a week ago, but then this post got hijacked.

But we can cover a few things: like, for instance, the Prime Video series premiered to some 25 million viewers.

And between the whole fantasy thing and the fact that they’re coming out at the same time, there are inevitable comparisons to House of the Dragon. Here, the New York Times says that the two shows probably shouldn’t be compared, and then goes on to do exactly that, judging who has the best dragons, swords, pop culture cred, etc. (Y’all know we can watch both, right?)

Apparently, Morfydd Clark, the star of the series, had no idea she was even auditioning for The Lord of the Rings at the time.

The Wrap has some helpful guides to The Lord of the Rings universe if you don’t happen to have a nerd for a husband who is willing to share all of his knowledge memorized in middle school:

But the biggest story from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power debut (along with House of the Dragon and The Sandman) is that the inclusion of characters of color and strong female characters have REALLY PISSED OFF THE RACISTS AND MISOGYNISTS.

The gist of the racist complaint is that supposedly Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings epic as a sort of alternative history of the Brits and Europeans, and therefore, no characters should be people of color. I mean, there have been people of color in what is now the United Kingdom since at least the Romans, but do go on.

And then there will always be men who turn into screaming babies when women are centered as heroes (see: Star Wars and all the recent Marvel films that featured female heroines). Such a fragile thing, masculinity.

In any event, Prime Video put into place a 72-hour moratorium on reviews on all of its series this summer ahead of The Rings of Power’s premiere anticipating that there would be a troll backlash. They weren’t wrong.

The show, and some familiar Hobbits demonstrated their solidarity with the diverse cast:

You can get your own shirt here: 50% of the proceeds will go to charities that benfit people of color.

YOU GUYS, NEIL GAIMAN HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE LORD OF THE RINGS. If you’re going to yell at Neil about “wokeness” and ruining a franchise, yell at him about The Sandman, you idiots.

Elon Musk said a dumb (racist) thing on Twitter about The Rings of Power, and Gaiman responded, and then all stupidity broke loose:

Now … I don’t know who is interested in House of the Dragon and simultaneously doesn’t have either HBO or HBO Max, but if you are in the middle of that Venn diagram for some reason, you can now watch the entire first episode on YouTube for free.

Warner Bros. Discovery is out here being like, “Why y’all so worked up about Batgirl being canceled? LOL, CALM DOWN.”

It is unlikely there will be another Breaking Bad spinoff, but if there were to be one, a Gus Fring origin story would be welcome.

HOLD UP. WAS FLORENCE PUGH SUPPOSED TO MAKE AN APPEARANCE IN TED LASSO? MY HEAD IS GOING TO EXPLODE FROM ALL THIS DON’T WORRY, DARLING MESS I SWEAR TO GOD.

Speaking of soccer football, if you’re not familiar with how the Premiere League works because your husband is not completely obsessed with a team that he just picked out of the sky, here’s a quick overview while you enjoy Welcome to Wrexham.

What the hell is going on over at Law & Order: Organized Crime, guys?

Regis Philbin had a special gold McDonald’s card that entitled him to free McDonald’s for life, but it mostly served to just confuse cashiers.

The Morning Show‘s producers lawsuit against their insurers trying to recoup $44 million in losses because of COVID shutdowns has been thrown out by a judge.

(I have an interesting behind the scenes story about COVID insurance and productions but I’m not sure how much I can actually say. Let’s blind item this — a certain very big sci-fi film’s director insisted that the movie’s VERY famous actors perform an extremely dangerous stunt themselves and not rely on CGI. This director INSISTED it be practical effects, even though it genuinely put these actors in mortal danger, and the actors were like, “We wanna do it! Tom Cruise does all of his own stunts!” The studio reluctantly agreed, and took out a HUGE catastrophic insurance policy on the entire production, lest one — or both — of these VERY FAMOUS actors not survive the stunt.

Later, the entire production had to be shut down by COVID, but fortunately for the movie, this particular insurance policy that covered this dangerous stunt also apparently covered unprecedented global pandemics. It would have been shut down otherwise, because the costs of pausing production were just that high. Instead, it became one of the first productions to resume, and they actually helped design the protocols that would become the standard in the industry. I suppose if they could go back in time, The Morning Show should involve more stunts?)

Renewals

In Development

Casting News

Mark Your Calendar

  • The Watcher will premiere on Netflix soon. It is not a comedy, but this trailer is comedic genius.
  • Quantum Leap will premiere on NBC on September 19.
  • Interview with a Vampire will debut on AMC on October 2.
  • The Peripheral is debuting on Prime Video on October 23.
  • Star Trek: Picard returns on Paramount+ on February 16.
  • Star Trek: Prodigy will debut on Paramount+ on October 27.
  • Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns on Paramount+ in 2023.
  • The Trapped 13: How We Survived The Thai Cave will debut on Netflix on October 5.
  • Horsepower will debut on Prime Video on September 23.
  • The Very VERY Best of the 80s will premiere on AXS on October 4.
  • Messyness returns on MTV on September 15.
  • Ink Master will return on Paramount+ on September 17.
  • BASTARD!! -Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy returns on Netflix on September 15.
  • Doll House will debut on Netflix soon.

WATCH THIS

FRIDAY

Cobra Kai: Season five premiere. Netflix

End of the Road: Queen Latifah stars in this thriller as a single mom who has to protect her family when a murder and a missing bag of cash puts them in danger on a road trip. Premiere. Netflix

Capital One Bowl: The first qualifying rounds pit Texas against Oklahoma. Season premiere. 7 p.m., NBC

A Fireside Chat with Megan Thee Stallion: Megan is kinda having a moment, between this, She-Hulk and Gutsy. Props to her PR team. 7 p.m., BET Her

SATURDAY

Moonfall: This is that very real movie about the moon crashing into Earth, in case you forgot this happened. Premiere. 7 p.m., HBO

Husband, Wife and Their Lover: A couple decides to bring a third into their bedroom to spice up their love life and things go wrong. Well, it is a Lifetime movie, so what did they expect? Premiere. 5 p.m., Lifetime

Creative Arts Emmy Awards: Nerd awards. 7 p.m., FXX

SUNDAY

Monarch: The network fall season officially begins with the premiere of this country music soap opera starring Susan Sarandon. Series premiere. 7 p.m., Fox

American Gigolo: Jon Bernthal stars in this adaptation of the Richard Gere thriller. Series premiere. 8 p.m., Showtime

Serpent Queen: Queen Catherine de Medici of France tells her tale in this new period drama. Series premiere. 7 p.m., Starz

Late Night:

    • Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (Friday): John Legend, Danielle Brooks
    • Jimmy Kimmel Live!: (Friday): Kenan Thompson, Joe Buck, Yungblud

FRI. 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30
ABC Shark Tank
(repeat)		 20/20
CBS Secret Celebrity Renovation
(new)		 Blue Bloods
(repeat)		 Blue Bloods
(repeat)
CW Killer Camp
(new)		 Dynasty
(new)		 Local
FOX Friday Night Smackdown Local
NBC Capital One College Bowl
(new)		 Capital One College Bowl
(new)		 Dateline

—

SAT. 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30
ABC College Football
(live)		 News/Local
CBS NCIS: Hawai’i
(repeat)		 FBI: International
(repeat)		 48 Hours News/Local
CW College Football
(live)		 Local
FOX MLB Baseball
(live)		 News/Local
NBC America’s Got Talent
(repeat)		 Dateline
(new)		 News/
Local		 Saturday Night Live
(repeat)

—

SUN. 6:00 6:30 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30
ABC America’s Funniest Home Videos
(repeat)		 Celebrity Family Feud
(new)		 The $100,000 Pyramid
(new)		 The Final Straw
(new)
CBS 60 Minutes Big Brother
(new)		 The Equalizer
(repeat)		 NCIS: Los Angeles
(repeat)
The CW Local World’s Funniest Animals
(repeat)		 World’s Funniest Animals
(repeat)		 Penn & Teller: Fool Us
(repeat)		 Local
FOX The OT
(repeat)		 Monarch
(new)		 Monarch
(new)		 Local/News
NBC Sunday Night Football
(live)

Leave a Reply