Woke Fantasies Streaming Forth

You should hold political beliefs that are in accord with how you see the world.  I'll do the same.  Discussion is often interesting and a way to expand one's viewpoint.  But argument never really changes minds and is not a productive use of time.  This general approach means that I  appreciate perspectives different from my own, and while I might consider them curious or perhaps even misguided I don't regard them as "invalid".  

I guess that is at the core of what has come to be called "woke".  As the term has increasingly been used in a derisive sense even my Progressive friends seem to be using it less.  But the concept - that if you are a heteronormative person of a particular pigmentation and chromosomal makeup you de facto CANNOT have a valid perspective on some questions - remains.  For our culture this is unfortunate.

This has increasingly been seen in popular entertainment.  

To be clear there is merit in looking at under represented groups and cultures of current and past society.  And even in recasting roles from Greek theater or Shakespeare or the Marvel Comic Book universe with different sorts of actors.  But all such efforts are ultimately judged by box office receipts, and increasingly, when these are just poorly done, over messaged dog's breakfasts, they lose money.  You can lecture people on how you think the world should be, but it only works if you can get them into the theater seats.

This is all a leadup to my opinions on a couple of Fantasy series now on streaming.  Amazon spent something like a billion dollars creating a Lord of the Rings prequel called "The Rings of Power".  And Netflix just came out with something called "The Witcher - Blood Origin", a prequelish sort of entry that expands their interesting "Witcher" series.  Originally this was from Polish source material and starred the very watchable Henry Cavill.

It's winter and I'm a bit under employed, so I tried to wade through both of these series and in each case stalled out after a few episodes.  They have things in common.

1. Fantastic visuals.  The CGI, makeup, and general production values are astonishing even on my small screen.

2. A loose connection with their successful predecessors.  Amazon did not get straight up rights to Tolkien's pre-LOTR works, just a general go ahead to use some characters and concepts.  Their writers are not in the same universe as JRR Tolkien, and do not even approach the lesser but still notable talents of Peter Jackson.  And as to the Witcher prequel it was apparently so bad that Cavill took a look and decided he was done with the franchise when his current contract ran out.

3. Both put Diversity over Coherence.

In a fantasy production you get latitude.  But you just can't get away with tiny female warriors wielding swords, axes and miscellaneous weaponry with such kinetic energy that both their beefy male opponents and the laws of physics are immediately destroyed.  We have limits to how far our disbelief can be suspended.  A four foot tall female dwarf swinging a war hammer that would - were it were not an obvious Styrofoam prop - be about half her actual mass goes too far.

I'm vaguely aware of the concept of Intersectionality.  It more or less establishes a hierarchy of sorts.  "Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage."  Practically speaking this determines who you can cast as Good or Bad characters.  If you mess this up you will be Cancelled, or as they used to say "Never work in this town again".

In the Fantasy genre this seems to mean the following:

All female characters may be flawed, but are always Good and Implausibly Capable.  In the modern era it is necessary to have at least one Gay couple in your script.  Characters of Asian heritage should be sprinkled here and there and it is still OK to have them in stereotypical roles such as martial arts/swordspersons.  This is less a Woke thing than a tug of the forelock to the all important Chinese market.  Black characters have been emphasized for so long that it is now considered acceptable to have them be either Good or Evil.  I call this the President Morgan Freeman Rule. Most really evil parts of course still go to White Men 'cause reasons.

To this latter point I was fascinated to note one actor who appears in both of the aforementioned productions.  A certain Lenny Henry is a wise Hobbit in The Rings of Power:

And he turns up as the main bad guy - at least in the first couple of eps - in the Witcher.  He's an elf this time.  Maybe he actually has pointy ears?

The fancy bling and the dark lighting were early clues as to his nature.  He's actually a good actor.  I'm glad he's finding work.

So my reviews of Rings of Power and Witcher - Blood Origin?  I can only base this on the episodes I saw before deciding to let them go on without me.   

Rings of Power is a complicated mess.  Too many characters, too many concurrent plots, and just enough connection to the beloved LOTR trilogy to be confusing.  Fabulous visuals notwithstanding I give it a pass.

The Witcher - Blood Origin does not have the same baggage of preconception, and keeps a simpler plot line.  It is also slightly tongue in cheek from the giddyup, the introductory sequence has a bard straight up saying "Oh, heroes uniting to defeat Evil?  Boring.  It's been done too often".  It then goes forward and tries to subvert the negative expectation.  It also has Michelle Yeoh who is playing a character way, way out in Mary Sue range.  She can perceive foes coming up behind her and smite them fatal blows behind her back without looking or even paying attention.  This would be, and in fact is, quite ludicrous but I give her a pass from her amazing tour de force in the recent "Everything Everywhere All at Once" where she becomes a character literally able to do anything specifically because she is in real life a person who does nothing competently!  She seems to be having fun in everything she acts in.

Just for the "Hot Dog Fingers" alternate Universe I'd give Ms. Yeoh a pass for a half dozen lesser efforts!