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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   31532 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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and it's too late for them to back off now

If that were the case, the rational strategy for them would be to market themselves aggressively as the woke drink of choice, not to put out country music ads and camo cans. Which presumably is the opposite of what the anti-woke want.

Well, Miller Lite who were picking up part of the switched custom from Bud Light, went and put out this ad.

As a woman (though not a beer drinker), I hate it. They want to show the role of women in brewing, and instead of showing us Babylonian goddesses and Finnish boozing parties, they give us a scold talking about shit. Does she look like she's ever drunk a beer for fun, instead of standing around giving lectures on feminism while everyone else was trying to have a party?

Well, shit is appropriate here. But guys, using naughty words that would shock Mrs. Grundy is every bit as stuck in the 70s as your blondes in bikinis.

I'd like to see women growers talking about strains of barley or hops for the beer, starting with the goddesses and ending with modern breweries.

And no shit anywhere.

Have a Tolkien quote from one of the Letters, and doesn't this sound more fun than "dig around in your parents' basement for evidence of Wrong Think and send it in to us, ya snitches"?

A propos of bullfinches, did you know that they had a connexion with the noble art of brewing ale? I was looking at the Kalevala the other day – one of the books which I don't think you have yet read? Or have you? – and I came across Runo XX, which I used to like: it deals largely with the origin of beer. When the fermentation was first managed, the beer was only in birch tubs and it foamed all over the place, and of course the heroes came and lapped it up, and got mightily drunk. Drunk was Ahti, drunk was Kauko, drunken was the ruddy rascal, with the ale of Osmo's daughter – Kirby's translation is funnier than the original. It was the bullfinch who then suggested to Osmo's daughter the notion of putting the stuff in oak casks with hoops of copper and storing it in a cellar. Thus was ale at first created. . . best of drinks for prudent people; Women soon it brings to laughter. Men it warms into good humour, but it brings the fools to raving. Sound sentiments.

Man, I'm definitely not familiar with that one. Which letter was it from?

75 To Christopher Tolkien

7 July 1944 (FS 36)

I feel like I'm starting to treat Tolkien's Letters as Gospel and I acting as his prophet 😁 But there's a lot in them about his own views and opinions, as well as the writing, that really comes in handy when people pipe up about "well of course he was a reactionary who loved feudalism" and the likes. From another letter of 1944 to Christopher, about travelling by train from Oxford to a school reunion in his home town:

I found myself in a carriage occupied by an R.A.F. officer (this war's wings, who had been to South Africa though he looked a bit elderly), and a very nice young American Officer, New-Englander. I stood the hot-air they let off as long as I could; but when I heard the Yank burbling about 'Feudalism' and its results on English class-distinctions and social behaviour, I opened a broadside. The poor boob had not, of course, the very faintest notions about 'Feudalism', or history at all – being a chemical engineer. But you can't knock 'Feudalism' out of an American's head, any more than the 'Oxford Accent'. He was impressed I think when I said that an Englishman's relations with porters, butlers, and tradesmen had as much connexion with 'Feudalism' as skyscrapers had with Red Indian wigwams, or taking off one's hat to a lady has with the modern methods of collecting Income Tax; but I am certain he was not convinced. I did however get a dim notion into his head that the 'Oxford Accent' (by which he politely told me he meant mine) was not 'forced' and 'put on', but a natural one learned in the nursery – and was moreover not feudal or aristocratic but a very middle-class bourgeois invention. After I told him that his 'accent' sounded to me like English after being wiped over with a dirty sponge, and generally suggested (falsely) to an English observer that, together with American slouch, it indicated a slovenly and ill-disciplined people – well, we got quite friendly. We had some bad coffee in the refreshment room at Snow Hill, and parted.

I for one am supportive of this new character arc. It’s almost like this gentleman had a way with words.

But he's a Dead White Male. That's why the "Rings of Power" had to update his work for a modern, inclusive audience and succeed in making me cheer for the Lord Orc Father - I beg his pardon, they prefer "Uruk", respect their pronouns!

(Seriously, when you have your Girlboss Heroine and the Villain engaging in a face-to-face exchange, and the villain monologue which establishes one of them as a ruthless, sadistic psychopath who revels in torture and slaughter doesn't come from the Orc-Father, and he's the one who comes across as both sane and sympathetic, you done fudged up).

It was a weird moment when I realized that the cancelled 1970s Boorman script was truer to Galadriel's character than RoP...

Ralph Bakshi, God bless him, and his 1978 rotoscoped first projected film in a trilogy (which never got made) was way truer to canon than the Bad Robot rejects' mess. He may have put Boromir in a horned helmet and Gondor Has No Pants, Gondor Needs No Pants, but at least the characters were still recognisably the originals, and we didn't get One Expression And That's Bitchface Midget I Demand To Speak To The Manager Girlboss.

The casting of Morfydd Clark is just - I don't know the actress, maybe she can act when not in this kind of horror, but she's tiny and this is who they picked for "should be at least 6 feet tall and maybe more, think Gwendoline Christie" part?

The Dúnedain said that her height was two rangar, or "man-high" – some 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm)

Gwendoline Christie - 6 feet 3 inches (191 cm)

Morfydd Clark - 5ft 3 ¾ (161.9 cm)

So they cast an actress who is an entire foot shorter than the character. Well, that's diversity for you, I guess!

In a masochistic way, I sort of want to see the second season, just to see if they can go even worse than the first one. What horrible mangling of the characters and the plot will they come up with? What new original BIPOC roles? Will Celebrimbor get to do anything this time round? Can they find an even worse granny bathrobe to dress him in?

So they cast an actress who is an entire foot shorter than the character. Well, that's diversity for you, I guess!

I mean, Elendil's actor is also significantly shorter than the character, but in his case, that would have significantly limited the pool of options.

Still wish they'd done something with the occasional perspective trick as at least a nod to "Elendil the Tall".

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