Even artists want a fair chance at role selection. The western world is sooo white and some people want to help bridge some gaps in a fully racist world. You'll survive a black elf if the LOTR series is good. If it won't, fuck it, wokeness won't be the biggest reason why the show isn't good (which I fully believe already looks bad)
The "western world" is a white thing, so I don't see how portraying its actors as white is a problem or... racism(?) of any sort. The BBC portraying Achilles and Aeneas as black men is okay? Not racist from their part?
I agree on what you said about the movies being 'too white' but the only objection there was with the Hobbits. Not the main Hobbits of course, but the rest of them, which make up the majority in Tolkien's world, did not make an appearance. Neither they did in the Hobbit trilogy. Those Hobbits should have been portrayed as darker skinned individuals but we did not see that at any moment when the core group were around other Hobbits.
The Haradrim were portrayed as black/dark brown skinned, as it should have been.
The Corsairs were a combination of black and white people, but we only got a look of one ship iirc, which were almost exclusively white, so perhaps that's another one.
Maybe the Orcs/Goblins were made more monstrous than they were described as.
Everything else in the LOTR was based on canon. Elves being anything other than what Tolkien described them as is an offense to the writing. Dwarves on the other hand weren't really described in terms of appearance and the new series could have been much more liberal about them and decide that 1 or more of the subraces would look a different way and no one would bat an eyelid. Give us a black Dwarf tribe and no one would mind.
It's also a fantasy novel written ages ago by a person who's no longer alive. I don't see the same being said about the Harry Potter series which were created some 20 years ago by a "woke" novelist (or is she "cancelled" now?) who casted everyone white in the film adaptations.
As much as you want to shout equality and everything, you have to respect that stuff like history and even mythology will look awkward if you deviate from the contemporary norm. And if you wanna talk about hurting feelings or whatever when you "exclude" role options etc, why are you okay with risking doing this to the majority of your target group?
On comic books and superpowers etc, those aren't so touchy issues because what makes them alive and cool is the superpowers, not the body they're in. Completely separate issue.
P.S: The "300" cartooned movies were cringe as fuck and their portrayal of the Persians was laughable to say the least. The Spartans as well. But that's how the 'creator' of the comics decided to portray them, so there's also that...
whats next? Maybe Eddie Murphy as JFK? Dont worry Oswald will be potrayed by some white dude, maybe Tim Blake Nelson or Stephen Dorff, thats how Hollywood works today. Fuck woke. It sucks man, really hard.
