Elon Musk has taken issue with Amazon Prime Video's "The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power," saying that the male characters were made to look weak.
The Tesla founder and billionaire aired his criticism in a series of tweets Monday.
"Tolkien is turning in his grave," Musk wrote, adding that "almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk, or both."
"Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice," he wrote, referencing the warrior elf and lead character Galadriel, who is played by Morfydd Clark in the series set thousands of years before the events of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings."
"Rings of Power" has been a huge success for Amazon, with the first two episodes drawing 25 million viewers — Prime Video's top premiere ever, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Despite this, there has still been criticism over the billion-dollar fantasy series, with some fans claiming the casting is an affront to J.R.R. Tolkien's source material.
As The Wrap noted, the TV series features various races found in both Tolkien's books and Peter Jackson's film adaptations. There is a difference to how the world of Middle-Earth has been depicted before though — it's racially diverse.
The casting of nonwhite actors has sparked some outrage among certain fans who claim that Tolkien never intended to populate Middle-Earth with actors of color. The theory, as The Wrap reported, has no basis. But it did not stop Amazon from taking steps from "review bombing" the series by suspending user reviews for the first 72 hours.
Speaking at the world premiere of the series, actor Ismael Cruz Córdova, who plays an elf, pointed out that the show goes "beyond race."
"No matter what anybody says, we all deserve to have a place in this world," he said, according to The Wrap. "And it's beyond race, it's also culture, it's also gender, it's also difference of thought. This world is expansive enough to host all of us, so I'm happy to be leading the charge. There's many more seasons, many more people are gonna come in, many varieties of expression, so I'm happy to be the first class."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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