Polynesian scholars are pointing out “Lord of the Rings” productions have traditionally been filmed on their land, but with Pacific Islander actors relegated to the background. The new prequel on Amazon Prime did slightly better with representation, but experts stopped short of declaring it true progress.
From members of the noble Numenorean race to a white-robed figure whose significance, and that of her group, have not yet been explained, Amazon's “The Rings of Power” cast includes several roles depicted by people of Māori descent.
Previous LOTR projects have been what some experts consider “extractive:” filmed in New Zealand, called Aotearoa by the Māori community, but with little to no meaningful Polynesian on-screen representation. Productions, experts say, have a responsibility to ensure those of Māori descent are represented throughout the projects just as much as their lands are.
“For indigenous peoples in general, our image has been captured and packaged and consumed as ‘the other’ by the West,” Marina Alofagia McCartney, a New Zealand-based filmmaker who also specializes in research on Pacific filmmaking, told NBC News. “If we are really committed to ensuring equity for people and the stories that have historically been marginalized … we need to include them not just as bodies on screen.”
The actors of Māori descent play a range of characters and races in the new series. Among them, Alex Tarrant plays Valandil, a member of the Sea Guard, defenders of the island of Numenor, who has a blow-out argument with friend Isildur, the future heir to the throne of Gondor. Both are booted from the guard by the Sail Master, played by Antonio Te Maioha, who is also of Māori descent. Kali Kopae’s character, The Ascetic, along with fellow cloaked figures “The Dweller” and “The Nomad,” may remain a mystery throughout much of the series, but their cryptic, seemingly sinister appearances suggest large implications.
A representative from the show told NBC News that there was a “conscious and strategic effort to cast local New Zealanders” but did not comment further on the casting process.
While Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy is largely considered the gold standard of Tolkien adaptations, its dearth of diverse casting has garnered criticism over the years. The large ensemble cast was entirely white, and those of Māori descent were barely given any speaking parts, most commonly cast as Uruk-hai, a race of violent, brutish beings whose sole purpose is to help restore power to evil. This only sought to confirm some problematic notions, Helen Victoria Young, author of “Race and Popular Fantasy Literature: Habits of Whiteness,” said.
“They had Māori actors playing them. The Uruk-hai wore dreadlocks, they painted their skin,” Young said. “It was quite clear that they were a kind of mishmash of anti-Black stereotypes crammed into some characters on the screen.”
Because their faces were obscured by makeup and prosthetics, overlain with beast-like features, Māori representation, one could argue, is almost absent, Na’Puti said.
“It’s a different kind of erasure,” she said. “By obscuring their race, by not giving them speaking roles or casting in these particularly evil characters — it does really demonstrate again that portrayal of indigenous people through probably a century of filmmaking and television, that level of racism.”
In some ways, Jackson's film trilogy led to a problematic reframing of Aotearoa in the minds of many viewers, said Kavita Finn, medievalist and fan studies scholar who co-authored “Global Medievalism” with Young. Fans flock to the area, looking to visit the fictional, white “Middle Earth” of the movies, rather than a place that has long had its own story.
“It ends up becoming almost a re-colonization because it is this white man’s vision of what this world, that didn’t exist but is now being put on top of, and arguably erasing, the history that’s actually there. And that should not be happening,” Finn said.
Though the new show’s diverse casting garnered backlash from a vocal minority of so-called Tolkien purists who say “wokeness” has marred the series, Finn said that having people of color across the fantastical races is actually a far more authentic portrayal of the medieval period. The history that Tolkien drew from was a “white-washed version” of reality, she said.
“Medieval Europe was diverse. There were people of color. The only reason that they don’t show up in a lot of our popular culture is because they were written out in the 19th century,” Finn said. “Nineteenth century historiography was very consumed with the idea of creating this monolithic European culture that stands in opposition to all of the people of color they were out conquering.”
Tiara Na’puti, an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, whose studies include militarism and sovereignty in the Pacific Islands, said the historical context of Aotearoa, or New Zealand, can’t be ignored. The British colonized Aotearoa, formally annexing the islands in 1840, and set off decades of conflict between settlers and indigenous populations, as well as severe European encroachment upon Māori land. Na'puti pointed out that the Māori community experienced significant land loss, now holding just roughly 5% of all land there.
McCartney also said that indigenous, Polynesian representation means incorporating the culture into the writing, given the Māori displacement in the country. The writing team for “Rings of Power” should include Māori writers, McCartney said, who could bring a perspective that isn’t just a “European person’s way of seeing the world.”
Na’Puti also said production should learn and engage with the histories of the land, and acknowledge Māori land loss. While a representative from the show said the series connected with the locals with a “traditional Māori blessing before filming started,” Na’Puti said the production has an obligation to be good visitors, doing more to center indigenous perspectives.
“It could be something where they put a land acknowledgement, a disclaimer about where they’re filming,” Na’Puti said. “These are conversations that are happening in indigenous cinema … They are saying, ‘Well you can’t separate the land and the water from us. And so if you’re on it, you have a responsibility.”
Ultimately, Young questioned the necessity to continuously adapt the work of Tolkien, who wrote the “Lord of The Rings” series in the early 1900s. There’s “only so much you can do” to be racially inclusive within the structures of Tolkien’s writing.
“What I would love to see would be more shows that weren’t based on racist source texts,” Young said. “If we’re gonna adapt fantasy, let’s adapt some fantasy, by some Black authors, by some Maori authors, by people who aren’t dead white guys.”
