Rings Of Power’s Ismael Cruz Córdova needed on-set therapy after racist casting uproar
The Lord Of The Rings' star relives the trauma of being the target of a racist outrage over his casting
Aux News Ismael Cruz
The weeks leading up to Amazon’s Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power was a rerun of the loathsome trends in pop culture, another chance for racists to overtake the conversation with bad-faith criticisms of fidelity to the source material and gatekeeping designed to keep these properties as white, male, and heteronormative as possible. As was the case with Star Wars, Ghostbusters, and Captain Marvel, these “backlashes”—if anyone wants to call them that since they’re more than likely coordinated attacks in the culture war that brought us the current wave of book bans, transphobic legislation, and moronic boycotts of light beer—elevate bigoted talking points by thrusting them into the public’s consciousness. Simply put: A person of color playing an Elf shouldn’t be controversial.
It’s even worse on the inside of these uproars. In a recent talk with Variety, Rings Of Power star Ismael Cruz Córdova, who plays Arondir, said these issues went beyond Instagram comments. He needed on-set therapy to sort through it. “You need support when this happens because the voices are so loud, and they’re coming at you from so many places,” he said. “It had a psychological and mental health impact. That’s something that I’m very, very open about so that people understand that what they do and say online really hurts people, really has an impact on us.”
Despite the wrong-headed adage that the internet is not real-life, the toll of being a target of online hate has tangible consequences. “My phone got hacked,” Córdova said. “I had bank account attempts of being hacked. My PayPal got hacked. My friends got messages. I got death threats. I got things mailed to me. People found out my address. It was a lot of that.”
The outcry over the diverse cast emboldened the red-pilled masses of the internet, but Rings Of Power’s stars found support in fellow denizens of Middle-earth. Three hobbits, Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd, and Dominic Monahan, were photographed wearing shirts that said “You are all welcome” in Sindarin Elvish.
For his part, Córdova, who grew up in Puerto Rico, knew took the role knowing that an actor of color playing one of the traditionally lily-white Elves would attract a noxious element. Still, it would mean even more to viewers who could finally see themselves in Tolkien’s characters. So after being initially rejected for the role, he made his case to producers, asking them to reconsider.
“I was not going to take a ‘no’ for an answer
because I knew what this role would entail. I knew what it would do in
the scope of fantasy. I knew that I wanted to be part of something
historic, especially with the Elves. The Elves have been historically
portrayed as white and Aryan. I wanted to be an Elf. I was a mountain
boy. I was in love with nature, and I knew
it would change things.”
Talking to Variety from the set of Rings Of Power’s second season, Córdova made it clear that the intimidation has not shaken his or his co-stars’ resolve. “We’re still here.”
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“I had bank account attempts of being hacked. My PayPal got hacked. My friends got messages. I got death threats. I got things mailed to me. People found out my address. It was a lot of that.”Well, that’s pretty horrible. Did he report any of that to the police?
The idiot racist babble online for years around this show was exhausting. Shame the writing was as well… those actors all worked so hard for so long, to see them endure all those insults over material that threadbare was disappointing.
Lol cops don’t care and tell you there’s nothing they can do.
Eh, I thought the show was great. Took a few episodes to get going but I thought it knocked it out of the park in the last few episodes. Also, hahhahhaha, that the police would do anything. I’m sure he reported it, but that would require the police giving a fuck about harassment. If something isn’t happening right in front of their dumb faces, and they can’t arrest/taze/shoot it right there, they don’t care. I say this with the experience of my extended family being multi-generational cops and state troopers. Shit, most of them would’ve joined in on the harassment.
Wish I could live in a world where it’s the racist chuds who are terrorized.
White supremacists have been underground for so long, they’re just better at doing crime than the Left. But, by all means, we should all of us be the change we want to see in the world.
The scary thing, to me, is they don’t seem to be underground anymore.
The worst part is that racist chuds are convinced they ARE the ones being terrorized. It’s nuts.
SOOOOOOOOOO BRAVESomeone quick give this man (child?) a trophy!!!
I don’t expect people who think the world is flat, viruses are made up and that an orange criminal is their savior, to distinguish fact from fantasy. When the perpetrators get caught (and they will) they can cosplay in jail and prison.
Many people who do bad things get caught. Many people who do bad things do not get caught.
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”G. T. Grey
“Use the Force, Harry!”- Mithrandir
When the perpetrators get caught (and they will) they can cosplay in jail and prison.I envy your optimism.
I would have at least hoped that Sesame Street alumni were afforded a certain respect because people grew up with them, but nowadays I bet families were like “Ahhhh! Turn that off before my kid realizes Puerto Ricans are humans!”
We’re talking about people who call Mister Rogers evil
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fox-fred-rogers-evil/
OMG I just watched that Fox hit piece. Mr. Rogers is one of the kindest people who ever lived. You really have to check your soul at the door to work at Fox.
These are the same people who have twisted the teaching of Jesus to somehow be pro-capitalism and anti-everything they don’t like.
Holy shit. I had never seen that particular piece of F&F bullshit before. In typical Fox fashion running a segment based on complete lies and imaginary “studies.” To the point that the (quite conservative) LSU professor, who supposedly did a study, responded that there is no such study, this not my area of expertise, you took an anecdote I made and made shit up, and Fred Rogers is awesome.
“Character is what you are in the dark”-Buckaroo Banzai.
It’s just bizarre to me that people who like Lord of the Rings that much are also racist shitbags. Did we read different books?Also, although the story and dialogue was mostly terrible, the acting was pretty good and this guy killed it. So keep up the good work Ismael!
Yeah I thought he did a real good job with some real crap material.
It’s been a while, but you can definitely interpret LotR from a racial / racist lens and there’s been a thread of criticism for at least several decades on the topic.
Really? hmm. That’s interesting. Isn’t the whole thing about how you can’t judge people by apperances?
There’s a reading of the series that’s very Eurocentric, particularly with regards to how orcs were described (“dark” and “slant-eyed” squaring off against the tall, blonde “Whiteskin” riders of Rohan) as well as the evil men of Haradrim and the Easterlings – swarthy, dark skinned, again “slant-eyed”, riding elephants. A lot of this is echoed in the Jackson trilogy on screen. The only non-white actors are gussied up under layers of makeup to make them even darker, sporting dreadlocks, broad faced, broad nosed, etc. When the Haradrim show up, they’re wearing vaguely (and not-so-vaguely) middle eastern garb. Tolkien was clearly anti-fascist and anti-Nazi. But that doesn’t necessarily mean his racial politics were all above board. Maybe his depictions are a coincidence. Or more likely, subconscious. I don’t think he was a racial theorist, I don’t know enough about him. But it’s hard not to read the above depictions and see them on screen and, if you think about such things (which sometimes white folks don’t think about but non-white folks think about a lot), feel kind of icky and gross about the whole thing. It’s also hard not to see the blowback against Ring of Power and the blatant racist harassment, and not wonder about the ownership some of the “aggrieved” may have felt over the original books and movies.
Oh, blimey, yeah, that is icky. I do tend to let entertainment wash over me and I guess I don’t think hard enough about any of this stuff. No doubt because I am white (and British – the worst combo!).
Appreciate you taking the time to explain.
When it comes to Tolkien, it’s complicated. In his letters, both public and private, he said stuff like (to a German publisher) “I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.” During his Valedictory Address at Oxford he mentions his time living in South Africa and notes, “I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones; and most of all I detest the segregation or separation of Language and Literature. I do not care which of them you think White.”Of course, that doesn’t mean that arguably racist depictions in his works, subconsciously or otherwise. Having read a lot of Tolkien and his letters and notes, I’d venture that his depictions certainly weren’t intentionally racist. He struggled mightily with his depictions and kept rewriting them even after LotR was published and rued that he couldn’t go back and elaborate on or outright change things in LotR. He was never truly settled on anything and often pointed out the contradictions, particularly morally or theologically in LotR. Some things often brought up, such as the Haradrim and Easterlings depictions being outright racist are often contradicted by the text itself. The Easterlings aren’t described at all in LotR. The description of “swarthy” comes from the Silmarillion in the First Age and the Men of Eriador in the third age (LotR) are descendants of the Easterlings. There was never anything inherent “evil” about The East. That’s actually where all Men and Elves first awoke. Neither the Haradrim nor Easterlings are described as “slant-eyed.” Gollum describes the Haradrim as nasty and inherently evil, but that’s Gollum. This is contradicted by Sam when he comes across the body of a fallen Haradrim and only has sympathy for him, wondering what lies and coercion drove the man to leave his home and family. The man is facedown and only description given is that he has long dark hair that’s braided and has golden ornaments. That, and the elephants, suggest the inspiration was more from the Indian subcontinent where elephants were first used for war, and was a history that Tolkien was highly knowledgeable about and spoke highly of. Tolkien’s world’s theology, and his personal theology, was that there is no “inherent evil.” Evil is always the result of the choices of free-willed beings. Hell, all of the races, even the gods actually, wage death and war on the world at different points from the very start of history. There isn’t a singularly “noble” race. That’s where his conundrum on orcs comes in. Their origins are never described outside of non-canon notes and stories and Tolkien kept changing them and was never able to arrive at a solid conclusion. The problem was based in the theology he created. Only Eru (God in his legendarium) could imbue beings with free will. His first creations, the Ainur, could make life but they would only be animals or puppets without Eru granting them free-will. Tolkien needed a massive, unwavering army for the plot of LotR but he also wrote them as being intelligent and having their own motivations, so he could never really reconcile it. If they have free-will, they can’t be inherently evil. At the same time neither Melkor nor Sauron can create intelligent beings themselves, so where did they come from? Tolkien, in his private notes, wrote many unpublished iterations of the origins of orcs. In the end, Tolkien wrote his way into many conundrums because he was more focused on creating a history and mythology than plot elements at times. Hence his great answer when asked why the Eagles didn’t just fly Frodo, or whoever, to Mount Doom? Because there wouldn’t be a story. The orcs were similar in that regard. He needed them for plot purposes. Now that doesn’t excuse the “slant-eyed” depictions. Subconsciously or not, they needed to be an “other” and the depictions he chose have an undeniable racial connotation. Tolkien did struggle with it though. In his final version of the origin of Orcs, in an unfinished account of the origin of Men, decided the Orcs were Men, horribly experimented on by Melkor, and then after his chaining, Sauron continued this for over a thousand years in secret, and convinced them that the Men and Elves of the outside world were vicious and cruel and would kill them on sight. At the same time there are passages where the Istari say the Orcs have to be treated with compassion. Like most of what Tolkien wrote, this never ended up being published as “canon,” but I think it speaks to Tolkien’s never ending insistence to keep self-examining the implications and possible conclusions that could be drawn from his prior writing.
Well said, a much more intelligent analysis than most that I’ve seen.
I thought he had landed on Orcs being Elves that Melkor captured and tortured to become Orcs and then Urk-Hai were Orcs crossbread with men? It’s been a while though and I never did get too into the Lost Tales and all of his notes.
The origins in his writings chronologically went Melkor (then called Melko) made orcs out of stone before the awakening of Elves. Then it was that Melkor made them out of stone in a direct mockery of the Elves after their awakening. Then by the time Christopher Tolkien was helping to compile all these early stories into the Annals of Aman and the Silmarillion (early 1950s) the most popular account, which is basically what you said, came about. Tolkien himself had hand written notes in the margin though saying, “Alter this. Orcs are not Elvish.” That account made it into the Silmarillion though (along with a conflicting account that orcs were simply wild elves from the northeast and willingly fell in with Melkor and their appearance was corrupted by his evil), and became the most popular. In the late ‘50s, Tolkien was still struggling with the origin and decided that Melkor had to have altered animals, which don’t have souls in the books theology, to make a mockery of the other races and taught them to speak (like how the Valar taught the Eagles to speak). His struggle was still that Melkor couldn’t create life, so orcs had to come from a preexisting something. At the same time Tolkien couldn’t fathom the idea that Melkor could so wholly corrupt one of the races to the degree that they lost their free-will granted by Eru. Around that time he also played with idea of making the orcs be corrupted spirits. Basically Maiar, like balrogs or wizards, that were able to breed with Men or Elves and created a corrupted lineage. That again though ran into problems with inherent evil and lack of free will. His last idea, not long before his death, was the origin from Men I mentioned. Tolkien realized that in his own, often haphazard chronology, that Elves never encountered orcs until after the awakening of Men. An origin from Men also fit better with the Uruk in LotR. The idea roughly being that they were so enslaved and psychologically manipulated that they chose that evil was the correct course. A concept that you would think would come naturally to someone living through the two World Wars. In the end, there’s know “canonical” version of the origins of Orcs, despite the endless arguments on Tolkien forums and such, which I’ve always found to be silly, but that hardcore “fans” take deadly seriously. Like these fans attacking Córdova. What makes Tolkien’s work interesting from a literary prospective is that he meticulously recorded basically every aspect of his process. Literally thousands of pages of unpublished stories and notes and letters that show a rare glimpse into an author’s thinking throughout his writing life. Tolkien was rewriting what he already wrote over and over again as his life progressed.One thing I would bet just about anything on is that if Tolkien was still alive he would have zero issue with non-lily white actors being cast. On the contrary, he would re-write his own legendarium to address his own oversights in that regard.
All that is gold does not glitter.
I would say it’s more classist – a degree of racism would have been pretty much built in at the time, but the classicism was a choice; the heroic but generally quite silly working classes, the dignified and never-put-a-foot-wrong aristocracy for starters. There’s also a measure of unresolved WW1 issues in the depiction of the people from the southern and eastern regions, but those are more in the wider writings and (although I don’t know) maybe if they were written later and were parts of his world JRRT felt less sure-footed about or was ultimately less interested in perhaps his inclination was just to write versions of the real world that he and his friends had experienced rather than go through his previous meticulous world-building?
I ask this same thing every time I see one of these chuds calling out Star Trek for being woke.
Yeah, it gets really obvious that the diehards that have problems with Discovery and ‘Abrams Trek’ have limited swiss cheese recall of the franchise. Like, late TNG-early DS9 limited.
I’ve been seeing a lot of “so and so needed therapy after such and such” stories lately, and I’d just like to say, on the occasion of Mental Health Awareness Month: All of us need therapy. Everyone has trauma that they’re carrying around that’s impacting their mental and emotional state every day, and needing to talk to someone who is trained to help you disentangle that mess is normal and good.
CBT has changed my life, made me a better husband, a better friend, a better collaborator. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
No, as a matter of fact, we don’t all need therapy. If it works for you, great – but don’t presume to think that everyone needs to talk to a therapist to sort out their trauma.If anything, we need to start learning to be more anti-fragile and embracing stoicism.
So, better living via chemicals.
CBT stands for cognitive behavioral therapy. It’s not a drug, it’s a practice, and it’s worked for me. But it’s not the only form of talk therapy. There are many other approaches to choose from.
Be less of an ignorant, judgmental cunt, please.
If only it was affordable for most of us
Oh, for sure. I’m very fortunate to have insurance through my employer, but mental healthcare is healthcare, and healthcare is a human right. People without the means to get help are often the ones that need it the most.
I have really good insurance through my day job and it includes mental health coverage, but every therapist I called who’s listed as being in-network said they only do either court-mandated or employer-mandated therapy. It’s ridiculous.
The outrage over make-believe shit that some people possess is some sort of metal defect. What the actual fuck, I just don’t get it. Fuck that Michael Shannon Zod guy though….
That’s something that I’m very, very open about so that people understand that what they do and say online really hurts people, really has an impact on us.They already know that. That’s why most of them do it.The pathology behind this shit isn’t a mystery. 9 times out of 10, it’s some deeply disturbed person who has minimal power in their day-to-day life, hates that fact, and so they try to find avenues through which they can have some meager power.Fuck, the owner of Kiwi Farms (one of the loudest and most odious examples of this shit) is a sallow, unemployed little fuck literally living with his mom. He sees himself as a failure, so other people have to hurt for it.
Hilarious that you think this has anything to do with kiwifarms baldy.
I do so love when someone wades in to prove the accuracy of the pathology. ;-*
Amazon paid “journalists” to misrepresent the overwhemlimgly negative reaction to this show as racism
I did not enjoy this show but down playing the racist attacks is not a good look my dude. The same thing happened with Star Wars and the Rose Tico harassment. Not a great movie but the intense hate directed at that actress for being asian was truly shocking (to all decent people).
Lol
This further demonstrates that there are loads of conservative racists in the world. They all richly deserve to be constantly criticized and mocked for their despicable racism. 👍
It boggles my mind that the Mattix metaphor “red pill” and “blue pill” stuff are so backwards because in general “woke” things are bringing uncomfortable facts about reality (red pill) and history, while conservatives want things to stay the same (blue pill). But they assume they know better and also identify with red because of a CNN color coded electoral coverage gimmick from the 2000 election.
“My phone got hacked,” Córdova said. “I had bank account attempts of being hacked. My PayPal got hacked. My friends got messages. I got death threats. I got things mailed to me. People found out my address. It was a lot of that.”Jesus H Christ! What in the fuck is wrong with people?
Who do you think would win in a swordfight? Elbow forward style, or Blade-as-your-nose style?
SOOO BRAVE. Any info on if he had to go to therapy because the show totally sucked ass?
A therapist bc of racist internet trolls, really??
It is ceaselessly amazing to me that so many nerds who are essentially demanding segregated casts of all straight cisgendered caucasian males in every major genre IP for the most part truly believe that they aren’t racist and are not being openly racist in public about this stuff.
Ok…
Seems like Cordova is a whiny little bitch.