(Fortune) Elon Musk added himself to the chorus of critics hating on Amazon Studio’s lavish new action series The Rings of Power that is loosely based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
It cost a reported $1 billion to bring the author’s fantasy realm to life, which has now has become a lightning rod for controversy in an ongoing culture war. Viewers on the left and right of the political spectrum are clashing over whether Jeff Bezos’ $1.3 trillion dollar corporate behemoth cynically gender-swapped and race-swapped Tolkien’s characters to make it more commercially accessible to modern audiences.
In a post to Twittter, the Tesla CEO burnished his recent credentials as a growing voice on the political right by taking sides with the critics that take issue with the depiction of beloved characters like Galadriel, portrayed as more of a sword-wielding valkyrie than the wise forest queen from Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning cinematic trilogy.
“Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both,” he posted to Twitter. “Tolkien is turning in his grave.”
Tolkien is turning in his grave
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 5, 2022
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The debate over Amazon’s Rings of Power began in earnest after showrunners and studio executives argued in Vanity Fair they needed to take liberties when adapting Tolkien characters such as Galadriel and Elrond, since his Middle Earth was badly in need of an update to reflect today’s more modern societies.
Musk’s criticism of the series’ depiction of beta male characters is the latest step of the billionaire’s personal political journey following his surprise $44 billion bid for Twitter in April, meant to restore conservative voices to the platform.
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Musk’s motivation cannot be reduced to trashing an Amazon series simply because it was produced by Jeff Bezos, with whom he maintains a long-running feud. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO had already foreshadowed his views earlier in the year, after blaming Netflix’s subscriber loss on “woke” politics that made its programming “unwatchable”.
