or give themselves plausible deniability if someone objects
*nods* Which is exactly what mac-stone is doing now, actually; she deleted the Cryptic Post and claimed that it was directed to anonymous trolls not Avalon Willow at all, even though in the comments (http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/889663.html) people basically chimed in immediately with "I know, right, AW is such a bitch!" and she responded like "Yeah, those mean ol' PoC make me so mad!" so... either the post was always about AW or she was happy to let people assume it was, which is pretty much the same thing.
You can see the "orcing" comment quoted in context here in coffeeandink's lj (http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/880554.html?mode=reply) along with screencaps. Basically, yeah, it seems like her cutesy-geeky way of saying "trolling." And SOMEHOW she is either completely, totally unaware of the dodgy racial subtext of calling a black woman an "orc" (ie, yeah, part of the dark subhuman savage horde) or, she doesn't care. (It is also totally ironic that one of the original posts in this imbroglio, DeepaD's, specifically referenced dodgy racial subtext in Tolkien, so if she'd even done a *little* bit of reading she might have avoided saying something like that.)
which is actually something that bugged me during the LotR movies. Orcs are made from debased and twisted elves, so shouldn't they be pale the way elves are? .... This may be a sign that I put far too much thought into those movies.
No, the visual representation of orcs (and elves, even!) in the movies is SUPER SKETCHY. I mean, dreadlocks to indicate a savage sub-human race? Really? (It reminds me of all those conversations I had in SGA, where people would describe Ronon Dex's dreads in fic with adjectives like "bizarre" or "messy" or scary," and then not understand why that was an issue. Guys, you're talking about how a lot of people's hair just NORMALLY IS, so think about what you're saying: that a physical characteristic based on race makes someone automatically "scary" or "unkempt!" Just... no!)
Add to that the part where the movies made a lot of elves pale and blonde that weren't blonde in the books (like Legolas) and the whole visual metaphor that they have going on there gets kinda really sketchy. (It's kinda like how in the Narnia movies, all the Talking Animals and Beasts that went over to the White Queen were the ugly yucky-looking ones, and all the ones who stayed loyal to Aslan were the noble/cute-looking ones, whereas in the books the WHOLE POINT was that you can't tell who's a good or bad person just by looking at them. SIGH.)
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Date: 2009-01-29 07:07 pm (UTC)*nods* Which is exactly what mac-stone is doing now, actually; she deleted the Cryptic Post and claimed that it was directed to anonymous trolls not Avalon Willow at all, even though in the comments (http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/889663.html) people basically chimed in immediately with "I know, right, AW is such a bitch!" and she responded like "Yeah, those mean ol' PoC make me so mad!" so... either the post was always about AW or she was happy to let people assume it was, which is pretty much the same thing.
You can see the "orcing" comment quoted in context here in coffeeandink's lj (http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/880554.html?mode=reply) along with screencaps. Basically, yeah, it seems like her cutesy-geeky way of saying "trolling." And SOMEHOW she is either completely, totally unaware of the dodgy racial subtext of calling a black woman an "orc" (ie, yeah, part of the dark subhuman savage horde) or, she doesn't care. (It is also totally ironic that one of the original posts in this imbroglio, DeepaD's, specifically referenced dodgy racial subtext in Tolkien, so if she'd even done a *little* bit of reading she might have avoided saying something like that.)
which is actually something that bugged me during the LotR movies. Orcs are made from debased and twisted elves, so shouldn't they be pale the way elves are? .... This may be a sign that I put far too much thought into those movies.
No, the visual representation of orcs (and elves, even!) in the movies is SUPER SKETCHY. I mean, dreadlocks to indicate a savage sub-human race? Really? (It reminds me of all those conversations I had in SGA, where people would describe Ronon Dex's dreads in fic with adjectives like "bizarre" or "messy" or scary," and then not understand why that was an issue. Guys, you're talking about how a lot of people's hair just NORMALLY IS, so think about what you're saying: that a physical characteristic based on race makes someone automatically "scary" or "unkempt!" Just... no!)
Add to that the part where the movies made a lot of elves pale and blonde that weren't blonde in the books (like Legolas) and the whole visual metaphor that they have going on there gets kinda really sketchy. (It's kinda like how in the Narnia movies, all the Talking Animals and Beasts that went over to the White Queen were the ugly yucky-looking ones, and all the ones who stayed loyal to Aslan were the noble/cute-looking ones, whereas in the books the WHOLE POINT was that you can't tell who's a good or bad person just by looking at them. SIGH.)
(eta to fix link)