Wokeness and Fantasy

There's something curious about the popularity of stories involving fantasy worlds and the exploits of superheroes in these irritatingly interesting times.  They seem ubiquitous, on the small and large screens, in computer games, in books or whatever passes for books.  I suppose it tells us something when what entertains us is so completely different from the world in which we live and we obsess on the exploits of characters we can never emulate, simply because they do not and cannot exist.

I suppose, also, that what it tells us isn't to our credit.  But I think we deserve very little credit indeed when we insist that our fantasy heroes must possess what we consider to be appropriate racial or cultural characteristics, based on what we poor dwellers in reality believe exist in the real world we seek so energetically to escape.

There are no dwarves, elves, hobbits, golden-haired Targaryens, Vulcans or whatever fantasy creatures or beings we like to obsess over.  It seems preposterous, therefore, to insist that they must be of any particular race.  It follows that it's even more preposterous to complain that if they're not depicted as being of a particular race, there's some nefarious form or wokeness or identity politics at work.

It would seem to be the height of petulance, if not a sign of very low self-esteem, for a white person to be angered or concerned in any way that an elf or dwarf or whatever imaginary creature one may delight in isn't portrayed as white also.  How much must such a person have invested in cherishing a fantasy to be so affected?  The term "nerd" is too mild to describe such an unfortunate.  Imagine being someone who is offended because Elrond, or Gandalf, or Aragorn isn't being played by someone who is white, if you can.  What could be more grotesque?

I can understand that a departure from or addition to the story-line of a beloved work may, and even should, result in complaints.  I can think of a few that annoyed me--the battling rock-giants and "were-worms" which turned up in Peter Jackson's interpretation of The Lord of the Rings didn't appear in the books and were inserted for no good reason (at least none that I can think of).  The love story about a dwarf and an elf, particularly an elf that wasn't mentioned in the books to begin with, was irritating.  Such gratuitous tinkering adds little to the movies and disgusts those who know the novels.

But the fact a dwarf or an elf is black, for example, isn't objectionable to me if the dwarf or elf behaves as a dwarf or elf may be expected to behave in the context of the fantasy world.  If we humans are of various races or have different skin colors, why shouldn't dwarves be the same, for the love of God?  It's not as if they're being depicted, or certain of them are, with four legs or wings or breathing fire.

Anachronism can be disturbing.  One understands this.  Julius Caesar piloting a B-52 during the civil war with Pompey and his followers would be either hilarious or absurd, and perhaps both at the same time.  But there are levels of anachronism, some tolerable and explicable, some not; some gratuitous, some not.  And fantasy is fantasy, not something we should make part of the culture wars taking place in our lugubrious reality.