Elon Musk Got Dragged For Complaining About Amazon’s ‘The Rings Of Power’ For Showcasing A Strong Woman

As if Middle-earth didn’t have enough of a troll problem, Elon Musk has entered the discourse surrounding Amazon’s commitment to diversity in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Despite the new series racking up stellar reviews, Musk joined the predictable backlash to seeing diverse characters in the franchise that, until now, has overwhelmingly featured white male characters.

Here’s how The Hollywood Reporter writer Richard Newby described the online reactions he’s been witnessing since the series premiere. As Newby points out, the show has been getting “review bombed,” which has caused Amazon to tighten the review process on its platform:

I could very easily be discussing Middle-earth, but I’m not. What I’m discussing is our very real world, and social media as an extension of that world. For the past week, I’ve been bombarded with messages of hate, called the N-word, told to go back to Africa, and called on to be executed. The reason The Lord of the Rings. It would almost be laughable if it wasn’t so profoundly sad. A wealth of stories, and a willingness to believe in wizards, Balrogs, giant spiders and magical swords. But allow people of color to exist in Middle-earth Well, that is an affront to all that’s good and decent. At least that’s the primary argument for those ruinous trolls apparently review bombing and harassing fans of color over Amazon’s Rings of Powers series.

Keep in mind, the racist backlash to Rings of Power had been trending over the holiday weekend, and Musk is a well-known Twitter addict. (Hence his attempt to buy the whole site.) So when the Tesla CEO fired off his thoughts on Labor Day evening, he knew what he was doing.

“Tolkien is turning in his grave,” Musk tweeted. “Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both. Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice.”

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 5, 2022

However, the situation quickly went south for Musk as he found himself being ruthlessly dragged in the replies and quote tweets for predictably siding against “woke-ness.” Twitter users did not hold back as they called out Musk’s clear lack of knowledge about The Lord of the Rings and suggested maybe he should be more concerned with the real world carnage caused by his electric cars.

You can see some of the reactions below:

— Junior (@juniorjoose) September 6, 2022

Even if this oatmeal for brains take was true, do you think Galadriel is a character who is famously not brave, smart, or nice https://t.co/rA6mjIx7od

— Martin Fisher’s Spooky Corner (@OnlyMcFisherMan) September 6, 2022

oh man, if only there was a word to describe someone who gets mad when people who are not white are included in something