One might think that there are more important things than the trailer for the new “The Lord of the Rings” series, which is scheduled to start on Amazon Prime Video in the fall. Also true. Only in Russia of all places do many seem to see things differently. The comment columns below the official trailer have been flooded with posts with a Tolkien quote in all sorts of languages for days, a conspicuous number of them in Russian. Many people already don’t like the series, that’s the impression, although only a minute of the trailer is known. If you continue reading, some fans can’t seem to get over the fact that not only white men are supposed to play the leading roles in the series.
This is reminiscent of a similar case a few years ago. When the “Star Wars” film “The Last Jedi” opened in 2017, a wave of hatred spilled out over the internet against director Rian Johnson and one of the main actresses, Kelly Marie Tran. Not only some script decisions, but also the cast of many non-white actresses bothered some fans at the time, at least that was the impression.
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The American communication scientist Morten Bay showed, however in a research paperthat much of this apparent protest was staged. He analyzed around 1,000 comments on Twitter that were directed at director Rian Johnson and found not only many bots among the accounts, but also many that followed typical patterns for political propaganda. “Bots, trolls/provocateurs or political activists use the debate to spread political messages promoting right-wing extremism and discrimination based on gender, race or sexuality. A number of these users appear to be Russian trolls,” he writes in the paper’s abstract.
Such debates reach layers that are not interested in politics
It is now undisputed that Russia is attempting to influence debates on online forums and other platforms. Since the 2016 US presidential election, a number of studies have appeared that explain typical patterns of such Russian troll activity. A study linked 2,752 accounts to the Russian Internet Research Agency troll factory on Twitter alone. Typically, these accounts would become active at major global events. Among other things, they can be recognized by the fact that they often post in different languages and regularly redesign their profile, i.e. delete all old content and change the name. There is no data analysis yet on the posts under the Lord of the Rings trailer, but many of the accounts appear to fit this profile, meaning they are recent or older, but have very little content.
Why should Russian bots and trolls get involved in discussions about casting sci-fi and fantasy films? In fact, these movies are the perfect target to stir up trouble. These franchises are often very emotionally charged, with fans around the world reacting extremely to any news or changes to their beloved stories. And indeed, they have always been slightly political: “Star Wars” as part of New Hollywood, which opposed the Vietnam War and conservative US politics, “The Lord of the Rings”, albeit rather involuntarily, as a manifesto of the hippie movement. This left-wing legacy shines through again and again in the latest films and polarizes fans, especially in the USA, together with a cast that has meanwhile become much more diverse. Fueling these debates not only makes them appear bigger than they are, but also further polarizes Western societies and, above all, reaches layers that are not interested in political debates and therefore do not react to normal propaganda or provocations. So it fits exactly with the strategy that Russia seems to be implementing right now.
What could help? Maybe just don’t take “The Lord of the Rings” and “Star Wars” so seriously. Just now.