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That's an issue of copyright in this case, yes? There's a legally enforced scarcity regarding who can use Tolkein's IP. If there wasn't, the only thing stopping that show is a lack of care from the people who want it. I'm sure there has to be at least one or more fans wealthy enough to sponsor even a less-than-polished show.
And yeah, I get that it's easier to try and shift the culture to be more appreciative of maintaining the original work's details than it is to fight the economic power of IP holders, but you have to at least be willing to do something on your own.
The Avengers pre-Falcon? You had Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. Fury was and is largely a secondary character who just gives people plot hooks.
And even after that, characters like Falcon, Black Panther, and other non-whites played a fairly minimal role in what was going on. They had their moments, but they were not the main stars of phases 1-3, and arguably even after that.
For that matter, Person of Interest ran until 2016 and had its main cast as all white. Or is your argument that there can't be a show where everyone, even the extras, is white? I won't try to argue that. But that position is even more extreme than the type of shows people are complaining about where there's just more black people, not a dearth of white people in any shot. Hell, even Black Panther had white people in it (and not just as villains either!)
Taraji P. Henson was one of the main characters in the first half of the show.
You're right, I forgot about that one, or just relegated her to a side character. My mistake.
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That's not modern. The political climate has significantly changed since then.
Most TV shows can't suddenly change their cast when the political climate changes, so you have to count such things from when the series started, not when it ended. Supernatural lasted to 2020 and its main characters are all white. But it didn't start in 2020.
2012 is recent enough that the idea of having more non-white people on staff wasn't some fringe idea. Like, even in the mid-2000s as a kid, I earnestly believed that we needed to include non-white people in more media, and that was an idea given by my public education. Person of Interest started in 2011.
Sure, if you want to argue that there are now people very conscious about the race of the casts in the media they make, I won't argue that with you. But even Avengers: Endgame was written in 2015-2016, released in 2019, and still predominantly features a white cast with no backlash.
Like, people got more on their case for relegating an LGBT character to audio-only than they did the lack of racial diversity in the Avengers, and I don't see people turning on it more publicly or the MCU in general at this point.
It's not an all or nothing thing. The push for social justice casting is stronger now than it was ten years ago, even though it still existed to some extent ten years ago.
And Avengers: Endgame had a white cast for similar reasons to a TV show--the white actors were cast many years ago when there was much less social justice casting, and they're being played by the same actors now that they were played by back when they were cast.
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