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Lord of the Rings actress lobbies for a female Gandalf
https://tinyurl.com/yy4jn4yh

Amazon Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings TV series is one of many epic
fantasy shows coming down the pipeline now that HBO’s Game of Thrones has
come to an end. And one of Game of Thrones’ greatest strengths was its
portrayal of strong and fleshed-out female characters, many of whom defied
the traditional tropes of the fantasy genre. We wanted to follow their
stories just as much as — if not more than — their guys in the cast.

All of the series trying to become the “next Game of Thrones” will have to
make the same kinds of strides when it comes to representing women if they
hope to have the same impact, and Robyn Malcolm, who portrayed Morwen in
Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movies (the Rohirrim woman who sped
her two children away in The Two Towers when Saruman’s forces attacks),
knows how Amazon’s new show can do just that.


In an interview with Stuff, the actress, who appeared in The Lord of the
Rings: The Two Towers, suggested that the upcoming TV series give Gandalf’s
role to a woman. “Those old legends, those old mythical stories, they’re so
based within a patriarchal landscape,” Malcolm said. “Why not look at the
magic of a matrilineal world, where the magical powerhouses are women?”

It would be refreshing to see some of these stories with a more diverse cast.
Making the “magical powerhouse” of The Lord of the Rings a woman may create
a role similar to that of Moiraine, the Aes Sedai from Robert Jordan’s The
Wheel of Time series, which is also being adapted by Amazon and touted as the
next Game of Thrones.

“We’ve got uteruses, and back in the day, there was a real sort of magic
and sacredness and sort of brutality around that,” Malcolm added. “We’ve
had female Hamlets. Why not?”

Malcolm went on to list her picks for the role, saying that the chosen
actress would need to have “gravitas and a real lot of personal power” to
pull it off. Among her suggestions were Rena Owen, Rachel House, Dame Judi,
Eileen Atkins, and Maggie Smith.

Now, this suggestion is purely academic, because Amazon’s show is set during
the Second Age of Middle-earth, before Gandalf and the other wizards turned
up. So Gandalf very probably won’t appear in the show at all, as a man or a
woman.

But let’s continue with this as a thought experiment anyway. If a series
were to go ahead with a female Gandalf, it would likely receive a fair amount
of backlash from hardcore Tolkienites. We’ve seen similar reactions to
broadening the casts of franchises like Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic
Universe, and it’d be bound to happen here as well. In fact, some fans have
already expressed their disapproval of a female Gandalf, while others are
just flabbergasted by the idea of Gandalf not being played by Sir Ian
McKellen, which, okay, fair.

Nerdrotic’s Gary Buecher even uploaded a video about how much he disliked
the idea. “No,” he says. “It’s time for you to create your own goddamned
story. Now, Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, that’s where I put my foot down and
I have promised…I will dedicate my entire channel to bringing down Amazon if
they screw with Lord of the Rings.”

Again, this isn’t going to happen in any case, but the passion here should
tell you something.

Unfortunately, women writers have frequently been barred from the genre up
until fairly recently, so creating “their own goddamned story” may be more
difficult than hoping to finally be given a bigger part in a more well-known
one. There’s really no reason Gandalf couldn’t be played by a woman, or
barring that, a series could create a bigger role for another female
character, whether drawn from Tolkien’s legendarium or created from whole
cloth.

In general, the genderbending of typically male roles is certainly a concept
we could start embracing more. It’s worked for Shakespearean adaptations
time and time again, so why not our favorite SFF stories?

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Amazon Prime Video要出魔戒電視劇了。

然後曾參演魔戒的女演員Robyn Malcolm拋出這個想法：為什麼不能有女性的甘道夫。

下面我只譯一下她的說法....

 “Those old legends, those old mythical stories, they’re so based within a
patriarchal landscape,” Malcolm said. “Why not look at the magic of a
matrilineal world, where the magical powerhouses are women?”

那些古老的傳說，那些古代的神秘故事，都是基於父權視野而創作的。為什麼不看看女性
的魔法世界？在這之中的魔法強者就是女性。

“We’ve got uteruses, and back in the day, there was a real sort of magic
and sacredness and sort of brutality around that,” Malcolm added. “We’ve
had female Hamlets. Why not?”

我們有子宮，這在過往的日子中就是圍繞在四周中真實存在的某種魔法、神聖和某種殘酷
。我們己有了女性哈姆雷特，為什麼不呢？

Malcolm went on to list her picks for the role, saying that the chosen
actress would need to have “gravitas and a real lot of personal power” to
pull it off. Among her suggestions were Rena Owen, Rachel House, Dame Judi,
Eileen Atkins, and Maggie Smith.

這是她點名那些女演員適合演甘道夫。就不譯了....

所以......風聲出來了，會改嗎？

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