NBC contributor and pedophile apologist Noah Berlatsky likes Lord of the Rings, but says author J.R.R. Tolkien larded his story with racist imagery and tropes.
The man who claims with a straight face that pedophiles are an oppressed group has been peddling his LOTR nonsense for some time, so his recent bloviation for NBC News about The Rings of Power, Amazon’s take on an LOTR prequel, is not surprising.
This is surprising: NBC permits Berlatsky on its website despite his full-throated support for pedophiles and his strong ties to a pro-pedophile outfit that has permitted a convicted sex offender to publish on its website.
LOTR Is Racist
To dispense with LOTR first, Berlatsky wants readers to believe that Tolkien’s masterpiece is freighted with “racism,” which Berlatsky must think is a greater concern than adults who fantasize about sex with children.
“The new Amazon Prime series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which is based on Tolkien’s work, makes a deliberate effort to quietly confront that uncomfortable legacy through its casting choices,” he wrote. “It’s an admirable decision, but it’s limited by the deeply ingrained ideas of racial difference and racial determinism in Tolkien’s world.”
Actually, it’s not “admirable.” But, anyway, Berlatsky goes on to explain just how to read between the lines:
Tolkien was not an outspoken racist like H.P. Lovecraft, but there’s a fairly straightforward case to be made that his books include racist ideas. The evil wizard Sauron is associated with darkness. His cannon fodder are orcs, debased humanoid creatures who live only to fight and hate. Tolkien described them in a letter as “squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.”
In contrast, the elves, the epitome of purity and good, are associated with whiteness and fair skin. Elrond and Arwen (technically half-elven characters) are unusual in being part human and having dark hair.
The Rings of Power has its upside, but then again, according to Berlatsky, much of the violence is a tacit message that immigrants are a threat.
“Vigilance against evil is certainly important,” the pedo ally wrote,
But forever militarization against racialized external enemies may not be the message we need right now. The blonde, pure Galadriel demanding that the borders be manned forever against the poison of evil is uncomfortably familiar in an America where the right-wing continues to demonize immigrants as a source of violence and disease.
Immigrants are a source of violence and disease, but, ignoring that fact, the piece reprises a Twitter rant in 2020. LOTR is a “perfect example of genocidal logic,” he wrote:
Orcs are innately evil. Killing one is good. Killing large numbers is better. characters joke about killing orcs; they have contests. there are no apparent orc women or children; a civilian orc is unimaginable.…
orcs are also associated with darkness obviously, and with animals. they’re pretty obviously inspired by/a stand in for racist portrayals of black ppl/POC.…
oh, as someone rightly pointed out in comments, they’re also all working class; they’re evil because they work in factories, basically.…
I love LOTR, but it is what it is. and what it is in part is a racist fantasy which justified genocide.
Berlatsky and Pedophiles
Given his judgment of Tolkien’s putative sins, it’s worth looking at Berlatsky’s writings on another subject: People, mostly men, who want sex with kids.
In 2016, Berlatsky wrote Child Sex Workers’ Biggest Threat: The Police for the leftist New Republic. The headline over the preposterous screed speaks for itself.
“Pedophiles are essentially a stigmatized group. Certain people get designated as deviants, people hate them,” he tweeted in 2017.
“Parents are tyrants,” he tweeted in 2020:
“parent” is an oppressive class, like rich people or white people.
And those who oppose pedos are “fash [who] love accusing people of pedophilia,” he tweeted in 2021:
it’s an explosive accusation linked historically to queer people and Jewish people and sex workers. And also because they knew … using the term Doesn’t actually reduce violence and abuse of power, which they like.
Berlatsky became more notorious for his pro-pedo opinions when he interviewed a “queer criminologist” professor at Old Dominion University (ODU) in Virginia. Pervy prof Allyn Walker says pedos are just misunderstood and must be called “minor-attracted persons.” Stigmatizing pedos “can lead to harm,” as Walker told Berlatsky.
Walker quit ODU after the interview. Angry students drove him off campus. Johns Hopkins University, frighteningly enough, hired Walker to work at the child sex abuse prevention center.
Berlatsky blogs for the pro-pedo Prostasia Foundation, which claims its goal is “protecting children by upholding the rights and freedoms of all.” Prostasia pushes “research” into providing child sex-fantasy aids for pedos. The website published multiple articles by a convicted sex offender who argued that keeping sex offenders away from school is a bad idea. Prostasia author James Cantor believes “having a sexual interest in children is an innate characteristic of neurological origin, comparable to a sexual orientation.”
NBC, apparently, is not concerned about Berlatsky’s defense of pedophiles.
