As the credits rolled on the series finale of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, things got awkward. My partner turned to me to express his excitement for series two – just as I realised with absolute certainty that I couldn’t, in good conscience, watch the show again.
My reaction came as a shock – to both of us. Hours earlier, I’d been champing at the bit to see the final instalment. Yes, the Amazon Prime programme has been widely panned by critics for everything from the CGI to the ‘colour-blind’ casting, but we’d loved it. In fact, it’s the first full series we’ve made it through as a couple, which only added to the disappointment of my decision.
So, what led me here – to feelings of remorse so strong that The Rings are powerless? Well, my objections have nothing to do with entertainment, and everything to do with ethics.
The Rings of Power has made me realise that, as unappealing as it is, I need to apply the same scrutiny to my cultural consumption as I do to clothes and cleaning products
Strange as it might sound, the groundwork was laid the night before when we watched The Long Way Home, also on Amazon Prime. It’s a documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman telling the story of the Jewish refugee crisis following the end of the second world war and the creation of the modern state of Israel. One of the many horrors highlighted was the use of forced labour in German industry during the Nazis’ reign – and the companies (including many big names still operating today) that profited.
The next evening, just before we settled down for The Rings of Power, I was browsing Instagram when I saw a post by Remake – a non-profit organisation fighting for fair pay and climate justice in the clothing industry. I am in no doubt that our greed and stupidity is killing the planet, and as part of my efforts to reduce my impact, I’ve recently stopped buying new clothes (yes, yes, I know, I can hear some of you groaning from here). So Remake’s opening slide – a colourful diagram of ‘things to do other than shop Amazon Prime day’, including ‘go thrifting’ and ‘support your local coffee shop’, caught my eye. However, it was the fifth slide that stopped me in my tracks.
Amazon, it says, is one of the companies that has been accused of being ‘complicit in forced labour of Uyghur peoples in China’ by a coalition of more than 180 human rights groups. The coalition alleges that Amazon uses suppliers with links to forced labour. Amazon says it ‘complies with the laws and regulations in all jurisdictions in which it operates’ and ‘takes allegations of human rights abuses seriously’. But that was the moment when I realised that I couldn’t give the show a pass.
Until recently, I’d found it pretty easy to resist Jeff Bezos’s box of tricks. I detest Alexa and can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would invite her into their home. I don’t shop on Amazon, which has been reported to significantly undercount its carbon footprint and may owe its customers a share of £900 million compensation for ‘manipulation’. If I need something random in a hurry I get it from eBay. But with Prime Video, he got me.
With a far superior film offering than Netflix, Prime is what my partner (who was sucked in by a half-price Prime Student account) and I found ourselves turning to most Saturday nights. Then the habit began to spiral. The first series to tempt me on to the service during the week was The Marvellous Mrs Maisel; I’m Jewish and the show is written by Amy Sherman-Palladino who wrote The Gilmore Girls, which I watch on an almost daily basis – so basically, Mrs Maisel was made for me. Tuning in for the first time from the Amazon Prime app reluctantly installed on my phone, I felt a pang of guilt – but I chose to suppress it and allow myself to be entertained.
So what’s to say that I won’t do the same when series two of The Rings of Power arrives? Do I really feel so strongly about this issue that I won’t just push my concerns to the back of my mind, snuggle up on the sofa with my love and let myself be swept away in the fantasy? I’d be lying if I said there isn’t a part of me that really wants to do that. But I also know that’s not the person I want to be.
With Prime Video, Bezos finally managed to weasel his way into my life; finally managed to make me a consumer; finally managed to make me complicit. And that’s no accident – this is how these tech megalomaniacs operate, stretching their tentacles far and wide, infiltrating the fibre of our daily lives. But I don’t want to be complicit in the destruction of the planet, and I don’t want to be complicit in alleged human rights abuses. I want to be conscious about what I consume, deliberate about how I spend my money. The Rings of Power has made me realise that, as unappealing as it is, I need to apply the same scrutiny to my cultural consumption as I do to clothes and cleaning products.
I’m sure there’ll be people reading this who think I’m terribly naive, or moralistic, or just really sad and pathetic (or all of the above). But the older I get, the more strongly I feel the need to live by the values I know are right – because theoretical values mean nothing. I don’t believe that my actions alone will change the course of humanity and save the world; but I do think that if more of us channelled our spending power in a deliberate and value-led way, things could change for the better. For me, it really comes down to the fact that I want to leave this earth knowing that even if I didn’t manage to make things any better, at the very least I didn’t make them worse.
So, to cut a very long story short: that’s why I won’t be watching season two of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – even though, contrary to popular opinion, I thought it was great.
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