A Letter to Paul Chato, the “former network executive producer”, about his anti-woke stance and his support of Nerdrotic

 

A Letter to Paul Chato, the “former network executive producer”, about his anti-woke stance and his support of Nerdrotic

Context: Paul Chato, a comedian and one-time head of television comedy at CBC Television, has been creating videos about the Amazon series and providing what he says is inside-views (but outside since he doesn’t work for Amazon) of what is going on at Amazon and their production of the Rings of Power.

I don’t doubt some of his logic, Amazon’s marketing is a little bumpy and the production has faced controversy. It’s also faced a far-right push against it because Amazon is keen to hold a bold diversity stance when it comes to hiring actors.

I was moved to write the letter below after one of Paul’s latest video blogs, where he endorses Nerdrotic, who you may know is a hateful pitiful poor example of a fan (of any franchise) who’s angry rhetoric has inspired attacks on decent people I know and care about. I also noticed on Paul’s Twitter feed his endorsement of a Liberal candidate up in Canada which seems in complete opposition to his stance on the Amazon series, so I decided to ask some questions towards him – basically is this YouTube channel a comedy persona he created or does he stand by what is said on there? I’ve posed that to him on YouTube and Twitter, whilst including the candidate he supposedly supports into the conversation. Let’s see what happens.

Notes:

Examples of Paul Chato’s YouTube Amazon videos -

Amazon's Rings of Panic. LOTR in panic mode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfBu8sxloqQ

Can RINGS of POWER succeed even if you hate it? Would Tolkien watch it?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akzv50gcNkw

Why so Woke? Amazon's Rings of Power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsijz7YqPyI

Paul Chato’s Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/paulchato

Kaniz Mouli’s Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/KanizMouli

Paul Chato’s Tweet about campaigning with Kaniz (he seems to be the only unmasked attendee):
https://twitter.com/PaulChato/status/1530540415648157699

The letter in full:

Dear Paul Chato,

I’ve watched the whole of your video entitled “Amazon's Rings of Panic. LOTR in panic mode.”

Before I start, I will say that Amazon’s handling of some marketing so far has been haphazard and somewhat confused – and open to frustration and befuddlement from fans, scholars and casual viewers. I don’t deny that.

Anyways…

My first question is more about you – are you actually “in character” doing these videos, having had what looks to be a very long career as a comedian? You promote yourself as a “former executive producer” but in your career were you only that for a few years (1989-91)? Apologies if I got my information wrong, your bio is hard to find besides what is on wiki and a few other limited places. I am not doubting your experience in that time, just you seem to “trump it up” as the saying goes as if it were to hold weight against everything else you have ever done.

Secondly, your continued use of “woke” seems to go counter to your political beliefs you share with Kaniz Mouli (a Liberal candidate for Oakville North-Burlington). You just posted about being on the campaign trail with her just yesterday (28 May 2022) - https://twitter.com/PaulChato/status/1530540415648157699

Now I’m a Brit (same as Tolkien) so the term Liberalism varies from country to country – (I don’t like using wiki but...) Canadian Liberal ideals are described as:

“The principles of the party are based on liberalism as defined by various liberal theorists and include individual freedom for present and future generations, responsibility, human dignity, a just society, political freedom, religious freedom, national unity, equality of opportunity, cultural diversity, bilingualism, and multilateralism”
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Party_of_Canada).

I may be confused, but that agenda seems to be what Americans call “woke.” In fact woke, as you probably know, is a stolen term from the American BIPOC community where it originally meant something like “waking up to the fact the system is against them and standing up to this hatred and aggression towards them.” I don’t see anything wrong with that really? I mean as a Brit I can tell you people have fought throughout our history to get us rights – equal votes for all (including women, minority groups, disabled), rights for women, rights for our diverse communities and also things like having actual maternity and holiday protection. I mean none of us want to go back to the “good old days” of Victorian England where the Upper Class were our betters and we should just shuffle along to the factories and be thankful we toil for them, eh?

So your rhetoric in this video and your previous video seems to go against the version of yourself you present to people like local politicians. You seem to be playing a game with people? Frothing up anger and hatred against a company who bought the rights to a TV show, after Tolkien’s own family (the Tolkien Estate), put those rights out to tender and chose the company who would proceed with what they wanted. Let’s not forget, the Tolkien Estate is heavily involved with this production and have final veto. A very different situation to when JRR Tolkien sold the film rights back in 1969 to United Artists for “Art or money.” At that time he had to decide between having some control over the final product for less cash (art) or no control over future productions for more cash (money). Tolkien went for the latter option, so in a sense Tolkien “sold out.” Move many years forward to Amazon’s deal and the family this time made sure they had power of veto and more control, whilst getting a substantially more amount of money. You’d know all that as a true fan of Tolkien though, right?

Now you seem to have adopted what is known amongst the Tolkien community and scholars as a far-right Tolkien fanatic persona. We’ve seen it a lot recently, people professing to be “true Tolkien fans” with a very political agenda of using Tolkien and his love of British history to push their racist, destructive and abhorrent agenda. It goes back to the 1970s with Italy’s “Hobbit camps” and more recently the “White Pride” grabbing of Anglo-Saxon history to legitimise their warped ideology. Medievalism as a discipline is currently trying to get its head round this power-grab. There’s a distortion of Tolkien’s own words, from the oft-repeated misquote on the Amazon Rings of Power trailer – “fans” not even knowing it wasn’t a real Tolkien quote but sheep-like repeating it over and over, as if spamming a chat section on a YT channel has any real meaning.

And in your latest video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfBu8sxloqQ) you reach new heights of being a far-right “shill” (a word the far-right people seem to have recently discovered and repeated a lot) where you name-drop several times another Youtuber, Nerdrotic (Gary Buechler). This Youtuber seems only to exist to create discord, anger and perhaps even ferment actual violence towards shows attempting to be diverse in their casting and choices. He seems to hate women, BIPOC and any LGBT+ representation in shows. Doesn’t matter if it is Marvel (where Stan Lee stood as a giant in his acceptance of representation) or Tolkien, Nerdrotic froths at the mouth over it in TV and films. I believe he is a sponsored YT channel, so someone is paying/backing him to push these views – so another right-wing shill.

More recently Nerdrotic has targeted two female scholars at the University of Glasgow in his videos. These scholars have written articles about Tolkien which focus on diversity in his works (positives and failings). Nerdrotic used images and some pretty divisive words to focus his fans attention on them, which led to message both public and private on their social media presences. Some were just horrific comments, some were actual death threats. Glasgow University had to post this in response to the attacks - https://fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/2022/02/16/cff-statement-on-the-online-abuse-of-mariana-rios-maldonado/

So I want to ask you – do you condone such actions by Gary Buechler? He targeted female scholars in his videos and opened them to abuse. Do you agree with his misogynistic, racist, anti-LGBT+ stance? Do you support his hate-filled rants on YouTube? I wonder what your local politician, Kaniz Mouli, thinks of you backing such a lowlife toxic scumbag who often gleefully mentions he’s been in prison on his videos? Such a “great family man”, who left his family to fend for himself whilst he did time.

Let me end with this. Tolkien was a generous man – he replied back to almost all the letters he received from his fans even though he was bemused and often distraught at the attention his books brought him. He never planned to write The Lord of the Rings, he wanted his Book of Lost Tales publishing and sadly it never was in his lifetime. He was in part horrified by the attention in the 1960s but he also agreed to becoming the president of the Tolkien Society (UK) in 1969. It’s my personal opinion, but from what I know and have read about him, he’d hate the appropriation of his name and material by far-right bigots that is currently happening. His son Christopher hated the Peter Jackson films and I am guessing both would dislike Amazon’s TV series. That’s fine, Tolkien was highly critical of nearly all adaptions, whether art or otherwise, of his works. But he did expect others to work within his fictional lands after he was gone – he gave Middle-earth to other minds and hands.

The Amazon TV adaption, whether good or bad, is but one adaption. The canon, JRR Tolkien’s own work, is there for me to return to. I know many friends who refuse to watch the films, as is their right. I am going to see what Amazon does with Middle-earth, fully well knowing it is but one road to travel on. I started on this road back when I was eight, thanks to my older brother (another Paul), who got me into many things in my youth – Tolkien, roleplaying, etc. We sadly lost him in 2019 to mental health, just before the pandemic, but I remember him for the values he gave me in life (and the hobbies I follow to this day) – be kind to others and to explore your imagination. I would hope you, Paul Chato, could at least try and follow an example like that.

Yours,
Tim