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Racism and Lord of the Rings
Posted by kendall (December 07, 2002 11:31 PM)
From the Guardian (UK), "Wraiths and race":

It was the same with The Phantom Menace - I had no choice. When part of your childhood is playing down the road on a big screen with surround sound and popcorn, there's no escape. But as the wonder of discovering that there was more to New Zealand than sheep wore off, something began to worry me.

Maybe it was the way that all the baddies were dressed in black, or maybe it was the way that the fighting uruk-hai had dreadlocks, but I began to suspect that there was something rotten in the state of Middle Earth.

Perhaps Dubya's war on terror is making me a bit uneasy, or maybe it's just good old-fashioned Guardian-reading imperial guilt, but there was something about watching a bunch of pale faces setting off into the east to hack some guys with dark faces into little bits that made me feel a little queasy.

When I got home I dug out my copy of The Lord of the Rings from a box somewhere - okay, so I pulled it straight off the shelf - and found there was worse to come. The Two Towers is the story of the battle between Isengard and Rohan. In the good corner, the riders of Rohan, aka the "Whiteskins": "Yellow is their hair, and bright are their spears. Their leader is very tall." In the evil corner, the orcs of Isengard: "A grim, dark band... swart, slant-eyed" and the "dark" wild men of the hills. So the good guys are white and the bad guys are, erm... black.

This genetic determinism drives the plot in the most brutal manner. White men are good, "dark" men are bad, orcs are worst of all. While 10,000 orcs are massacred with a kind of Dungeons and Dragons version of biological warfare, the wild men left standing at the end of the battle are packed off back to their homes with nothing more than slapped wrists.

We also get a sneak preview of the army that's going to be representing the forces of darkness in part three. Guess what: "Dark faces... black eyes and long black hair, and gold rings in their ears... very cruel wicked men they look". They come from the east and the south. They wield scimitars and ride elephants.

Perhaps I'd better come right out and say it. The Lord of the Rings is racist. It is soaked in the logic that race determines behaviour. Orcs are bred to be bad, they have no choice. The evil wizard Saruman even tells us that they are screwed-up elves. Elves made bad by a kind of devilish genetic modification programme. They deserve no mercy.

To cap it all, the races that Tolkien has put on the side of evil are then given a rag-bag of non-white characteristics that could have been copied straight from a BNP leaflet. Dark, slant-eyed, swarthy, broad-faced - it's amazing he doesn't go the whole hog and give them a natural sense of rhythm.

Scratch the surface of Tolkien's world and you'll find a curiously 20th-century myth. Begun in the 1930s, published in the 1950s, it's shot through with the preoccupations and prejudices of its time. This is no clash of noble adversaries like the Iliad, no story of our common humanity like the Epic of Gilgamesh. It's a fake, a forgery, a dodgy copy. Strip away the archaic turns of phrase and you find a set of basic assumptions that are frankly unacceptable in 21st-century Britain.

But it's the same with The Attack of the Clones - I've got no choice. Maybe the fizzy pop will go to my head, maybe the Pearl and Dean music will be able to work its magic, but I'm worried that the popcorn is going to taste a bit wrong - I'm worried that childhood isn't going to be quite so much fun the second time around.

LOL, parrots are us

My views on Tolkien

It is true that Tolkien's world is not the most complex that exists. Everything is pretty much black and white, good against evil, where you have the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other side (i guess Dubya must be a fan). The bad guys look like bad guys, they are ugly and brutish, etc., and the good guys look like good guys, beautiful or harmless, all in all, everything is very simple to understand and comprehend. Yes, Tolkien was definitely not the greatest writer to have ever lived, nor the most interesting one, but the truth is the guy had an incredible imagination, and for the geeks, like myself, that since little children, have always been in love with worlds with magic and warriors and elfs and all the other clichés Tolkien is great. I haven't read Tolkien's books in many years, but i remember that i used to love them. I think this has been studied before, because we live in a world so ruthless and complex and technological and downright difficult to live in, people tend to seek for simpler, more beautiful things, like Tolkien's world. Like an escape from modern days and seek refuge in a medieval/fantastic/romantic past.

Now to the racism bit. It is true that people can interpret anything for their own purposes, and Lord of The Rings is an easy prey. But to be honest i am so sick of the racist histeria that we are living these days, where everyone is so afraid to speak or act or say anything that could remotely be seen or perceived as racist (people don't seem to realize that if you change the way you usually act when confronted with a certain situation, just so you wouldn't be seen as racist, that IS racism, but anyway, most people are just stupid), and am also so sick of whites being portrayed as the only people who are racist in this world, like all the other races and cultures are not prejudiced as well.
I for one, do not think much of humans in general, therefore i think stupidity affects pretty much everyone. Yes, whites are idiots, just like blacks are idiots and asians are idiots and so on. I think you could call me a racist, anti-christian, anti-semitic, anti-islamic, anti-organized religion, misanthropic, intolerant bigot, amongst many other ugly things. And i don't like ugly people that don't know how to dress either.
Tolkien was a medievalist and was interested in european history, therefore, i think it is obvious that his work would reflect that, but apparently there is something wrong nowadays with being interested in european cultures. And, as far as i remember, european history is white history, maybe that's the problem. Like i said before, it is easy to attack Lord of The Rings, after all, it does speak about white races and black races and so on, but anyone can interpret it as they want. You can interpret it as just fantasy or as a racist manifest. To be honest, i don't really care about if Tolkien was a racist or not, it is his work that i like (or at least, used to, when i was younger), not him. I'm not going to defend Lord of The Rings and say, Oh nooo, it is NOT racist in any possible way, and blah blah blah. Who knows, maybe it IS racist, i don't know, i've never been inside Tolkien's head, i just find it so amusing that the same people that are sooo scared and afraid that this is racist are the ones who never speak up or say anything when a movie or book or whatever, comes out and attacks whites. Everywhere i look there are movies and tv shows and music albuns that are so incredible racist, but because the ones targeted are whites it is ok. Yeah, right, at least this people could be consistent and attack everything and anything that is racist.
Personally i think people are just stupid and everyone is racist to a certain degree. By the way, i love using the word racism, it just seems such a big tabboo, and everything tabboo is so exciting, hum hum, i think i'm getting horny.

I'm not really this mean, deeeeep down i really like humans, really, we're great after all is said and done... even blacks... (sorry, i just love being politically incorrect, you can send all the death threats to my email account).

Have to go, took more time then i have right now, have a surreal year everyone.

How stupidly annoying, i hate political correctness. lord of the rings is not racist. end of story...

Agreed, no one or race is perfect.

Great. Whilst everyone else was in the pub last night/this morning celebrating the New Year, you people decide to have a ridiculous discussion about Tolkien and political correctness!

I had no money but! I have been too busy buying SOM albums and stuff, i swaer!

oh that's all right then.

id just got back in, and was slightly the worse for wear.. quite amazing i managed to type coherantly

Racism aside - was "zigeunerweisen" lords of the rings post the Longest post on this forum...............

As for LOTR being racist - just look at Star Trek - The Next Generation - now that is Racist!

I personally believe in trying to increase and preserve human diversity, as opposed to mixing everthing, as to my admitedly limited knowledge, genetic distance is what leads to allopatric speciation. This would presuppose a degree of what is commonly be considered ''racism'', though not necissarily in the sense of mindless lynchings and genocide.

The perservation of ethnic/language groups, perhaps with limited interchange, and complete isolation from relatively more distant gene pools.

It is not that huge genetic distances are already extant, but rather, if historical races/peoples/populations which could also be grouped according to phenotypical characteristics seperated, then i believe diversity would increase.

This is nothing to do with a master-race ideology, but if a groups chose to feel about itself this way, the empirical/matematical result may well be increased long-term diversity.

So, therefore, is ''racism'' inherently evil? I do not believe it is, i am not a superstitious parrot myself.

Edit:Mod, if this is too much, you may delete, i can take a hint, just thought it might be ok

in the intro of my book, he says that if anything he may have been influenced by events in 1914-18, which were more pertinent to his own development than anything in '39

Only thing I noticed was the orcs (sorry if that's not right?) all had cockernee accents...but all the goodies were either posh or yokels.

But I'm not taking it personally...

M

These moral assholes just make me sick every time. LotR is NOT a racist book, it was intended for his children in the first place, for feck's sake.
What do this people think, that he deliberately wrote subliminal messages for his own children or what?
It was like that with Star Wars, Harry Potter and now this epic masterpiece of fantasy-literature. Leave it alone, enjoy the books, enjoy the movies.

And above all, to all the moralists of this world... Get a life...


Izzy.

The thing is, only the dull believe in good and evil, as facts of the world that never change. What is regarded as the good in one time and place, is anathaema in another. The Incas used to sacrifice virgins, cut their hearts out to the sun god, and felt completely normal whilst dong so. Same goes for misogynists. People in the end only do what they think is best, accordin to their own subjectivity. Anyone here read Nietzche? Great quote:''Ice breaks bridges!''

And i should have added-i do not claim to know it all, but i do place value in empiricism/mathematically defined consequence.

why not star in your own LOTR episode, and re-write it how you think it should be done...

http://www.rave.nildram.co.uk/simworld/lotrp.html

sample:

Quiff Boy opened the door to a grizzled figure in a tall felt hat. It was That Guitarist

Quiff Boy woke up in Hamburg's intensive care to see a familiar face smiling down on him. That Guitarist, is it you? he murmured. Indeed it is, Gothish one. replied That Guitarist kindly. You have been healed by the elves of Hamburg said That Guitarist and went on to describe what had befallen him since last they met.

The fellowship left the glitterball-infested forest of Lorien. Oh dear said Andrew Eldritch, Are we going to that 'orrible The Phono place Mr Quiff Boy? Quiff Boy considered a moment and said I need to think about this by myself. I will go up on that hill to think alone on my own without anyone else.

What about Liv. Is she hot ?

Tolkien was not only racist, but a terrorist as well. The September 11th attack is all planned on the second book of the trilogy, The Two Towers. Islamic terrorists have a special code that allows them to decipher the hermetic writings of Tolkien. If you read the third book, The return of the king, in the possession of the aforementioned code, you will know how the world will end. It's true, the voices told me so.

lachert wrote:What about Liv. Is she hot ?

I personally think she's very weird looking and doesn't look like an elf at all, but then again, i'm not the one casting the actors. She probably has the most useless part in the movies.

I'm not a Tolkien fan. Rather Movie fan for. Great piece of work.
I try to read Hobbit & Silmarillion, but is too boaring for me. I feel the same when I read H.Bible but with Tolkien is like some 'new age book', liitle bit of this and little bit of that (myths & religions + some extra stuff born in his mind after fight with wife and rape children ). Anyway, first movie is cool, a specially Boromir (human) part. 006 rules.

I saw "Two towers" last night. Racist or not, I liked it.

Wow, i have been away for a few days chasing something (no i wont tell, but you will probably know), and, well, i am amazed that you took this all so well.

I am full of thanks.