The Lord of the Rings: Racist, Right Wing, Propaganda

[Placebo]

Just think about it. The "good" people are all white, the only people of colour are "evil", including Arab looking characters in second & third films. "Eagles" are good *cough*PRO-AMERICANPROPAGANDA*cough* but the flying lizards are "evil".

And the White Pride/Nazi/KKK people love it: http://www.stormfront.org/archive/t-6881Lord_of_the_Rings_..html

Just...think about it.

*sigh* :crazy:

edit: look at the crazy eyes people! :crazy: the crazy eyes! :crazy:

[Maestro]

1. Honestly

You are thinking about it too much. I hardly think that it is propaganda.

[mark414]

2. oh god

that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard

[regnaD kciN]

43. You must have forgotten...

...the move to boycott The Lord of the Rings:The Two Towers a couple of years ago by a right-winger claiming that Peter Jackson was anti-American, and had chosen that title for the film to express his support for the 9/11 attacks.

:crazy:

[mark414]

63. i stand corrected

now THAT'S the dumbest shit i've ever heard

[Seabiscuit]

75. Agreed. Obviously this person knows nothing about Tolkien.

[mark414]

90. i was referring to the skinheads...

[Solly Mack]

3. Eggnog too strong?

[porkrind]

54. OMG, Solly, I love the "Reality Bites" fish!

LOVE IT!!!

[Solly Mack]

91. I saw it yesterday and got one for my car

It is great, isn't it! :)

[RevolutionaryActs]

4. "Eagles are good." American propaganda, thats interesting considering

Tolkien was born in South Africa and then raised in England........... :P

[Placebo]

5. LIES!!!

:P

[RevolutionaryActs]

6. Placebo, you're a loony you know that?

:yourock: :hug:

[chyjo]

7. Wow

the usual interpretation is that Mordor was a war-bent manufacturing hell like Nazi Germany.

[starroute]

8. The things you name are there but not of major importance

Tolkien was born in 1893 and was a member of his generation and social class. As such, he had certain regressive attitudes, but he also did his best to fight against them. His ability to create a situation in which the racial tensions between elves and dwarves might be overcome was more important than his residual attachment to inherited prejudices against Africans and Asians.

I actually find the ongoing master-servant relationship between Frodo and Sam more offensive than the scattered hints of racism. But even there, Sam ultimately becomes far more of a heroic figure than Frodo, not because of his slavishness, but because his dedication to truth and decency is far stronger.

Give Tolkien credit for what he accomplished and please don't blame him for his bias against winged reptiles.

[gorbal]

37. But that was intentional.

The master-servant relationship was very important to what Tolkein was trying to communicate in his work. I remembe rhe discussed once how on the field of battle how equalized people of different social classes became and how those of the bottom social classes would move up through the ranks based on their performance. He was trying to show how Frodo became week and Sam strong, and notice how in the end Sam became governor and Frodo a sort of quiet outcast.

[roguevalley]

62. Lord of the Rings is like the bible. You can find anything you want

in it if you look. I also find anti-industrialism, anti-military-industrialism, anti-war, the belief that even if there are differences, you can still work and live together and be better for it,
the love of learning, the idea that each of us is responsible for each other and ourselves, that you aren't doomed to be less-you can be more.
It goes on and on. Its hopeful and brilliant. That's why I love it. Its more meaningful to me than the Bible, if you really want to know. :)

[mcscajun]

9. I don't Care if some racist skinhead jerkface likes it...

...it's not racist, right wing propaganda.

It's a beautiful story...more liberals have embraced it for its values and the relationships in it than I can count.

Sometimes, a story is just a story. Tolkien set out to create a English myth on a epic scale. He succeeded beyond all measure.

Catholics think it's a thinly veiled allegory of Christ and I don't agree with Them, either.

The proof of a powerful narrative is that it has so much depth that everyone finds within what they seek. As Aragorn said in the book: "...fair and perilous; but only evil need fear it, or those who bring some evil with them."

[hyphenate]

31. On the other hand,

the Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis and the protagonist figure of Aslan the Lion are INDEED Christian allegories. But most children are not going to read that into it, as the stories in and of themselves are well written and work on many different levels.

[WCGreen]

58. JRRT was a Catholic and so he must have been

somewhat influenced by the teachings of the church..

He was also British so must have been influenced by the crown, although not too much as he was a catholic and not Anglican

Also, his life bridged two centuries and he lived under the remnants of the Victorian age...

So you have to take into consideration all of this if you make any attempt at understanding what it was JRRT was really trying to get at...

I personally think he was just trying to create an English Mythology to combat the Nordic nationalism evolving across northern Europe....

But hey, what do I know......

[Tweed]

61. Which Catholics are those?

I'm Catholic and I've NEVER heard that before. I'm not saying that there isn't some Catholic group out there that sees it that way, but to just say ALL Catholics see it as being a story of Christ... that's a bit of stretch.

[roguevalley]

64. Tolkien hated having his life or his religion read into the books.

He was writing the mythology of a people, utilizing his brilliance and his education. This book is a wonder.

[Ms_Mary]

78. Exactly. LOTR was never intended to be allegorical in any way. nt

n

[WCGreen]

71. I saw a discussion of this on the EWT...

I think that is the Catholic Cable Channel...

Anyway, it was relatively far out but still, if you listened to what they said, it kind of made some sense........

[mcscajun]

102. I agree...it's an ENORMOUS stretch...

...but do a Google on Tolkien and Christ and you'll come up with pages upon pages of the stuff making the connections...tenuous though they may be.

I didn't mean to imply All Catholics...my apologies...I used to be one.

[Nikepallas]

10. I'm sorry but that is sooooooooo far out of the ball park!!!!

Most Fantasy sci-fi has nothing to do with the traditional concept of Race. and the original books were like written over 80+ years ago by an Englishman and Peter Jackman is a Kiwi who tried to do a FAITHFUL interpretation of the book.

[WilliamPitt]

11. There is actually a little something to this

The Haradrim wear turbins and have Mideastern features around the eyes and nose, while Aragorn leads the 'Men of the West.'

But then again, it is supposed to be English mythology, and there was that trouble with the Moors a long time back...

[catbert836]

32. The Haradrim

Yes, they do wear turbans. Yes, they are mainly based off of Arabs. But also, I believe that as a member of his generation, Tolkein was raised with racist attitudes, but did his best to fight against them, as we see in the Legolas-Gimli freindship, where they overcame racial tensions to become good freinds

[Wat_Tyler]

33. There's a lovely passage in The Two Towers where Sam sees a dead

Haradrim soldier. If you read that, you get a sense of Tolkien's thoughts on the subject.

Besides - the Dwarves don't strike me as being particularly white, and for all we know, Tolkien's Orcs could've been white, given that their corrupted Elves.

[catbert836]

34. I totally agree.

That, in my opinion, was the best quote in the entire book.

[Wat_Tyler]

35. Here it is - I think it blows any accusations of racism out of the water.

'Sam, eager to see more, went now and joined the guards. He scrambled a little way up into one of the larger of the bay-trees. For a moment he caught a glimpse of swarthy men in red running down the slope some way off with green-clad warriors leaping after them, hewing them down as they fled. Arrows were thick in the air. Then suddenly straight over the rim of their sheltering bank, a man fell, crashing through the slender trees, nearly on top of them. He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood. His brown hand still clutched the hilt of a broken sword.

It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace - all in a flash of thought which was quickly driven from his mind. '

p332 of The Two Towers.

[billyskank]

67. Best quote in the book, in my opinion

"Deserves death! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out dealth in punishment, for not even the Wise can see all ends."

Obviously Tolkein was a goddamn pinko commie tree-hugging terrorist pacifist!

[Wat_Tyler]

95. Yeah, that is a great quote.

[roguevalley]

65. Consider also the unusual imagination here. Dwarf women

looked like the men, beards and all. :) Nice reference to this in Two Towers. Also, there was lots of interracial marriage here. Very, very ahead of its time, JRRT.

[wickerwoman]

51. But the Haradrim in the movies are based on Pacific Islanders

and the actors are Maori.

I see more racism in assuming that all brown people must be Arabs and that therefore everything they do in the movie must be a comment on our attitudes towards Middle-Easterners than in an 80 year old story about a mythological Britian failing to include any black elves.

I'm not intending this as an accusation aimed at anyone in particular, but there is something really wrong with lumping all people of color together even when your intention is to expose "racism".

[roguevalley]

66. You forget that many men were involved with Saruman. They

came from all over and they all weren't of color. Many were white and they came to destroy the culture of the west. Frankly, when you consider how many things that are progressive there; interracial and interspecial marriage, strong women (in spite of not being seen much in the story), and on and on, then its pretty damned good for a book published in what? 1942?

There were Jim Crow laws, lynching and bans on almost everything that he wrote about in the books.

[wickerwoman]

74. Are you sure you're responding to the right person?

I agree that Tolkein isn't racist.

Also, if you watch the special features on the Two Towers, they say specifically that they based the Haradrim dress and decoration on Pacific Islands culture. You can see it in the facial paint on the Oliphant drivers in Return of the King. They were trying to get away from the "Oh they're brown- they must be Arabs" crap.

[roguevalley]

68. I don't recall pacific islanders being the basis of his haradrim.

he wasn't ever around the pacific islands, was he? Peter is a Kiwi. He used Kiwi actors for the parts.

[Bridget Burke]

106. Yes--the haradrim were based on pacific islanders....

It may be in one of the background books about the movies.

[WCGreen]

55. The Moors were the enlightened Muslims from North Africa

The English went on crusades against the Muslims who had control of Jerusleum...

Big difference....

[Radical Activist]

12. What about the Ents?!

No scene was better than the Ents coming to life to avenge the forest and destroy the clear-cutting evil factory. What we need in this world is a bunch of Ents to take care of Bush and his lumber company!

[Placebo]

13. Bush to Ent: "Need some wood?"

Ent to Bush: :grr: STOMP! STOMP! CRUSH! :grr:

[mcscajun]

14. Now There's a mental Image I can savor...

An Ent picking up Bush with one limb, and Cheney with the other...you folks recall what the Ent does next. :)

[Placebo]

15. Don't we all...

:loveya: ENT :loveya:

[Radical Activist]

16. LOL

Now THAT would make a good movie!

[Placebo]

17. One I would pay DOUBLE to see!

:thumbsup: :D

[CatBoreal]

18. Tolkien is on record as hating...

allegory. He thought it was a feeble literary divice.

What was important to him was applicability. You can look at his books and apply it to what was happening in Germany at the time, you can apply it to nuclear proliferation, you can look at it and apply it to reckless industrialization, you can appy it to the rape of the environment.

It goes on and on.

That's the mark of a good book and a great author. One that's able to shape a world within a story that the reader can find familiar and universal.

So it does not surprise me that some KKK dick-head read these books and found racism. It's like the Bible... you can find anything in there to justify anything.

[Withywindle]

60. Yup, and....

He also disliked allegory because it's authoritarian! He felt that allegory involves a writer manipulating a reader into accepting a meaning imposed from the "top down"--whereas assigning meaning and relevance to a story should always be the reader's prerogative and responsibility.


Edit: Yes, Placebo, I caught the joke! But I have heard this interpretation before.

I've also heard hardcore Rainbow Gathering hippies interpreting it as a manifesto of romantic Ectopia, so there ya go....

[Withywindle]

73. d'oh! typo

Ecotopia.

[jellybelly]

19. huh?

what are you doing reading stormfront? It's technically only racist propaganda. Right Wing proganda is Sean Hannity.

[bread_and_roses]

20. for a good laugh, do read

the satire, "U N U S E D
A U D I O C O M M E N T A R Y
B Y H O W A R D Z I N N
A N D N O A M C H O M S K Y" by JEFF ALEXANDER AND TOM BISSELL

it can be found at:http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2003/04/22fellowship.html

I am a great fan of the books (and the movies too) - I've read the Trilogy more times than I like to admit, and years ago even read the Silmarillion (sp? it's been a long time).

I think this is one of the funniest thing I've ever read, short exerpt below:

"Chomsky: Gandalf is clearly wondering if it's time to invoke his plan for the supposed revelation concerning the secret magic ring. Why now? Well, I think it's because the people in Mordor — the Orcs, I'm speaking of — are starting to obtain some power, are starting to ask a little bit more from Middle Earth than Middle Earth has ever seen fit to give to them. And I don't think it's unreasonable for them to expect something back from Middle Earth. Of course, if that happened, the entire economy would be disrupted.

Zinn: The pipe-weed-based economy.

Chomsky: And, as you pointed out earlier, the military-industrial-complex that exists in Gondor. This constant state of alertness. This constant state of fear. And here Gandalf reveals his true nature."

Much more, and nearly every line a howler.

edit to add that I probably laugh so hard at this in part because I revere Chomsky and greatly admire Zinn, as well as loving Tolkein's works.

[WCGreen]

56. ROTFLMAO

[HEyHEY]

21. Hey...in Chinese movies all the bad guys are white

[jellybelly]

28. those racist Chinese!

:mad:

[NewJeffCT]

85. actually

Actually, many of the heroes of old in Chinese literature (3 Kingdoms, etc) are described as having lighter/whiter skin and bigger eyes than normal Chinese. Even today, that ideal still persists - top actress Gong Li's face was all over China this fall advertising "Perfect White" makeup from L'Oreal.

[Chovexani]

22. That's it I'm gonna go smoke some herb

The world has just gone crazy...

[everythingsxen]

23. You could make the same allegory in reverse

Sauron's Symbol is a giant eye



The US uses a similar symbol for it's money



and as a symbol for a terrifying program run by ringwraiths

[WCGreen]

57. I don't know

Sauron's eye looks like something else to me.....

[Placebo]

24. I hope everyone knows that I was joking...

I mean, I tried to make it really obvious, but apparently it wasn't obvious enough.

[CatBoreal]

25. I knew you were joking but....

I'm on my annual Tolkien kick at the moment.... finished The Two Towers EE last night, starting on Return of the King EE tonight, plust I just started reading The Fellowship of the Ring.

You may say I'm a little immersed at the moment, hence the scholarship.

[Ms_Mary]

79. I read them over almost every year too.

[CatBoreal]

81. It's rapidly becoming a Yuletide tradition in my house...

...my hubby and I are currently fighting over who gets to read LoTR:FoTR before bed.

Great wrestling matches does not make for late night reading. ;)

[mcscajun]

100. Read LOTR every year...beginning on September 22nd.

So does Christopher Lee.

:)

[everythingsxen]

26. I understand Placebo

You can't talk, otherwise the Republican party will assassinate you.

I know you were just "kidding" ;-)

Good job exposing this conspiracy. :P

[joebascemy]

27. tolkien OK at best

The chauvinistic tendencies of Tolkien, and his conservatism, are old news, discussed in lit crit for ages. To me, the case is made establishing Tolkien as someone less like a kindly old uncle than his devotees like to imagine. Peter Jackson made a hugely entertaining and pretty faithful adaptation of the books, warts and all.

BTW, I love ambiguity most of the time, but a work that allows anyone to extract any meaning of his or her addle-brained choosing is kind of second rate. Save the hate mail; these are good books, just not great ones, no matter how large the majority in favor.

[Bridget Burke]

36. Of course--good art must have one meaning & one meaning only.

More like "Atlas Shrugged".

[joebascemy]

38. I didn't mean to offend

and, anyway, never said anything of the sort. I only meant to object somewhat to the idea that every reading of a given text has some sort of pass that puts it beyond other people;s questioning it. As you can see, I'm getting challenged by you guys, which is fair, but I have been in too many classes and listened to too many useless student discussions that trail of into namecalling and sarcstic overstatement, as well as those which just play cat and mouse with the implication that the material was never read, let alone read with comprehension.

[wickerwoman]

52. Sorry, I'm not following you here:

"But a work that allows anyone to extract any meaning of his or her addle-brained choosing is kind of second rate."

How does lazy reading make the work itself second-rate? Name me an author or a work that is idiot-proof (i.e. doesn't allow the reader to extract any meaning they like.) How is this even possible without the author sitting next to you as you read glossing their own work?

I don't think that every reading is equally perceptive but you came on here arguing that Tolkein is a second-rate author because his work "allows" inferior reading. Sorry, but I don't buy it.

[roguevalley]

69. consider how many meanings there are given to every syllable

in the bible. ah, a second rate work. :+

[joebascemy]

76. I didn't word my point

well enough here, but what I am trying to do is criticize the frequently repeated notion that a person's lazy reading of a text has some sort of equal value, a notion which is put forth by some today. There is such a thing as doping up a work with prophetic-sounding langugage, inscrutable spirituality or philosophy, and such to make it seem more profound than it is. Scifi and fantasy writers sometimes do this, and the readers seem to lap that stuff up.

[Wat_Tyler]

29. Yeah, we have this discussion every six months or so.

Only an idiot would subject a work of fantastical fiction to such real-life analogies.

[joebascemy]

39. Probably six months ago

someone else would ask you if your presumptively anti-idiot dictum would apply to Animal Farm? Gulliver's Travels?

But I have to admit you've done it! One sentence from you wipes out, trumps, demolishes, all those of effort by your "idiots" to interpret writing. Because no one reads for meaning, acc. to you, or if another person's take on it displeaes you, he is ipso facto an idiot. Is it other people's pomposity that bothers you when you can come up with stuff like this?

[Wat_Tyler]

42. Listen. Animal Farm is just a simple story about a farmyard.

Anyone that tells you any different is an idiot.

(of course, we may have to go over the nature of allegory and how certain novels have an intended allegory and others don't - what we are dealing with is the author's intent - I have pointed out passages that prove Tolkien's intent is not allegorical, as he said himself - he despised allegory)

[joebascemy]

45. You are plainly a mortally offended worshipper of the genre

and believe that you know certainly which have intentional allegory and which do not. How is that a matter of such perfect clarity in so numerous a set of cases? Have the authors give us a list? Did your English teacher? It is obvious what you want me to accept, but I doubt that you are the one to dole out solutions so magisterially.

[Wat_Tyler]

46. Actually, I can't stand Lord of the Rings.

I only read women's romance set between 1725 and 1854. I got my information on allegory from a series of ouija boards. That, and common sense.

[joebascemy]

48. OK, Wat.

You got me there. Common sense? Simple animal story? No context to LOTR, or anything else? Why should I believe Orwell himself if he told me that he despises and therefore never indulges in allegory? No novels of ideas? Use sarcasm or call me a name, it doesn't matter. The point is that on the web, many people like you make such an effort to be vicious, believing that it is all you need to be considered intelligent. If the LOTR is not an allegory to you, so be it. It resembles an allegory fairly well, and even though I don't think that it qualifies as an allegory in any particularly telling way, it is my belief that it is over-rated as a book/topic and that the movies are good, but the content is similarly over-rated.

[Wat_Tyler]

94. What happened to you, Joe?

Did the School Role Playing Games Club blackball you, forcing you onto a lifelong quest to besmirch JRR Tolkien? It's OK, Joe! Let it go! Let go of all that bitterness and anger! Come into the light, Joe! Come on! Embrace your inner nerd!

[Donkeyboy75]

105. Hi Joe.

Why would an author state that he has no intended allegory, when he actually does? Can you think of a reason? I mean...a good one? Because I certainly can't.

Notice: Any reason involving chemtrails, crop circles or Opus Dei are disqualified. :hi:

[Placebo]

49. Exactly. Talking animals don't act like people.

Jesus, you'd think now that we're in the 21st century people would realize that but noooooooooooooooooooooo...

[Wat_Tyler]

96. We should stick to Mr. Ed. You can't misinterpret Mr. Ed.

[catbert836]

30. No, I tend not to think so.

First, let me say that LOTR is/are my favorite movies. Now, JRR Tolkein was a racist, and I will be the first to admit it. But in the end, there isn't any propaganda involved. It's just a highly enjoyable movie trilogy, except fo the LOTR book "purists" and conspiracy theorists.

[CTLawGuy]

41. why is he racist?

I dont get this accusation...

[joebascemy]

50. Some people think Noam

Chomsky is antisemitic for defending a French scholar who advanced an controversial theory concerning the Holocaust. Since the matter was about intellectual freedom, naturally Chomsky was a rat for taking a risky position in a polarizing dispute. If someone has an opinion that seems way out or maddening, who has the right of prior censorship, or in the caseI mentioned, who has the right to punish a scholar or anyone else for expressing their views?

But this was a joke thread, anyway. Absolutely nothing uncool about LOTR, couldn't be.

[Lorien]

40. Put the bottle down!

LOTR was written by a Brit who fought in WWI, and whose son fought in WWII. It's anti-fascism, pro-environment, and anti-racism (the races need to put aside their bigotry to face a common enemy).

[judaspriestess]

44. all I care about is Viggo is gorgeous!!! n/t

[PittPoliSci]

47. yeah...i remember hearing tolkien flip out about that...

he was like "there's no allegory behind it. it's not racist."

[porkrind]

53. I think the way to think about it is

that LOTR is Tolkien's fantasy of creating his own version of a British Isle mythology based on Norse and Germanic mythology combined with Celtic mythology. I don't think his intention was racist as much as he was concentrating on a fantasy history of England, which featured white english characters.

[Withywindle]

59. Exactly...

He was primarily a scholar of ancient languages and literature of Northern Europe. He was a language nerd who happened to also have a massive appreciation and talent for myths and fairy tales.

He was not an anti-racist in the postmodern sense (for obvious reasons), but crude prejudice horrified him, as did unbalanced, reckless, impersonal warfare, and destruction of the environment. This horror--and the suffering of war veterans who can never be what they before--is the central theme of the damn book. It's really a very sad angry story in many ways.

[roguevalley]

70. given that I have many many family members that are totally

old and have memories of family members back to about 1840 (no joke-my mother remembers her aunt telling her how she walked from St. Louis to Oregon on the Oregon Trail) I think its too bad that people don't take into account the CONTEXT of the times people write.

Given that, there isn't a writer before 1950 that won't make you weep some place along the way. ALso, what was common then doesn't make the grade now too often. Mr. Tolkien is an amazing man in what he attempts to do with his stories, the ideas he puts forth and his meanings. How is it that a book can appeal to skin heads and hippies at the same time?

My grandpa taught us that every person had their worth, regardless of skin color or creed. He also referred to blacks as colored people because he was born in 1885. He was the kindest truest man ever. He had all his life told us that judging people by color or religion or whatever was WRONG. Yet I am sure that people hearing him might think he's racist because of his choice of words.

To me, its actions too that count and Tolkien makes the measure in my book. God bless him to give me such a gift as his books. Also, read the Chris Tolkien books on the stories his father wrote. Lots of nice background and notes on the story.

[CatBoreal]

82. By Jove! I think he's got it!

Give the man a cigar!

[NewJeffCT]

87. sounds like your grandfather was like mine

Though, my grandfather was born in 1910, he referred to people of African American descent as "colored folks", but then would come out with things like, "that King fella (as in Dr. Martin Luther King) did a lot of good things..."

Great post, though, and I think you're 100% correct.

[TheMightyFavog]

72. As for the Eagles...

There's a reason Peter jackson did not base the Eagles on the Bald Eagles.

[Ms_Mary]

77. Don't even go there... I love Tolkien.

[AntiFascist]

80. I don't know, the wise, all-knowing wizard is gay....

and not only that but he has like a second coming.

I don't think they'd go for that.

[Bombtrack]

84. The actor who plays him is gay. I think the subject is the source material

Peter Jackson was pretty loyal to the source material as I understand it.

I don't think anyone's saying Peter Jackson's racist, but that the actual literature is.

I've heard that Elijah Wood and Dom Monaghan are gay as well by the way.

[AntiFascist]

109. I know of a lot of actors who are supposed to be gay...

but back to the subject. I think the point of Lord of the Rings was that it was based on the origins of the people of the British Isles, ie the "races" correspond to those of ancient Britain, in a fantasy realm. I don't think you can logically extapolate that the evil forces in the book correspond to Asians, Africans, or Arabs. Perhaps you are projecting your own society's past experience?

[Bombtrack]

83. Yeah, it's like people don't want to admit it just because they like it.

The whole trilogy is overrated as hell in my opinion. I enjoyed the first one. But the second was just so-so and I couldn't wait for the boring ass third one to end.

In addition it's impossible to follow without subtitles on the DVD unless you're schooled in the gibberish-bullshit of Tolkien, and even if you were I don't know how you could distinguish between many of the gibberish words because so much is mumbled or in wierd accents.

But I totally agree that I thought the same thing when I watched it.

The dwarfs are basically Scotts, the hobbits Irish, the elfs scandanavian and/or nordic. And the different kingdoms or whatever of humans basically are the big midevial and then modern ANGLO-SAXON powers like England, France, and Germany.

And all the baddies are the scary "others" either asian, african, or arab.

Not only is it white-supremecy oriented, it's Anglo-Saxon and/or Aryan Hitleric type stuff.

[Bridget Burke]

88. France & Germany are not "Anglo-Saxon"

Tolkien based his whole fantasy world on languages he invented--derived from Northern European languages. Thus, the people tend to be a bit white. (Of course, quite a few of the Orcs are white, as well.)

Reading & understanding the books requires a bit of intellectual effort. This is obviously too hard for some. Have you ever even tried?

Missing out on a great deal of the background, I can understand why you'd miss out on the films. But you see in them what you like: "that Aryan Hitleric type stuff."

[Bombtrack]

89. In other words, I'm stupid because I don't want to learn more about dorky

ass fairytales. It's not my cup of tea and I'm not at all saying that it isn't quality entertaining literature.

But it's preposterous to imply it's all "above me" or whatever because I don't read it.

Don't worry I've got my dork quotient from my X-Men and Spider-Man love but I'm not quite enthused about getting THAT dorky to read a bunch of novels in order to comprehend all of the gibberish in a movie saga that I didn't enjoy in the first place. Sorry.

[Bridget Burke]

92. Then why did you post here at all?

You claim ignorance of the books & you dislike the movies. Why do you then insist on finding a meaning that was never there? In the books (which you never read) & the movies (which you hardly saw).

I'm sure there are comic book threads. If not, you could start one.

[Bombtrack]

107. Since when am I not aloud to have an opinion of a movie if I haven't

studied what it was based on. And not all of it is opinion. Every few seconds in diologue they say a gibberish word, and much of the dialogue is mumbled and there are a ton of different gibberish words you have to try and keep track of and distinguish between and remeber what means what. Those are just facts.

And the fact that there's a clear influence on the different kinds of characters (humans, elfs, etc) that are based on individual peoples in the movie (hobbits aren't supposed to be Irish?) is clear. And all the bad guys other than that one wizard being horrid mutations of being "mongoloid" or "negroid" in appearance is clear as well.

[Bridget Burke]

108. You're "aloud" to have an opinion....

But your continuing use of the word "gibberish" indicates you're missing most of what Tolkien was about. He was a philologist.

Comic books have fewer words & more pictures. I can see why you prefer them.

[CatBoreal]

98. You're forgetting something in your analysis...

Tolkien wrote The Lord of The Rings because he felt the English were missing a mythology of their own, not an imported myth from France (King Arthur).

So, geographically speaking, the realm of Eriador is set in a location similar where England is located on our own little blue sphere, with a similar climage, which means that they are going to be fair haired and skinned. And because it's a northern realm, it's going to have people coming from the West and the South, both of whom are going to be darker than the protagonists from the North.

It is a story written for the English and therefore the 'English' characters in the book are going to be the heros.

Another thing, and I can't remember if it's mentioned in the book or not, but Sauron lied to the Sourthrons and the Harradim to get them to fight, possibly even playing on their own xenophobia. He was not named 'The Deceiver' for nothing. Sam even questions whether they were 'evil at heart' in the Two Towers.

I do not think Tolkien sets them up to be the 'great' evil' because they are 'others' but because they're ignorant of other cultures and it was easy for Sauron to take advantage of that and deceive them into fighting for him. Sound familiar?

[BiggJawn]

86. Why don't you come over and help me clean my apartment...

...if you got that much time on your hands?

I thought Hobbits had dark complexions and curly hair?
:-)

[GOPBasher]

93. Even if Tolkien was really trying to do that,

we can still enjoy an incredible story -- both in the form of the novels and the movies -- without worrying about that. I don't think too many people will become racist right wingers by seeing this movie. If the propaganda is there, it's too subtle to worry about. I still love the movies.

[Jesus H. Christ]

97. Of course it's racist.

Sign of the times. Tolkein was raised in turn of the century South Africa. He grew up believing that white people were good and black people were stupid savages. That reflected in his books. Now as it turns out, Tolkein was a very good human being who hated bigotry and in all probability was unaware of his own prejudices.

Now, it's true that Tolkein hated allegory, nevertheless he employed it. There are a number of ethnic minorities in LOTR based on real life. The dwarves are, in fact, based on Jews. Tolkein himself admitted he based the dwarvish language on Hebrew. It's probably not coincidence that the Dwarves have big hook noses, hide in their burrows when trouble comes around, and love money. But again, Tolkein despised antisemitism and would never have meant to purposefully express any.

His books are textbook examples of a person's subconscious ideas about race coming out unintended ways.

[CatBoreal]

99. Source???

Not to mention that Tolkien lived in South Africa from the date of his birth in 1892 until his father died in 1896 at which point his mother returned home to West Midlands. So saying that he 'grew up believing that white people were good and black people were stupid savages' is like saying that someone who was born in Germany and lived there from 1932 - 1936 then left, would grow up to be a Nazi.

[Jesus H. Christ]

101. Source for which?

Basing the Dwarves on jews? Look somewhere in the archives of

www.theonering.net

"is like saying that someone who was born in Germany and lived there from 1932 - 1936 then left, would grow up to be a Nazi"

No, a nazi is a member of a specific political party. It'd be more like saying if he lived in 1932-1936 he would have been raised as an antisemite. And indeed he would have, or that is, it would be highly unlikely that he wouldn't have. It'd be like growing up in the antebellum South and not believing that blacks were inferior.

[hickman1937]

104. I read somewhere once

That the English sense of superiority had more to do with the isolation of being an island nation than pride in skin color. The Japanese the same. Wish I could remember where I saw it. Tolkien said many times that the hobbits were based on the rural english farming class in turn of the century England.

[Wat_Tyler]

103. This is true, though to be fair

the Dwarves are also loyal, industrious and dedicated. Of course, for every Aragorn or Eomer, there's a Wormtongue or Denethor - he's not painting with broad brush strokes.