h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Over the last three decades I've read The Lord of the Rings countless times. I've also read all the posthumous volumes. It was Tolkien that led my to become a scholar of Anglo-Saxon literature. Tolkien has been a formative influence on my life, first with his imaginative fiction and poetry and later with his scholarship. But even in my youth I approached Tolkien's works as a scholar, not as a worshipper, as so many seem to do today.

Before the release of Peter Jackson's first instalment of the film version, I read the Lord of the Rings for (probably) the last time. I found myself deeply troubled by certain elements of the book.

Last night I finally got around to watching the DVD version of Jackson's Return of the King (I'd not seen it in the cinema). My discomfort was magnified.

I imagine a viewer who hasn't read the book summarising the film for a friend:

It's a story about a bunch of white men in a quasi-Mediaeval world fighting the forces of evil who are mostly represented by a bunch of genetically engineered monsters (sort of like the evil-mutants from old post-nuclear apocalypse sci-fi movies).

Later in the movie, the evil characters are inexplicably replaced by evil humans, all of whom are either African or Arabic looking. While there are white men in the films who do evil, they ar solitary agents, not the faceless mobs of painted and turbaned men who ride the rather strange elephants. Later there's a token gesture to the fact that women can be fairly good warriors. Then the hereditary monarch gives a rousing speech about "Western Men" standing firm against evil. Then the western men destroy the (single) tower of the Evil Land (they destroyed the other one in the previous film). The tower collapses in flames and a huge plume of grey ash sweeps out over the horrified people watching.

I've discussed this briefly with co-workers and, of course, the argument that it was thus in the book as well came up. Somehow, I find that more disturbing than if Jackson had just made up the War on Terror allusions on his own. It is very disturbing to think that a story conceived prior to the rise of the Nazis, a story which contains an underlying assumption of the moral superiority of one "race" and of the desire to maintain racial segregation can become such a block-buster film with apparently no discussion of these problematic aspects of the story.

Has anyone else felt disturbed? If not, then I find that lack of disturbance the most disturbing thing of all. These films seem destined to become pop culture icons, like Star Wars and Star Trek. One might expect that worshippers of Illuvatar will one day rank beside Jedi on the British Census. I find the racial teachings of the Lord of the Rings frightening, most particularly for their subtlety.

just take two of these anhaga

alec.

Thanks, Alec. That's helpful.

(I'm sure glad Jackson didn't cast a Frenchman as Gandalf.)

I've just done a bit of a google search (probably should have done it first). I guess I'm not alone:

http://forums.iagora.com/posts.html::message_id=130462

http://www.davidbrin.com/tolkienarticle2.html

http://www.theonering.net/perl/newsview/8/1042475537

"Later in the movie, the evil characters are inexplicably replaced by evil humans, all of whom are either African or Arabic looking."

When exactly does this happen? And I would have thought the fact that you have elves, humans, dwarves and hobbits working together doesn't exactly scream racial segregation. Yes all the heroes are white men, but it is supposed to be an english/european myth.

With the appearance of the elephants a long segment begins of human warriors in the evil role. I was describing how a moviegoer unfamiliar with the books might see the film.

And, white elves, white humans, white dwarves and white hobbits working together doesn't exactly scream racial integration. And, I certainly understand that Tolkien intended it to be an english/european myth. Perhaps the idea of national/race myths is one we should be a little cautious to embrace.

Well, rather than having people of just different races working together, we have people of different species. And aren't the evil orcs white as well? But I can't say I noticed the humans in Saruman's army as being african/arab. I can't remember if there even were any humans in it.

And so the PC crowd turn their attention to LotR, predictably.

And as usual, the selectivity of what to be disturbed by is set to "maximum".

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I'm a Nazi. I'm all for racial segregation, the supremacy of whites, and the subjugation of the inferior.

So, what do we find?

I'm OFFENDED by LotR! Enormously so, in fact. The following are the litany of things offensive to me:

1. Hobbits, the heroes, are clearly an inferior race. They reject advancement, are non-expansionist, primitive, stunted and drunken louts.
2. The first book portrays productive cooperation between not just races, but species. Indeed, it shows the fey (obviously homosexual) elf Legolas as learning to respect the moronic, stunted primitive Gimli. Legolas would, otherwise, be a shining example of the Aryan ideal, if he wasn't so obviously a shirt-lifter. The whole concept of the fellowship is an affront to my racially-separatist ideals.
3. Aragorn is engaged in an inter-racial relationship, and indeed spurns a woman of his own race in favour of someone alien.
4. Saruman "the White" is a figure of evil, clearly intended as a slur on the white race.
5. Sauron, representing technology, advancement, CIVILISATION, is the baddie. Gandalf, representing primitivism, regression and naturalism is the goodie.

I could go on. The beauty of complex stories is that their complexity allows the reader to read into it whatever they wish. Just as long as the reader realises those interpretations are coming from them, NOT the author, all is well.

When people start trying to read a "message" into something like LotR, you're on the slippery slope to censorship.

Am I disturbed by the racial steretyping in LotR? No. It's a f**king fairy story.

If you want to be disturbed by something - and clearly you do, if you're analysing something so trivial to this extent - try this on for size, since you brought them up:

Star Wars:
Messages - all heroes are white. The ONLY "ethnic" hero is a barely reformed former villain. All the villains are English, or have a black voice. ALL the minions are "ethnic", and clones to boot. There's no way to *become* a hero - you have to be *born* a hero.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Star Trek:
Starfleet is a communist military dictatorship which uses the cover of the United Federation of Planets to give it a veneer of respectability. However, they control all access to space - NOBODY in Star Trek owns their own ship, everybody gets about on Starfleet vessels or government owned passenger ships. If you're not Starfleet, you're little people. Starfleet is able to declare martial law on Earth at the drop of a hat.

I could go on but you get the idea.

Once an story - ANY story - gets beyond a certain fairly low level of complexity, it becomes possible to see anything in it you like. Nobody complains about racism in the story of Jason and the Argonauts, and nor should they. Tolkein was trying to create a MYTHOLOGY, and mythology has no need or want of a social conscience.

So in conclusion - try not to get your knickers in a bunch.

H.

Excuse me, are we talking about the same Tolkien who thought Nazis were an abhomination, the Tolkien who stood up for the Indian students he taught when people made racist remarks about them, the Tolkien who thought slavery and the Empire's treatment of Africans was a vile blot on humanity? Are we talking about the Tolkien who wrote his novels DURING the build-up to and aftermath of WWII? Who wrote that orcs were actually elves whom Sauron's master Morgoth corrupted? Who wrote about elves and men joining together to create a heroic people? Who also wrote that the offspring of men and elves could CHOOSE whether to be men or elves - how is choosing what race you belong to 'racialist'? And how is Tolkien at all responsible for the casting choices of the director of the films? And isn't the fact that part of Sauron's army come from the south directly related to the WWII truth that the Italians (south from Britain) were Nazi allies for a while? And wasn't Tolkien writing a fairy-tale based on Norse myths? And don't most people write about the milieu they are most familiar with? Perhaps Tolkien felt he didn't know any black or asian people well enough to portray them. Perhaps they never turn up in Norse myths. Perhaps anyone who reads Norse myths knows that dwarfs are often dark-skinned. Perhaps some readers simply assume that if a character's skin colour and racial origin is not explicitly mentioned, he or she automatically defaults to white? Perhaps that has nothing whatsoever to do with Tolkien? Perhaps his portrayal of the quarrels between elves and dwarves and the friendship of Legolas and Gimli show that he was preaching for racial harmony and tolerance? Remember, when he was writing the great and ugly racist crisis he knew of was Nazis (white) versus Jews (white, and indistinguishable from their tormentors unless labelled with big yellow stars). Perhaps some people insist on making mountains out of molehills. Perhaps some people can't see a great monument - be it writer, painter, composer - without desiring to find clay feet and make sure that those of us who whole-heartedly enjoyed the work must now feel uncomfortable in case we were accidentally condoning something horrid. Perhaps I should point out I come from a mixed-race family. And I have never, not once, ever ever, met a racist who defended their beliefs by quoting Tolkien. And nor has anyone else I know.

Of course, Hoo put the same case as me across with rather more grace and humour....

Before anyone gets more confused and suggests again that I'm part of the pc crowd, I'll repost a little something:

"Over the last three decades I've read The Lord of the Rings countless times. I've also read all the posthumous volumes. It was Tolkien that led my to become a scholar of Anglo-Saxon literature. Tolkien has been a formative influence on my life, first with his imaginative fiction and poetry and later with his scholarship. But even in my youth I approached Tolkien's works as a scholar, not as a worshipper, as so many seem to do today."

I have a huge respect and admiration for Tolkien and his body of work. I know what Tolkien was trying to write. I know something of mythology. He was enormously successful at what he set out to do. At no point did I accuse Tolkien (or Jackson) of being racist. I did suggest that some racialist ideas crept into the Lord of the Rings and I suggested that I am uncomfortable with them.

"mythology has no need or want of a social conscience."

Perhaps not. But people have a need and in a great many cases a sad want of a social conscience. When people become unaware of the lack of social conscience in their mythologies, they start to lob rocks and missiles and airplanes at each other. I'm not interested in censoring Tolkien, or Star Wars (although it is so truly awful I'm surprised it hasn't faded away already) or the Quran or the Bible or the Book of Mormon. I don't have a quarrel with mythology. Mythology sometimes makes me uncomfortable, as it should. I am, however, a little concerned when people get their knickers in a bunch when someone else reacts to mythology the way we are often supposed to react to it; with a feeling of disturbance. If we think we're supposed to feel all happy at the end of the Lord of the Rings then it is just a fairy tale. If you've got a problem with the suggestion that Tolkien created a moral question mark, why are you calling it mythology?

And, if you don't think "racists" use the Lord of the Rings, have a gander at this (after a two second google): http://www.stormfront.org/archive/t-9041Elf_=_Aryan.html
They're actually using Tolkien's own words to try to demonstrate how Hitler got it a little wrong but Tolkien has a real handle on the "noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe"

These are the people I'm concerned about. And, if you enjoy Tolkien's mythology, you should probably be concerned about them as well.

I was more irritated by Tolkien's sexism than his racism, but both were a product of his times, as a greater sensitivity to sexism and racism is a product of our times. It is impossible to know what Tolkein would have written had he been a product of the 60s.

What is more useful to specualate about is what Peter Jackson has done with the books. I haven't seen the third one. I find extended action movies boring, and I object to watching 20 minute segments which are basically storyboards for PS2, (eg Matrix III). However I remember the elephant as being only worth a line or two in the third book. (How long is the sequence in the movie?)

B

Note Sam & Frodo sympathizing with the dead dark-skinned soldiers around the time they got accosted by Faramir's posse. A sort of "they're just like us," sentiment.

Also, no-one said dwarves were white.

I need to clarify a bit more. I don't mean to imply that Tolkien or the Lord of the Rings are racist. There are two aspects to my discomfort: the first is the fact that the Lord of the Rings and Tolkien are embraced by a number of white supremecist communities as being in (goose) step with them; the second is that Tolkien, for all his learning and sensitivity, both of which were tremendous, seems to have nodded at times and let the prejudices of his time slip into the work unnecessarily. The first discomfort comes from a sense of offence and fear; the second is a melancholy.

As far as the "it's mythology; don't get your knickers in a bunch" argument: I find the idea of "original sin", for example, disturbing; it doesn't mean I want to censor the Bible and it doesn't mean my knickers are in a bunch; I find great huge sections of the Old Testament disturbing and they've been the source of disturbance through a big portion of the world for millenia; maybe if more people had their knickers in a bunch something different might have happened.

Sorry, I think Tolkien is worth more than "It's mythology. It's a Fairy Tale. Don't over analyse." I work everyday with the same source materials that Tolkien drew from; the depth of the well from which he drew is not easily plummable. (I find it interesting that "don't over-analyse" and "complex story" are used as parts of the same argument.)

My dear anhaga, I must say I would sooner cut my own toes off than pollute the screen of my beloved computer with the evil nonsense of neo-Nazi literary criticism. So I won't check your link. And some sh*t-for-brains white supremacist saying 'ooh look, Tolkien's all pro the superiority of the white race' does not and never will make it so. If you are concerned that these people are doing this, why not call your initial posting something like 'is anyone else concerned at the way some people find racialist themes in Tolkien'? I can't be having with it. As Hoo pointed out, any old arse can prove just about anything from any old piece of literature if they try long and hard enough. I have read people trying to prove that Othello and Merchant of Venice are Shakespeare's inditements of Jews and black people. It is far easier for anyone with half a brain to prove Shakespeare had a lot more sympathy with Othello and Shylock than the 'white' characters in those plays. Tolkien is not, cannot be and you cannot make him be responsible for the unattractive foamings of a minority group of horrid people.

I also do not think Tolkien was creating a mythology FOR THIS WORLD. He was writing a story, for which he invented a world and the mythology for that imaginary world. It is perhaps his great misfortune that he was such a powerful writer that a bunch of the less-well-hinged assumed he'd created a nice new mythology/ religion for this world. If you so admire Tolkien and understand what he was trying to write what is this you say about 'racialist ideas' creeping into LoTR? And what the heck does 'racialist' mean anyway? Tolkien wrote of a world with many different humanoids in it. Some could interbreed, like men and elves, or elves and orcs, or men and orcs, and some could not - dwarves do not seem to be given to mating with non-dwarves. What is 'racialist' about this? What seems to be bothering you is that some of these 'races' are all good, and some are all bad. For a start, define race. Some of the humans in LoTR are good, some are bad. Some of the wizards are good, some are bad. Anyone who has read a deal of the works knows that some of the elves were good and some bad, and that Galadriel is doing penance for having been bad. Some dwarves are good. Some were bad. Dwarves and orcs do not have skin-colour, in Tolkien. they could all be white, they could all be black, they could all be piebald for all we know. Yes some of the elves are described as white-skinned. Yes the Eorlingas are fair-haired. So were the damn vikings, are you going to accuse the vikings now of being 'racialist' because they didn't go and find africans to take home and make into vikings? Tolkien was after all basing elves and Rohan and Hobbits and such on PRE_EXISTING stories, myths, cultural groups etc. Yes all the orcs are bad, but hey, this is a fairy story where the Evil Lord Whatsit is allowed to create disgustingly evil minions and cannon-fodder by artificial means. You could argue that the orcs are actually an inditement against cloning, which would make more sense as Tolkien was a catholic.

And if you are genuinely concerned that some people are using Tolkien or any other innocent art-work to promote racist ideas, I suggest you do not give them the oxygen of publicity nor that you allow them to boast about how many 'hits' their websites have had by adding to the number. I'm deadly serious. It is one thing fighting racism and evil whenever it genuinely appears in your life - that is a good and noble calling. It is quite another to go hunting for it and reading what it has to say and looking for its opinion. That will not help you fight it, it will merely let them feel they have an audience.

And no, mythology, not even the Bible and the Quran and the book of Mormon, does not make me uneasy. The people who take it for absolute truth or who try to use it to supress others make me uneasy. Wagner wrote operas in which he exalted the heroic Teutonic myths and in which a Jewish character was portrayed as evil. We also know from his letters and things that he was a raving anti-Semite. This did not make the operas evil. It made Hitler evil (and stupid) for using them as 'proof'. The stories in the operas are stories. Slave-owners used to justify themselves by pointing out that the Bible condoned it. True, some parts of the Bible do condone the taking of slaves. Much much much much more explicitly openly and obviously than Tolkien's 'racialist threads' condone anything at all. Does that mean the Bible is evil? No, but we are able to make it so if we try hard enough.

So please, stop adding to it. It does more harm than good.

I think the 'difference' between us, for what it's worth, is that I find no racism in Tolkien and think that people who do find some are wrong and giving ammo to the warped, and that you, anhaga, DO find racism in Tolkien and are worried that the warped will use it as ammo.

I apologise for getting very het up and shouting and ranting. I think we are both on the same side as far as important stuff goes. It's just that when I was growing up at a racist and prejudiced boarding-school, Tolkien was my escape-route to show me a world where all different sorts of people were right, and good, and acceptable, and made mistakes, and heroism was just as likely in one 'race' as another, and looks weren't everything, and women were heroes too (having read Silmarillion and Lost Tales etc). I got very het up because now you, with all the best will in the world, were seeing the very things Tolkien helped me away from in him. I completely totally unreservedly and massively apologise for any offence or annoyance I have caused in excitedly over-defending my position.

A couple of replies here:

First: "Does anybody else find the racialist ideas of the Lord of the Rings disturbing?" Given the way you have now slightly backtracked on what you say you're saying, the title of this thread should, it seems, more correctly read "Does anyone find racists disturbing?". To which the answer must surely be "yes".

You appear to be asking a question unrelated to any particular work of fiction, and more related to the ability of racists to co-opt it to validate their world view. Fair enough, but don't tar Tolkein with anything like that, please.

Second: "don't over-analyse" and "complex story" fit perfectly well together in my argument.

To reiterate and perhaps elucidate: once a story exceeds a certain fairly low level of complexity - i.e. there's more to it than simply "see Spot run" - one can start to impose on it one's own ideas of what it means. But these ideas come from YOU - not the author. Of course, the author may have put those connotations in deliberately, or subconsciously. But it's equally possible, and in fact in some cases MORE probable, that the idea you consider "obvious" is anathema to the writer. One of my examples above is a case in point: would Gene Roddenberry have been happy to have his series characterised as militarist communist propaganda? Not at all - but that's how you CAN see Star Trek, if you've a mind to.

Hence my admonishment is not so much "don't over-analyse", so much as "physician, heal thyself" - the patterns you see in the work of another are just as likely patterns of your own psyche, not theirs.

H.

I think the racial bias in LotR is so obvious it amazes me that people think it's not there.

Do I think that Tolkein was a happy and willing racist like the nazis? Of course not. Was he influenced by the institutional racism of the time he lived in - I think it is highly likely. The man was an Oxford Don - hardly the bastion of multculturalism of the middle of the 20th century.

I'm not sure that I am currenlty disturbed by the racial bias in the LoTR (books), but I remember the point at which I first noticed the bias and I was disturbed then. I think the disturbance was useful because it enabled me to see the book in the context it was written in. This doesn't particularly affect me when I read the book now, although I am aware of it. If I thought that Tolkein was an intentional racist I doubt that I would read it again.

The thing that interests me about the racial bias is to what extent Tolkein was aware of what he was doing.

I haven't seen the movies but I am interested to know if Jackson made any compromise on the race issues (given that he did on the gender ones).


>>>the patterns you see in the work of another are just as likely patterns of your own psyche, not theirs.<<<

I'm more inclined to think they are the patterns of the culture they were written in (Tolkein's, and perhaps anhaga's/ours). That after all is one of the functions of mythology - to reflect the social and political experience of the time.

However if you are to look at it at an individual level you could just as easily say that the failure to recognise the patterns is a reflection of the viewer's psyche.



btw, I think that Tolkein himself said that he was attempting to create a mythology for the English (because they didn't have one). I would have to look that up to be sure though.

It struck me, reading the posts, that Anhaga and Agapanthus were singing bass and trebel in the same song. It is good to see that Agapanthus sees it in much the same way too.

So... how about the sexism, which undeniably IS in the books?

B

>>btw, I think that Tolkein himself said that he was attempting to create a mythology for the English (because they didn't have one). I would have to look that up to be sure though.

That may have been Tolkein's motive, and I think I have heard something similar myself. Trea and Leaf is an extended look at myth, for a start. But on the other hand, the English had the Arthurian myths, even if they were bastardised by Mallory.

B