Re: The Desolation of Smaug pre-release thread [2] [SPOILERS]

[halfwise]

I think the best phrase, taken off the web, is "unconscious Eurocentric bias", attributed to christine chism.

[Mrs Figg]

I think the race issue in movies and trying to in some way make it palatable to modern audiences is very 21st century. We are very sensitive to it and sometimes it teeters on political correctness gone to far. Wars have always been about two races of different colours Killing each other, the old Cowboy and Indian films to our eyes are sometimes hard to watch because our ideas have changes so dramatically about colonialism and genocide. But Tolkien was writing so long ago and he was writing about a Anglosaxon/Nordic culture the enemies were bound to be the Other, a different coloured race, (he was fighting other White men in the War) I suppose the East was seen as some exotic danger, Orientalism was a hangover from the Victorian age, and he was part of that mental makeup. Thats why I dont think LOTR is a good example, its a period piece, the Southrons? were not bad, their only sin was to listen to Sauron, remember the dead Southron that Sam and Frodo see in Ithilien? Tolkien didnt demonize him, he was just an ordinary boy caught up in war.

[halfwise]

Tolkien and racism is a complicated topic, mainly because we first have to understand his times.

[bungobaggins]

Yes, this is all very complex, and the fact that I could never really know what it was like back then makes me think that maybe it's a topic I should just steer clear of.

My brain!  

[Mrs Figg]

I am glad you brought the subject up Bungo, it makes you think more deeply about these things. I think you should begin to write your paper and see what develops.

[Pettytyrant101]

When it comes to Tolkien I don't think the charge holds up, I have stated my view on this before but for the benefit of the Bree settlers I will put my case again.

Tolkien is not really interested in race at all, its main purpose in the stories is merely to define sides.
This is done along geographical and historic (thats ME hstoric) lines, not race lines.

We know from Gondors past that there was mixing between Gondor and Umbar for many, many years.
This would have included trade, culture and of course sex. So Gondorians with some Haradrim blood and vice versa would be expected.
Tolkien shows nowhere any moral judgement on these matters, he merely records them as would a historian.

What Tolkien is interested in is those who are closest to God and those who are furthest away.
is interests lie in the relationship between Man and God.

And for this Tolkien uses white for close to God and Dark for those furthest.
He also uses Fallen and Risen and High and Low in exactly the same manner.

Tolkien's interest in a person is in their spiritual closeness to the source.
Gandalf is of a Higher Order and therefore when he returns is pure White.
Sauron and his servants are fallen and therefore represented as dark.

The skin colour is largely coincidental and comes purely from the reasoning that if the North west of ME is roughly europe then people to the far south of that will be dark skinned, and people to the east of it will be mongolian/russian/chinese in appearance (giving us the Wain Riders and Easterlings).

Gollum for example is fallen, yet he is not dark skinned. And that is purely because he is a creature from the north west where people are white.

But Tolkien wrote his work not as allegory but applicability, so its perfectly possible to draw parallels with east versus west in the real world, or Communist Russia of the past or Nazi Germany, if its applicable to how you interpreted it, then its valid.

But racism is not the motivator for the author, his motivation is related to God and man's relationship to that God.

Think of Faramirs speech over the dead Haradrim "what lies and deceits led him" he asks. Lies and deceits Tolkien has shown us are tools of the Enemy, of the Fallen, those furthest from God. What Faramir is really saying here is this man has fallen away from God, but he is not inherently fallen because he is Haradrim, he has been deceived by the Enemy.
No more or less so than the white skinned Wormtongue, or even Saruman who epitomises the Fall from Light to Dark.
Race has nothing to do with it.

Sorry for the length! Go and have a buckie now.

[Mrs Figg]

yeah thats what I said, apart from the god bit.

[Pettytyrant101]

Well yes, but you were far to succinct and nowhere near long winded enough in doing so  

[halfwise]

He was not an overt racist (the accident of geography you describe being taken into account) but he does describe different personal characteristics as being passed down in lineages. By implication there are races that are nobler than others. Whether or not the Gondorians are white, the fact that they are considered inherently superior is a form of racism.

I think it's as difficult for modern readers to read Tolkien without reading their own politically correct prejudices into him as it is to realize the unspoken assumptions he makes that we would not. Classism is built into his thinking, even if he respects all classes as people. We recoil at the common division between light and dark skins because we remember western colonialism and the White Man's Burden. But I don't think the problem would have occurred to him because that is simply the world he lived in. Just because he didn't mean anything by it doesn't mean it's not racism.

[Pettytyrant101]

I dont agree Halfwsie.

Had Tolkien set the story in Harad I fully believe the same types of characters would emerge as Tolkien would still be primarily interested in the relationship to God not in skin colour.

"the fact that they are considered inherently superior is a form of racism." - Halfwise

Traits of Highness passed on genetically through breeding doesnt actually occur. They might be considered by themselves or even others to be special in some way but this is not what Tolkien actually tells us about them.

The Numeroreons were granted gifts by the Gods for becoming High through their actions and purpose, ie closer to God.
And for that they were granted a place that was in a sense physical closer to God i the world, in sight of Eldamar.

When they betrayed that they Fell, and moved further from God and were punished, including a reduction in the gifts given to them.
Aragorn restores the lineage back to High through his actions , not through inherited right.

There is nothing in Tolkiens philopsphy that says had there been no Aragorn some other person could not have united the people against Sauron and become High.
Indeed I would argue this is precisely what happens with Sam.
He becomes closer to God through is actions at the darkest times and he is rewarded with a family and the comforts of life.
And Sam has no inherent lineage. (In fact does someone, possibly Galadriel not tell Sam he is accounted among the very High now somewhere near the end?)
Frodo on the other hand harbours feelings of resentment at being used by the powers of good as a tool to get a job done, and thus he needs healing. There are no rewards for him in the material world.

The relationship is always about that with God.

[halfwise]

And yet when he talks about the Stoors and the Fallohides and (what was the other one?) and the way they mix to make the Tookish strain, etc...he's implying different breeds act different, and not because of culture.

We all know this to be true with dogs, but we reject it in humans. It's very possible we are wrong but we still reject it. Tolkien does not.

[Tinuviel]

Funnily enough, we are discussing race in my Ethics class, and my teacher used LOTR as an example. She asked why was Gollum ugly and the hobbits pretty? She said the hobbits had blonde hair and I had to hold my tongue, but her point was that we associate beauty with goodness. When you look up beautiful people on google, the first page is full of pretty white people. I think it's just a hardwired Western ideology that the whiter you are the prettier you are, and I'm sure that was especially true fifty years ago!

[Pettytyrant101]

I always read the different breeds of hobbit as largely being down to small population sizes and close breeding, thus traits are passed on associated with a certain group.
People here when I was growing up would talk about clans that way, so you could be a 'typical Campbell', or whatever clan it was when you did or acted a particular way. So it never seemed out of place, odd or racist in anyway to me.
Its just what happens when you have small rural populations separated by clannish allegiances.

[Pettytyrant101]

Tin I would say Tolkien certainly associated beauty with the High and therefore with being in its ultimate form God.

In the case of Gollum though Frodo does not just see him as evil because he is ugly, Frodo can look on his ugliness but because he sees him through the prism of pity, which originates with God, he can still see beauty and the remains of potential good and the possibility, however small, of redemption in him.

[halfwise]

I always read the different breeds of hobbit as largely being down to small population sizes and close breeding, thus traits are passed on associated with a certain group.
People here when I was growing up would talk about clans that way, so you could be a 'typical Campbell',  or whatever clan it was when you did or acted a particular way. So it never seemed out of place, odd or racist in anyway to me.
Its just what happens when you have small rural populations separated by clannish allegiances.

Ah, but you can see the slippery slope towards racism. Typical Campbell, typical McTyrant, typical Scot, typical Brit, typical black, typical white. The thing is, these judgments may have merit in small populations as you say, are less trustworthy for large groups, and the danger is in attributing the average to the individual.

I think Tolkien allows this to happen, while we have trained ourselves to stay off the slope completely.

[Pettytyrant101]

I can see how it leads to racsm, but I dont see racism in the way its presented or in the stage of development it is as Tolkien presents it.
Tolkien had a strong streak of dislike for some hobbit traits, their narrow mindedness and reliance on doing things because thats how they were done were things he mocks, even if it is with a certain fondness at times, that probably comes more from fond childhood memories of such people than it does from anything else.

Hobbits are clannish, so its inevitable family traits will get passed on and different clans will associate those traits with them, to use a Scottish clan example again the original Gaelic meaning of the name Cameron is literally 'crooked nose'.
I think Tolkiens depiction of the clannishness and the associations that go with it of particular traits or attributes is highly accurate to what happens in the real world.

But it doesn't scale up. It doesnt follow in Tolkien that all Gondorians are good so if you are Gondorian you are good. If that was the case Denethor could never have fallen in a personally capacity.
At the bigger scale people and nations collectively get to be Higher or Lower in the scale to God purely through their actions.

[Mrs Figg]

I kinda agree with the small community thing. There are certain families with the same nose for example, its inter-generational, and I guess its the same for traits like Hobbits having curly hair. I dont think Hobbits were meant to be pretty, Frodo was an exception because he was described as being fairer (pretty) than most Hobbits, the others were more rustic and not what I would describe as attractive.

[Norc]

the new french posters are stunning

[Eldorion]

Those are quite excellent posters. I was really hoping we'd see some more character posters before DOS came out.  Also, it seems like the French WB marketing department actually has people who know how to use Photoshop, unlike whoever put together the Scroll, which was a really neat idea but incredibly clumsy in execution.

[Tinuviel]

Why does Leggy look so despondent? Cuz he doesn't get the girl????

[Norc]

yes, these posters are waaaay better than the poor-photoshoped once had it not been for the Le Hobbit and it being dubbed in french i would totally see this movie

[Lancebloke]

Funnily enough, we are discussing race in my Ethics class, and my teacher used LOTR as an example. She asked why was Gollum ugly and the hobbits pretty? She said the hobbits had blonde hair and I had to hold my tongue, but her point was that we associate beauty with goodness. When you look up beautiful people on google, the first page is full of pretty white people. I think it's just a hardwired Western ideology that the whiter you are the prettier you are, and I'm sure that was especially true fifty years ago!

I'm not sure that is true. People seem desperate to get themselves somes colour and not be pastie white. I would actually say olive skinned is the general ideal in society.

[halfwise]

Uh, in modern society.  Back before most of the population moved out of farm work (not that long ago) pasty white skinned was the mark of the aristocracy which did not work outside, and hence was considered desirable.  Tolkien was of the tail end of that era, so pale skin was unconsciously considered aristocratic.  Note the descriptions of Faramir, Arwen, etc (even though Faramir spent a fair amount of time outside).  Aragorn disguised his kingliness by being "weatherbeaten" which would included deeply tanned skin.

[bungobaggins]

A bunch of new pictures from some DOS book.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86158434@N02/

And confirmation that there will be a flashback

Spoiler:

That can be read on this page.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86158434@N02/10723727616/

This isn't a new photo, but I thought it was symbolic of the way these movies were being written.

[Mrs Figg]

the new french posters are stunning

Holy Crap!!! Beautiful. If only everything had been so Amazing, my crabbit would have exploded in a puff of fairy juice.   wow I am stunned, they are visually ravishing.