Lords of their Dingalings: Men’s Rightsers outraged at Time writer for noting the lack of female characters in The Hobbit
Can you find the woman in this picture?
Uh oh! It seems that some woman is offering some opinions about Tolkien!
Over on Time.com, Ruth Davis Konigsberg has a brief personal essay reflecting on the almost complete lack of female characters in the new Hobbit film, and in Tolkien’s ouvre generally. As she notes, it’s not until about two hours in to the nearly three-hour movie that “we finally meet someone without a Y chromosome,” namely Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel — and she was added into the originally all-male story by the screenwriters. Blanchette’s is the only female name out of 37 named in the cast list – though there are a couple of unnamed female characters who make brief appearances.
“I did not read The Hobbit or the The Lord of the Rings trilogy as a child, and I have always felt a bit alienated from the fandom surrounding them,” Konigsberg observes.
Now I think I know why: Tolkien seems to have wiped women off the face of Middle-earth. I suppose it’s understandable that a story in which the primary activity seems to be chopping off each other’s body parts for no particular reason might be a little heavy on male characters — although it’s not as though Tolkien had to hew to historical accuracy when he created his fantastical world. The problem is one of biological accuracy. Tolkien’s characters defy the basics of reproduction: dwarf fathers beget dwarf sons, hobbit uncles pass rings down to hobbit nephews. If there are any mothers or daughters, aunts or nieces, they make no appearances. Trolls and orcs especially seem to rely on asexual reproduction, breeding whole male populations, which of course come in handy when amassing an army to attack the dwarves and elves.
Yes, yes, as she admits, Tolkien’s few female characters tend to be powerful. But that hardly changes the basic fact that the Hobbit, and Tolkien generally, is overloaded with dudes.
These fairly commonplace observations have, naturally, sent the orcs and the elf princesses of the Men’s Rights subreddit into an uproar. Naturally, none of them seem to have bothered to read any of Konigsberg’s brief piece before setting forth their opinions, which sometimes accuse her of ignoring things she specifically acknowledged (like that whole powerful-female-character thing), and completely miss that the bit about reproduction is, you know, a joke on Konigsberg’s part.
Here are some of my favorite idiotic comments from the “discussion.” (Click on the yellow comments to see the originals on Reddit.)
Uh, Jane Austen’s books are filled with dudes. Especially Pride and Prejudice 2: Mr. Darcy’s Revenge, which was later adapted into a buddy cop movie starring Robin Williams and Danny Glover.
EDITED TO ADD: Somehow forgot to include two of my favorite comments:
Oh, and if you were unable to find a woman in the picture above, try this one instead:
Posted on December 31, 2012, in all about the menz, antifeminism, dozens of upvotes, I am making a joke, misogyny, MRA, no girls allowed, patriarchy, reddit, straw feminists and tagged gender, lord of the rings, men's rights, misogyny, MRA, reddit, the hobbit. Bookmark the permalink. 792 Comments.
Well stating the obvious is obviously a crime against all men! Oh the knos! I liked the Tolkien books as a preteen (bar the silmarillian) however even at that age it was obvious the books weren’t written with me in mind. Reading about tolkeins life I don’t think he had a great deal of time for women at all.
So because someone notices a lack of female characters and comments upon it, she automatically ‘hates men’? This is the kind of stupid, overly-emotional argument which makes my head hurt.
I do think that they shouldn’t really add any female characters to the Hobbit movie just for the sake of it, though (I don’t know if they did, haven’t seen it yet).
Dammit, I thought I was first!
They’ve clearly never read any of the critiques of Tolkein on racial grounds, of which there are MANY. I adored those books (still do), but c’mon, those books were written in the 40s! Of COURSE they’ll be problematic!
Typical MRAs missing the point. It’s numbers, not whether the tiny handful of women in LotR and the Hobbit are powerful or not. For that matter, they’re only talking about the films, not the books. Arwen as warrior isn’t Tolkien’s idea: she replaces Glorfindel in the scene at the Ford of Bruinen in the film. And Galadriel isn’t in The Hobbit at all; there are no women in that book.
If it comes to Eowyn, yes, she’s a warrior and kills the Lord of the Nazgul, but it’s made pretty clear through the book that she’s only following this rather unnatural path because of her frustrations at the decline of Rohan in Theoden’s old age, and her unrequited love for Aragorn. Once she meets Faramir she “thaws” from Ice Maiden to “I will make a garden.” Which is nice for her as a character to find love, but the implications aren’t nice at all.
I wonder on occasion how the Orcs are meant to breed. They were created by Morgoth from captured Elves, after all.
The only woman who has a decent slab of story about her is Luthien in the Silmarillion, IIRC.
Carleyblue – they put Galadriel into the film.
I haven’t seen LotR and don’t intend to see the Hobbit. I loved the book (LotR – Hobbit, meh) and don’t like the way Jackson has visualised it, or the changes he made to the events and characters, particularly what I’ve read of what he did to Faramir, who was my favourite, along with Theoden.
The comments section of the article is predictably hilarious. A lot of ‘you don’t like it, write your own novel’ and ‘I am a woman and I don’t find it sexist so it isn’t’ and ‘I like TLotR so your argument is invalid.’
Even Luthien is basically: beautiful elf falls in love with virtuous man, captured, almost escapes, captured again, rescued, rescues her lover, but then he dies and she gives up everything for him… it’s not exactly progressive.
Oh, somehow I messed up and forgot to include 2 of my favorite comments, which I’ve now added to the OP.
I am suddenly reminded that Peter Jackson’s first feature-length film, Bad Taste had no women on-screen during the entire film, just a few seconds of an operator taking an emergency call in voice over. Though supposedly in one of the Lord of the Rings films he wrote a greatly expanded role for one of the women, letting her take on legions of bad guys, but fans of the novel whined that Jackson had turned her into a “Mary Sue”. I don’t know for sure though.
We certainly do need writers who will have more women in fantasy. On that note, we need more fantasy that isn’t set in some magical Western Europe.
Oh, I wouldn’t call any of Tolkien’s work progressive. Luthien’s just the only woman in the books I can think of who gets her own story.
I’m not sure I’d say she’s literally giving everything up for him, in the sense of immortality. There’s no real question that humans have an afterlife; it’s just not bound to the Undying Lands as the elves’ lives are. She chooses to go with Beren wherever it is humans go, rather than face separation for as long as the worlds exist, which seems like a fair choice to me – at least, it’s the choice I’d make.
Oh, no, I understand why she does it. It just fits uncomfortably well with the Woman Sacrifices For Her Man trope.
I think it’s safe to assume Whisper has never read any of Jane Austen’s works. Doubt he’s even seen any of the movies. Even the shortest Jane Austen novel-to-movie adaptations I’ve seen pass the Reverse Bechdel Test (two men having a conversation about something other than a woman). Heck, the A&E version of Pride & Prejudice (Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth) passes it in the first scene.
So, yeah, until somebody decides to re-imagine Pride & Prejudice with an entirely lesbian cast, they got no ground to stand on.
I love Tolkien’s work (even the Silmarillion but I also read history books for fun) and yeah, not many female characters. I give Tolkien credit for the fact that the few female characters he does have aren’t weak damsels in distress but the books really are a product of their times. I love H.P. Lovecraft too and he was a seriously racist xenophobic bastard. Recognizing the shortcomings of writers you like is not hating them (or hating men) it’s legitimate criticism.
Also, one of those commenters clearly has only seen the LotR movies because in the book Arwen does not save Frodo (Glorfindel’s horse carries him across the river). The movies actually increased her role, same for Galadriel.
Just elaborating upon the central point that “Tolkein Does Not Do Well With Lady Characters” shouldn’t be particularly surprising to anyone who has read the books and has a modicum of observational power.
It is rather funny to see a spirited defense of Tolkien from people who obviously haven’t read any of the books.
Jayem – that counts out the entire MRM, then! :D
Ps Peter Jackson whose become a bit of a hero in NZ due to the money making movies had an appalling record of animal cruelty while making this one. Basically the farm he left all the film animals on was totally unsuitable and animals starved broke legs etc
I’ve just been watching a great kids show from the UK called Horrible Histories, great fun and very silly but you can’t help noticing 90% of the characters/actors are male.
My favorite Peter Jackson film — really, the only one I like pretty much unreservedly — is Heavenly Creatures, which is about two girls. He also co-wrote the screenplay. So he’s certainly capable of handling female characters; he just chooses not to include very many.
Heavenly creatures is great and very subtle. Janet Frame (if I remember her name right) is a very interesting writer.
Amnesia, and if we’re talking about 19th century women novelists more generally, it’s well known that the Bronte sisters were obsessed with dudes:
http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=202
I liked district nine. Great movie about apartheid and the cruelty of state apparatus.
@Yoyo: Eeeeek, not cool on the animal cruelty.
Also Heavenly Creatures was a very intriguing movie. I enjoyed it. And yes, the female characters in it were done quite well.
Wow these fools are pressed because someone points out the obvious? I’d hate to see their reactions to Feminist Frequency’s Bechdel test.
Heavenly Creatures was great.
Happy New Year, everyone! I’m heading out to a not-party. We decided we hate New Year’s Eve parties, so we’re not drinking champagne or watching the ball drop or singing Auld Lang Syne. We probably won’t even stay up until midnight since (a) we are old, compared to most of you spring chickens, and (b) we want to get home before the drunk drivers hit the streets. See you all in THE FUTURE.
I haven’t read any of the Hobbit or LOTR books, but I can’t wait until Ithiliana destroys these fools.
Oh, I almost forgot: My former MRA friend (not really an MRA, I don’t think, but he would probably fit right in at reddit’s men’s rights community) once told me that his biggest criticism of the LoTR movies was how Eowyn was given a role in fighting and slaying someone (I’m sorry, again I don’t remember who). He thought it was unrealistic, and said it was a shame that Tolkien was so immersed in a feminist world view. He also thought the Chronicles of Narnia were too female-focused because the girls didn’t treat their brothers with sufficient respect. One day I’ll have to make a list of everything that guy said. He really was my introduction to many of the ideas that are mocked here.
Personally, I could never get into Tolkien’s books, even though I liked the movies. I much preferred Narnia. Yes, I know they are problematic, but I get a little defensive because it seems everyone I know sneers at them.
Happy New Year, Cloudiah!
Mr. HK and myself are staying in–we were going to fire up the chimnea and invite a few friends, but it’s cold and drizzly tonight. I hate going out to bars with people who never go out any other time and don’t know how to act. NYE is amateur night. We have champagne and kitties, what more could we want?
Narnia was too female-focused?
*deep breath*
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEAM
*deep breath*
Okay. I’m fine. I’m fine.
@ Jayem Griffin
Yeah, this guy was writing his dissertation on C.S. Lewis and Narnia. He was an atheist and hated Christianity, so he would constantly rant to me about Christianity and feminism, which he believed were somehow related. Funny thing is, he considered himself a socialist. The whole thing flabbergasted me, and for a while I thought all guys must secretly believe like that (I was a bit sheltered before I went to university, and a bit socially maladjusted… long story, so I really didn’t know). He also had this whole theory that women couldn’t write literature which was ‘universal’ because they were by nature focused on themselves. Yeah, I could type a whole essay here, but strange, strange guy.
The Arwen reference in the first comment is particularly amusing to me. Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh changed the story to give her a bigger role — in the book, a random male elf saves Frodo from the riders. And at the time, the fanboys were FURIOUS about it, too!
Women are half of humanity. It is undeniable that there are many literary classics that manage to almost wipe them out of existence entirely. Can you imagine what these guys would say about books that leave men out to such a degree?
Carleyblue – strewth. What. A. Fuckwit.
I loved the Narnia stories. Not fond of the heavy Christian allegory, as an adult, and I hated The Last Battle, but really liked the others. I could never like any of the filmings of them, because to me Pauline Baynes’s illustrations are just perfect.
Narnia was female focussed? Wtf? when written by one of the foremost Christian apologists of the century? When he wrote off (literally) the oldest female charcter when she becomes sexually active and is no longer able to be in Narnia.
Mind you I liked Orson Scott Card until I realised he’s a total homophobic anti female Mormon violence apologist.
I never quite get the straight equation of Susan being sexually active with her inability to go to Narnia. They say pretty clearly in the books that she doesn’t believe it was real, that she laughs at the others for remembering the games they played as kids, as well as her only being interested in boys. I suspect I’m being naive, but I didn’t read that as literally sexually active, just as being in her later teens and dating (their ages always do seem a bit fuzzy in the books). Might it be related to the idea of having to be as a child to enter the kingdom of Heaven?
@The Kitteh’s Unpaid Help: Yeah, I kind of hated The Last Battle, especially when I re-read it. I find it extremely morbid that the ‘best’ ending possible is that everyone dies, and at such young ages too.
@Yoyo: I don’t think this guy could tell the difference between feminism and old-fashioned ‘chivalry’ (of which there is some in the Narnia books). He said he wanted equality, but it sure wasn’t my definition of equality.
I wouldn’t go so far as to be bothered with no female characters. I would rather no women then the way most movies portray women as either damsels in distress, sex objects, or mentally unstable.
I read it now as part of the general disgust the author had with female sexuality. Let’s face it, it was the male disciples who denied Jesus had died but in this full on Christian allegory it’s the female who rejects the “kingdom of god”.
Omgomg, Slavey’s in the article’s comments section!!!
@ Yoyo- CS Lewis wrote some great female characters. He did an awesome one on Psyche’s sister.
*one=book
Yoyo – but Susan’s the only one who does that rejection. Lucy’s the main character of the first three books, and her relationship with Aslan is much closer than anyone else’s. Jill is a main character in two of them. I’m not saying at all that Lewis’s reasons for making Susan the drop-out aren’t dubious or outright sexist, only that there are girls in the stories who are major players and could as well be equated with the women of the Gospels.
And before her fall Susan was a great secondary character- she out-shot a dwarf in an archery contest to get him to help them. All of Lewis’ female characters are active and strong, taking up arms and everything.
I’d be less inclined to call bullshit on Susan’s inability to go back to Narnia if it weren’t so explicitly connected with *womanhood*. It’s not just general growing up; the books say that she’s only interested in boys and fashion and things like that. These are also the same books that call Lucy “as good as a man, or at any rate, as good as a boy.” So yeah. Not as terrible as some other fantasy worlds out there, but still.
Okay, so she stated the obvious. Why did she do it? What was the point? I do believe you when you say when there is no subtext there (ie. she doesn’t hate men, or Tolkien’s works—at least not on these grounds), but why make the article at all? Why publish it? Especially when the writer basically breaks logic within it, making it look rather, hm, unprofessional (“I did not read The Hobbit or the The Lord of the Rings trilogy as a child, and I have always felt a bit alienated from the fandom surrounding them. Now I think I know why: Tolkien seems to have wiped women off the face of Middle-earth.”—mayhaps you may have felt alienated because you didn’t read Tolkien’s works?).
LOL, someone just called NWOslave a “voice of reason” on the comments section on the article.
@ Cthulhu- I know!!!!! I hope he keeps commenting, I might be inspired to send them a link to is greatest hits (if I could find them….).
TTF: there is the whole Book of Larnin’ in the forum.
I’ve always thought it would be fun to take a typical LotR/Game of Thrones-style fantasy and turn the gender biases on their heads, and I’ve challenged myself to try it sometime. It’ll probably be my NaNoWriMo offering some year, but after how quickly this year’s attempt became absolutely bloated, I think I’ll wait a year or two. As soon as I do, though, I’ll submit it to the Spearhead and/or Reddit for “review” hahaha.
As for a more female-centered Peter Jackson film, I recommend The Lovely Bones with all my heart. Of course, the film is carried just as much by Saoirse Ronan than by Jackson himself, and it is based on a heavy, heavy story, but it is one of his better ones, otherwise I’m just not a big fan of Jackson’s — talk about bloated and overused, I could not stand the way his use of special effects dominates his movies (LoTR and King Kong were the biggest offenders) at the expense of the storyline.
Pretty much.
Though when I think of it, the other Pevensies haven’t been able to get back to Narnia either. Edmund and Lucy are told at the end of The Dawn Treader that they’re getting too old and can’t return. Peter and Susan had been told the same thing at the end of Prince Caspian. Jill and Eustace only got back in The Last Battle because they’d actually been killed in the train crash. So I’m thinking it’s not just about Susan’s specifically female adulthood. The whole boyfriends-and-makeup stuff comes later, and her forgetting about Narnia is just the reason she’s not on the train with the others. I don’t know if that could be read as her being banned in the afterlife. In fact I’d say it’s highly unlikely, because Lewis makes it pretty clear that all sorts get there – Emeth the Carlormene, for instance, or some of the dwarfs who’d fought against Tirian and made it pretty clear they didn’t believe in Aslan. I think the focus on Susan-as-woman might be too narrow.
@ hellkell- done.
Oh, found this:
http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2011/12/16/what-are-the-roles-of-women-in-tolkien/
Oddly, not one of the four commentors told the author to shut up and make him a sandwich
Phukka’s comment is literally perfect. If I were satirizing an MRA’s world-view, I could not write anything better than that.
Oh my freaking god this forum never ceases to amaze me… Still disappointed I can’t talk to any of these people though. I’ve never seen or read lotr but I am into a lot of male oriented entertainment (such as gears of war, fighting games, yeah, I love video games) and I am dissappointed in the lack of female characters but that doesn’t mean I hate men… I wonder how this would have turned out if the roles were reversed, although I doubt MRAs are secure enough in there sexual identity to even attempt to enjoy something female oriented.
Starla, believe me, you don’t want to talk to MRAs and their ilk on their own sites.
What’s the worse that could happen? They could caps lock my ass? I might be naive but I just don’t see them as a threat…I just don’t.
Since I dislike both the (sadly common) trope that becoming an adult means that you lose all sense of wonder and access to wonderful things (think for a moment about how cruel a message that is to give a child who will very soon be an adult) and the idea that manly things are good but womanly things are bad, the whole Susan thing really rubbed me the wrong way.
Oh, Jesus wept! Tolkein’s kiddie book has about the same number of female characters as The Three Little Pigs or Jack and the Beanstalk, and yet I loved them all as a child.
I’m sorry, but this comes across as Davis-Konigsberg’s version of hard chairs.
(Which is not to say that the MRA overreaction to her overreaction hasn’t been any less farcical than expected.)
Starla, if you’re okay with the sort of rape threats and revolting misogynist reactions you’ll likely get from questioning anything they say, then go for it. But I seriously don’t think they’re worth trying to engage with. Have you read posts where people are trying to talk sense to NWOslave, and he resorts to calling women living fuck dolls who deserve to be treated as such? That’s a mild taste of the sort of thing these men go in for.
@ Tam:
“The Three Little Pigs” is not a novel. “Jack and the Beanstalk” are folktales. The Hobbit is. It’s had to hold someone who writes down a folktale responsible for the lack of female characters in a folktale. After all, the folktale existed without female characters before they decided to write it down.
The author of a novel is creating a story from wholecloth. A novelist isn’t bound by the constraints of a pre-existing story. A novelist has a lot more room to create female characters.
Also, no one is saying that you cannot enjoy The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings because they don’t have very many female characters. You are still allowed to like things with problematic elements.
That ought to read:
“The Three Little Pigs” is not a novel. “Jack and the Beanstalk” is not a novel. They are folktales. The Hobbit is a novel.
So many people think pointing out a problematic element means we want to burn it allllllll. No, wait, not so many people, so many alarmist people who cling to the status quo and live in backwardsville where the white male is the most oppressed group in the world. And possibly the universe.
It does appear (in the books) that dwarfs, goblins and wood-elves reproduce asexually, but there certainly were lady hobbits, including Bilbo’s mother, “the fabulous Belladonna Took, one of Old Took’s three remarkable daughters.” Even though she was just in the backstory, not as a character. Too bad, I would have liked to have read more about her, and her sisters.
And of course, the formidable Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, who started out as a thoroughly unlikeable character, then turns out to be cool in the end.
Ketteh
That’s exactly why I find it completely impossible to take him seriously. He sums up exactly how much he know about women, men, humanity, biology and pretty much what it means to have the right to call yourself a man when he says things like that. Nothing. He’s not a bogey man, he’s just a lonely asshole with a keyboard. An asshole that’s also not worth the effort of rationalizing with, as demonstrated by his fellow MRAs in “battle of the banned”
I have no interest in NWOslave in particular, but I do think a serious “why the actual fuck would you think that?” is in order in regards to the reaction MRAs have towards this article. Looking for sexism? Why?!
Tam, Konigsberg isn’t suing Peter Jackson for misogyny, She’s not even accusing him of it. She’s simply noting the bizarre scarcity of female characters in Tolkien’s works, and suggesting that because of that they don’t really speak to her the way they do to other people. The Hobbit is an all male book, and an almost all-male film; that’s certainly worth noting. I think even fans of Tolkien can admit that he had some issues w/ women — he didn’t know how to write fully realized female characters, and had some trouble imagining them even existing in the background in his fictional universe.
If a film came out with 36 women in its cast and one man, we’d certainly be hearing about that.
Oooh, starla, if you want to go play with the MRA’s I’ll come with you! You’re best off sticking with reddit- you can usually get something close to a compromise there. And if things get rough start trying to discuss actual men’s issues with an eye to actually solving them instead of whining about feminists- it bores them and they go away.
When I first read The Last Battle, I interpreted Susan’s banishment from Narnia a little differently: It wasn’t growing up that was bad, and it wasn’t even growing up to become a woman that was bad, it was growing up to be a certain kind of woman, vain, shallow, and social-climbing, in other words, a stereotype.
It may have still come from a place of sexism on Lewis’s part, but the message I took away was that it was okay to be a woman, just not that kind of woman. At that time (I was about nine) I didn’t have any problem reconciling it with feminism. But that’s just me.
@timetravelingfool, that would be an excellent idea if I could actually see where there were issues with men’s rights, then I’d be off to a fine start, all I see is a bunch of children that don’t know how to share the playground.
Starla: they wouldn’t even caps lock you, they’d just ban you. They don’t want honest debate, they’re the world’s shittiest activists. You are 100% correct about them not wanting to share the playground.
Ketteh
Youre right, at least they are good for laughs though.