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:
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! 😀
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.