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:
Joanna Russ’s work would probably make these guys pee themselves. I mean, “The Adventures of Alyx,” all the protagonists in “The Female Man” ? They’d faint..
I’ve actually always thought Frank Herbert’s female characters in the Dune novels were amazing. Who wouldn’t want to be a Bene Gesserit and have The Weirdling Way? Sign me up.
@CassandraSays
I have that tea too! I love that stuff! And the bastards only sell it in the winter! Wwhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyy?
Well, in like a thousand movies and books the question “who’s really the monster, that thing that looks like a traditional monster or a human being who’s prepared to kill/do other bad things” have been asked, and the answer is always presented as “the human being”.
I mean… I really like Pratchett. I’ve read loads of his books, several times. They’re funny, clever, exciting and have sympathetic characters. But One Of The Greatest Author’s Of Our Time he’s not. He’s got a wild imagination when it comes to world building and plot twists, but the aesops he presents the reader with are hardly that original.
The Omega Woman – have you read Unseen Academicals yet? Glenda and Juliet are interesting characters, particularly as Glenda gets the idea of the crab bucket (trying not to give spoilers to them as hasn’t read it yet!)
Also, it’s worth noting as well that when we DID have a big film adaptation of a book written by a woman with a girl-hero, there were MRAs shitting their pants about that too. http://manboobz.com/2012/03/28/fox-news-doctor-dude-the-hunger-games-will-make-teen-girls-violent-unfeminine/
It would appear it isn’t just feminist bichez daring to point out a lack of female characters in very much beloved fantasy stories that get’s their ire, it really seems it’s more, you know, women doing anything at all. Especially having the audacity to suggest that women too are people who have stories and are part of stories, great stories even.
Considering how difficult it is to create something entirely new-I am not going to take away “greatest author of our time” simply because someone uses something that is typically universal.
That is another point in Hogfather. What was once universal is not always the same. Times change and so do concepts, people, words and stories. He packs a vast amount of layers into 384 pages-more so than any other book of his I think.
I hate how Tolkien gets excused for not writing women characters because he felt he didn’t understand them, but he could understand IMAGINARY FUCKING SPECIES.
That’s like saying everyone has to be white for historical accuracy.
@ Kittehs’ – yes, I liked that one very much. People talk about the plots being less tight these days &c &c but Glenda in particular really addressed my niggles with previous female protagonists and Juliet being allowed to be Juliet and not being lesser for it was rather good.
My aunt talked about Small Gods when applying to train to be a (C of E) priest. The interviewer laughed but she stood by it and said no, she was serious. That was pretty cool.
I never see why the moral underpinnings of something have to be “original”, when they can be compelling and sympathetic and accessible and read by people who wouldn’t necessarily seek out Weighty Literature.
@kitteh
I read Unseen Academicals and I liked it, but I felt the ending was weird, it was kind of a Deus Ex Machina, and not a very good one at that.
I don’t see anyone giving Tolkien a pass. An explanation for why a problematic element exists is not the same as justifying that element.
I do really like Pratchett, especially Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad (heh, the scene with the bulls…), but I think he gets a little… preachy? for my tastes sometimes. Also, there are undertones of ‘everything is a social construct’, which really gets on my nerves.
*Sits in the corner and awaits flying tomatoes.*
As far as which books get made into movies, yeah, it seems like the best ones often don’t. Often good books featuring female protagonists or books for young adults get overlooked.
I adore Terry Pratchett with all kinds of adoration.
He likes neat and tidy plot-clean-ups in the third act. I am not a fan of everything being quite so tidy, but from a narrative view it makes his stories very digestible and gives you a satisfying feeling when you finish them.
And I think that satisfying feeling is the point. His books can always be counted on to give you a warm glow at the end. I like the warm glow. Sometimes it’s treacly, but I can’t complain… I knew he was a man who loves humanity deeply going in.
And that means it’s preachy too, but preachy in a ‘hey, did you know all those people around you are lovely and you are too’ way that is kind of the antithesis of all the preaching I got from other directions, so I really needed to hear it and I think a lot of other people needed to hear it too, which also gives me warm fuzzy feelings about who his messages are for.
…oddly, I write unsatisfying stuff which is open-ended and is not nearly so hopeful as to the nature of humanity. In fact, my stuff is anti-Pratchett. And now that I’ve realized that, it bothers me.
…MANBOOBZ IS DESTROYING MY LIFE, BUT IN A GOOD WAY. (AGAIN)
So if I buy a male friend scented fucking candles as a late Christmas present, does he need a separate mangina card or can he just use the packaging?
Oh, and they fit the definition more than you’d expect for a candle that’s not a Very Special Shape:
http://www.cowshedonline.com/candles/horny_cow_seductive_travel_candles_-c84629p84723.html
I blame this blog for leading me into this kind of feminist extremism.
Small Gods! I LOVE Small Gods! Especially that brilliant, brilliant comment about how different the Omnian religion would have been if its first prophet had been a goat-herd instead of a shepherd, because sheep are stupid and must be driven, but goats are intelligent and must be led.
Earworm addendum: my head is currently playing the not-quite-accurate lyric “Pretty lady ain’t got no friends till the Candleman comes around again.” This is a new low.
Meh, I’ve never been a huge Pratchett fan. Yes, he’s loads of fun and has some interesting ideas, but his books are awfully formulaic and I always feel like, if I’ve read one, I’ve read them all.
A page and a half late but I loved the Abhorsen books as well!
I liked Sabriel but I really identified with Lirael.
A series that I’ve always loved was the Age of the Five by Trudi Canavan. I think the Black Magician trilogy is better known but I preferred the Age of Five.
Hey, anyone got some good suggestions for my 9yr old daughter. She has very high literacy. She has burned through Rowling, Funke, Wynne Jones and Jackson. We need generally to get her trilogies at the very least so that it takes her some time to read. I have slipped Madeline L’Engle on her shelf and the dark is rising set. I am obviously keen to get her books with strong female characters but also age appropriate…which is complicated by her being so literate. You guys are always taking about books I’ve only vaguely heard of, if at all (which is great!). I think there are a fair commenters here who are younger than me (42) so have different memories of childhood books. Any help is great.
The best part of Pratchett is how you read the surface story then go “wait, there is more here.” And his stories can stand alone so you do not need to go forth and read all of the previous novels to have to get the sense of the current one. I read half of his out of order and each one worked.
Plus he is so quotable:
“Sometimes it’s better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.” Men At Arms
“Of course, just because we’ve heard a spine-chilling, blood-curdling scream of the sort to make your very marrow freeze in your bones doesn’t automatically mean there’s anything wrong.” Soul Music
“Just because it’s not nice doesn’t mean it’s not miraculous.” Interesting Times
“”Well, basically there are two sorts of opera,’ said Nanny, who also had the true witch’s ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. ‘There’s your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like “Oh oh oh, I am dyin’, oh, I am dyin’, oh, oh, oh, that’s what I’m doin'”, and there’s your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes “Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!”, although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That’s basically all of opera, reely.” Maskerade
Bigmomma: How about Dragon of the Lost Sea? They get weaker as they go along but the first three are quite good.
@BigMomma Terry Pratchett has a Kids’/YA series with a female protagonist. It’s four books long and starts with The Wee Free Men.
Terry Pratchett has written some YA books – I think the ones about Tiffany Aching are in that category (I haven’t read those). Not sure if there might be plot elements that are a bit dark for a nine-year-old, though – anyone who’s read them have any suggestions that way?
I love The Dark is Rising set, they’re wonderful. Even if I did bawl my eyes out over Cafall.
Hmm – how about The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath, by Alan Garner? I read them when I was about the same age as your daughter.
@emilygodess..she has that but hasn’t warmed to it yet.
@Katz, thanks.
Ninja’d!
I like Mercedes Lackey but not sure if it is that age appropriate.