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:
@Cloudiah – and a Happy New Year to you to! 😀
But you know what is more fascinating? This.
@Viscaria – Ruth Whatsername was bemoaning about how the reproduction of Goblins and Orcs was unexplained, but hey, feel free to look for the tiniest source of offence.
Enjoy.
Once upon a time in a land far, far away, people got a life already. 😀
Whoa! Airborne monorail cat!
Wow, Joe, your comments are so insightful.
Hover cat!
Joe, there was some one up thread discussing how ze teaches a lit course on Tolkien, you can geek all you want, you aren’t winning this one.
“Fiction it is not real.” And thank the gods for that, or my new book would be digital, as it’s a dystopian future where all information is digital…among other issues (Snow Crash for the curious — Lords and Ladies was also purchased and is up next 🙂 )
These little fellows can’t wait to vacuum up more of Joe’s incredible stores of knowledge.
Well hello friend Mister Insightful
I’ve been saving this comic, but I think I’ll give it to Joe.
Careful! Smiling women making snappy answers are misandry!
I would like recommend Tove Jansson’s Moomin books, although I realize they can be an accquired taste. Carol Kendall is good (The Gammage Cup) and so’s Jean Merril (The Pushcart War.) Ann Petry’s children’s books are fantastic, especially Tituba of Salem Village.
Um, no. What she was commenting on was the lack of women — any women — in Tolkien’s books. As part of that, she pointed out that genealogy and descent is very important in Tolkien, but everyone only seems to have male relatives. That’s not usually how it works. I’m not a huge history buff or anything but I’m pretty sure that even in the 40s it was common knowledge that most people have a mommy and a daddy — in fact, in that much more heteronormative culture I suspect they insisted everyone has a mommy and a daddy. You don’t actually have to talk about sex to acknowledge that.
Hippodameia – I loved the Moomin books! Though they got a bit melancholic later on (Moominland Midwinter and Moominpapa at Sea). I really liked the Fillyjonks, but that’s prolly ‘cos I had a thing for Anubis when I was a kid. I didn’t have a doll-house, I made a small bookshelf into a Fillyjonk house instead.
As odd as it is to agree with Joe on anything, I second the suggestion of His Dark Materials, and 9 is exactly the right age for it too. I’d say that a smart 9 year old would be read to start on Robin McKinley’s books too, if it’s fantasy you’re looking for.
“Right, the seminal work, which shapes the genre, leaves women out, and we are supposed to say, “that’s cool, it’s not like women matter”.”
Leaving aside the fact that there are literally lots and lots of series in the genre that followed that now feature and star women, what now do you want to do then, resurrect JRR Tolkien from the dead and force him to rewrite the whole series to suit you? Get his still-living son to rewrite the series then? Get a writer suitable to you to rewrite the series to be suitable for you?
Should a writer be exorciated for being being a product of his time and place in HIStory?
“I always felt that if you can’t write diverse characters then you shouldn’t be a writer.”
Fascist! So much for creative freedom of expression, eh? You know, if you were Chinese, you would be a perfect fit working for the CCP..
“As part of that, she pointed out that genealogy and descent is very important in Tolkien, but everyone only seems to have male relatives.”
Because male genealogy can only be conclusively proven by tracing the path of the Y-Chromosome, which is only passed from fathers to sons in a direct line, duh. That’s why it’s so much easier to trace female genealogy.
“You don’t actually have to talk about sex to acknowledge that.”
Ah, but it is common in fiction the world over, especially set in contemporary settings, to have missing parents whose absence is not explained.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConvenientlyAnOrphan
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ParentalAbandonment
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DisappearedDad
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MissingMom
“There’s a name for people who are the only ones who think they’re making any sense and it ain’t rational.”
Yeah, Manboobz sycophants.
Ooooooooh. Well that makes loads of sense now, thank you. Everyone’s moms and sisters and aunts were eaten by Y-chromosomes. >_>
(Who is this guy?)
@Viscaria
It also explains why Y-chromosome Adam is so much older than Mitochondrial Eve.
Oh…wait.
Well, colour me shocked that First “Muslims are evil scary monsters” Joe would act as though it’s totally ridiculous to critique works of fiction when they uphold oppressive narratives.
Uh oh, Cloudiah’s in gif mode. Must be one boring troll!
Well, the discrepancy is theorized to be caused by genetic drift among fewer male lineages due to (wait for it) HYPERGAMY. Yes, even way back then, some guys still had all the luck! Tsk tsk tsk… Either that or Erich Von Danniken was right and modern man is the bastard hybrid of alien johns and earth whores.
Once again, thanks for all your suggestions…I am checking them all out and they look great (moomins are sadly not liked by her but were by me. She is just on the last Olympian Percy Jackson book having been given the set for Christmas).
I have created a folder on my tablet home page and stored all your suggestions in it.
I love that the autocorrect for moomins is kookiness.
Is it me or is Annoy particularly annoying, today? Half his responses make no sense and the ones that vaguely do are re-hashes of stupid comments we’ve already dealt with in this thread or others.
He’s always annoying. It seems to be his default state. If only this site had a Block function.
“Yes, even way back then, some guys still had all the luck”
Seems to describe the mindset of the entire manosphere: “Some guys have all the luck, and the women that sleep with THEM and not ME are whores!”