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:
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.