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:
…totally missed the fire tree part, does appear to be A Thing though — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_tree
::waves hands::
Me too, me too about “could care less” AAARRRRRRRRAGEARGHHHHHHHHHHHhhhh!
I feel better now.
argenti: I don’t know that I would work to hasten it, but were it soon, well it wouldn’t be no skin off my nose.
No way, no how.
But what’s more likely, that he’s referring to a specific type of tree, or that he meant “fir tree?”
Or that he thinks he’s Charlton Heston?
“Or that he thinks he’s Charlton Heston?”
Why would this not surprise me …
Can I vote on any or all of the above? Does that make sense?
Pecunium — yeah, I wouldn’t wish death upon him, but I wouldn’t be particularly heart broken either.
Happy days!
Middle Earth was home to communities where the females were suitably occupied being well…females. None of this imitation-male feminuttery nonsense that has so befuddled and ruined the women of (regular) Earth.
They tended the home, had babies and raised, nursed, and cared for children, perhaps did gardening and canning, cooked, baked, and served tasty and nourishing food, did the sewing, knitting, and other textile craft, and were there to please their mates, in bedroom and parlor, when they came home!
Happy Days!
While all of this “woman-stuff” is indispensable to the maintenance or future, of any civilization, it doesn’t lend itself very well to being written about in epic sagas,
The contributions of the ladies is however, warmly noted!
Oh, Neil Gaiman. I have slogged through a good portion of his work, and except for the Graveyard Book and a Study in Emerald, I had pretty much the exact same reaction to everything: “Huh. That was really good. *puts book away* I am never reading that again.” I’m apparently the only comics fan on earth who never much cared for Sandman. Alan Moore gives me the same feeling, a lot of the time, though I can much more easily pinpoint why: a lot of his more critically acclaimed stuff is so dark, I feel wretched afterward. I ADORE his Top Ten, though!
Brian K. Vaughn is my equivalent of Joss Whedon. I enjoyed mostly everything of his I read… until I suddenly realized that his endings always pissed me off. Damn, did I hate those Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies endings! Ex Machina, which I enjoyed until the very last trade, honked me off enough that I decided to swear off him for a while. And Y the Last Man brought out a weird crack reflex in me. Every time I read it, something would drive me nuts… but if it was in the library, I’d often be unable to resist the urge to try and read it anyway.
And I find abnoy’s peculiar, “I don’t really CARE about anything or anything, it’s just… my boner!” whining to be rather dull. Let’s continue with discussing comics.
(Zot! ZOOOOOOOOOOOT!)
I’ve liked all the Gaiman I’ve read, but there is a lot of it I’ve not read because the baseline story looks less than interesting.
I REALLY liked American Gods.
Only Gaiman I’ve read was Neverwhere. It was … meh, okay, I guess.
Yeah, I slugged through Neverwhere, most of Sandman, Graveyard Book, Fragile Things, Smoke and Mirrors, Good Omens, Coraline… and I wasn’t really into any of them, I admired them on a craft level but they just did nothing for me, but I kept slugging through them because DAMMIT HE’S NEIL GAIMAN, there must be something I’m missing!
No. Apparently I’m just some weirdo who likes sci-fi/fantasy, but just can’t get into Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, or Douglas Adams. : I feel like I’m missing a brain circuit or something.
I love Neil Gaiman’s kid and YA lit, but for the other stuff, I agree with The Kittehs’.
LBT, yeah Moore’s Top Ten is pretty damn fun. Did you read the prequel that happens just after WW II? Top Ten: The Forty-Niners. It’s awesome, and pretty.
Abnoy sounds like baby cynic to me — though he’s better at staying on topic. But the self-entitled snottiness is there.
“And is it not rude of fangirls…”
Too fucking late.
“… to invade the fandoms of male-oriented series and demand they jettison that which made it so popular to male audiences in the first place?”
Oh my god, you want creators and producers to ignore women because they make you feel icky? Please explain why you cannot enjoy fandoms in the presence of women. It sounds like a serious problem, actually. Are you aware women invent their own fandoms…they started the very early ones surrounding Star Trek. Then there’s slash — but I’m sure you’ve never heard of it. 😉 Why shouldn’t creators and producers enjoy taking womens’ money as much as mens’? All things in pop culture don’t belong just to men. You sound like a bratty fifth grader who still screeches “I need my cootie shot now!” After a girl walks passed you.
“…When fanboys do it in reverse, they are morally superior…”
Can I see some citation on how fanboys are morally superior — shouldn’t be hard, you sound really sure, like it’s a scientific fact. Go on, then.
“…because they don’t try to change anything ex. MLPFIM and Bronies.”
What?
“The bad vice of women always seeking to terraform men to suit them is most tedious indeed and a major reason men everywhere consider marriage the living death!”
“The bad vice of women…” eeesh, I hate passive voice.
“Is most tedious indeed…” Suddenly you’re channeling Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins? Well, why not, you’ve done everything but sing, “Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?”
The marriage bit. Aww, nope, don’t wanna trap anyone into marriage, don’t want to get married. Err, have you ever been married? Why are you talking about marriage all of the sudden in the middle of a fandom rant? Oh! You think if chicks show up to comic cons you’ll have to marry one of them? Hmm. Now it all makes sense. *snicker*
Um, do you go out much? I mean, if a woman made eye contact with you, could you handle it? Or do you scream things like, “Batman is MINE! You tedious wench!!!”
“Middle Earth was home to communities where the females were suitably occupied being well…females.”
Unless they’re dwarves. Dude, Tolkien had more expansive ideas of women than you do.
Where’ve you been though? All our current trolls are boring!
Aww, LBT, seriously? No affection for Gaiman’s werewolf character, Larry Talbot? Well, that’s cool, but man, I loved “Bay Wolf.”
But others, like “Murder Stories,” I think are brilliant. Shit, I love how he took the Snow White fable and turned the so-called evil (and magical) stepmother into the hero in “Snow, Blood, Apples.”
His short stories bury a lot of his comics…though Black Orchid still holds up to them.
I don’t care when Moore gets dark, I like dark. I think The Walking Dead is far darker than anything Moore wrote.
Here ya go, kid.
RE: Shiraz
I own a copy of Forty-Niners, actually! (Though I still sometimes give it the side-eye, because what the hell, weird sexualizing of ten-year-old Steve…)
And no, sorry, none of Gaiman’s characters ever gripped me much except in the Graveyard Book. His work just doesn’t hit my buttons, I don’t know why. I slugged through two of his short story anthologies, and the only one that I really liked was Study in emerald.
As for Moore and darkness… I just don’t have a great tolerance for it. Coming out of a bad patch in mental health, and I really, REALLY do not need any encouragement that life sucks and then you die.
Well, you’re right, Steve is pretty young…but I thought he was a teenager.
Sorry about the bad patch, I had them myself. I guess any work of art is like a inkblot test; everyone sees something different. So, no, I never got the life sucks then you die in Moore’s work. Seriously, Promethea is positively invigorating. But see, art criticism is so subjective. I’ve heard teenage girls say they think Sucker Punch is awesome. Me? Not so much. But no, I’m not trying to convince you to like stuff you don’t, I just like talking about their work, so it’s cool.
I only have a problem with women when they are killjoys and “wet blankets” otherwise I leave them alone so long as they leave me alone (except if they’re sexy, then of course i’ll tolerate them relative to their sexiness ????) Yes, tomboys (what the Japanese call “bokkuko”) have always been a favorite of mine as a red-blooded guy desires a gal who can really understand him and who he can relate to i.e. one of the boys (as a bonus they even tend to be bisexual ????) Finally, as the poem goes, only a god can make a tree, so a god I’d be ????
And are immediately euthanized if they scratch anyone.
Aww, Meller, suck an insecure little fuck.
Hey, we all have things that everyone says are amazing that just make us go “What?” Mine is Spider-Man 2.
Pratchett and especially Adams only get middling respect from me, anyway.
RE: Shiraz
Yeah, Steve’s a teenager at the time of the story, but at one point they’re watching old vids from the war days, when he was about ten, and Wulf makes some reference about how he looked good, and men and women whistled in the theatre. Definitely brought out the side-eye in me.
Promethea was a bit too metaphysical for me to keep up with. (Not helped by me grabbin vol. 2 first by accident.) V for Vendetta and Watchmen both left me feeling gritty and blargh. (Not helped by the creepy fandom V was getting. No, NO, he is the equal and opposite of the totalitarian government! HE IS NOT A NICE PERSON.)
RE: katz
That makes me feel better. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person who reads the genres but isn’t into Gaiman, Adams, and Pratchett.
“Not helped by the creepy fandom V was getting. No, NO, he is the equal and opposite of the totalitarian government! HE IS NOT A NICE PERSON.”
I still love the comic, in part because he is clearly not a nice person, but he’s less wrong than the gov’n which is fucking saying something about the gov’n.
Random thought, is Less Wrong less wrong in that sene? “We don’t care if we’re terrible, the other people are even more terrible”? Because that would explain a lot actually.
LBT – yeah, we all have things that heaps of people say are THE BEST but leave us wondering what all the fuss is about. I tried Neverwhere because the same friend who recommended Pratchett (who I really like) recommended it, and because Gaiman and Pratchett have written together. But … nope, didn’t work for me. Never tried reading Adams because I watched the opening few scenes of Hitch-hiker’s Guide and hated it. I gather the series didn’t do the book justice, but it struck me as laboured adolescent humour, and the whole idea of Earth destroyed the same way as a house struck me as horrific, not satirical humour. I wasn’t long out of my teens when I saw it, either.