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:
And in the movie Saruman creates the Uruk-hai through some cloning process, but if I remember correctly, in the books it’s rather suggested that he had orchs and humans mating and give birth to some kind of hybrid which was bigger and tougher than regular orchs.
H.G.T.O.W. the sequel !
I think my mother and I are going to see the hobbit tomorrow actually, my brother’s too pissed about the changes to see it *sigh* his loss. I’m kind of thrilled they put Galadriel in, my first comments on finishing the book were “Idk wtf they can cut to make this under 4 hours” and “wtf, the only women are the ones fleeing the dragon?! I want Eowyn back!”
Yeah, I love Eowyn. Someone here commented on how she won’t just sit around and hope the men defeat Sauron because of what it’d mean if they lost. Her thing for Aragorn is a bit annoying, to be sure, but she defeats the damned witchking (he seriously needed a spell copy editor, Tolkien specifically wrote one of the Big Baddies only weakness as “women doing battle”, idk why that’s so hilarious, but it is)
Itsabeast — “@quantumscale I didn’t see Eowyn as going into battle or fighting the Witch King as a suicide thing at all. She was well-trained, and didn’t want to feel useless, hence the going into battle. She fought the Witch King because he killed her father in front of her.”
He’ll, even if it was suicide, wouldn’t trying to win that battle, and dying in the process, be better than what would’ve happened if they lost? (Which, of course, probably would’ve happened if she hadn’t sent the nazgul packing)
Tangentially, my autocorrect knows Tolkien terms, it doesn’t know things like “frikken” (no not frisked damnit) but corrected Galadriel…idk if I’m impressed or concerned…guess I should’ve expected Apple employees to be LoTR fans…
From time to time, I see MRAs over on The Shithead comment about fanning out and commenting on mass media stories as a way of evangelizing others. Here’s an example in the comments section – skim down and you’ll see a few. It’s about the Indian bus rape that killed a woman. Yes, she was with a male friend and he was also beaten, stripped, and thrown out of the bus. I wish we had an update on his condition but at least he survived. I consider him a hero for trying to protect her, but the MRAs have another take on all the reportage: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/18/gang-rape-of-a-girl-inside-a-bus-in-new-delhi-raises-outrage-in-india/?tid=pm_world_pop. I can only imagine a world where MRAs wrote all the news stories.
Over the years, I’ve basically learned that dealing with genre fandom is a bit of an uphill battle. I’ve never read Tolkien so all my knowledge of this stuff is limited to the Jackson movies. Even then, people seem to take this shit personally. Like if I point out all the stuff going on with race, it’s like I’m somehow accusing Tolkien of being a racist and then they, as fans, should take offense to that. I mean, there’s a scene where bearded old white dude whose name I forget inspects a nude black-skinned orc and it’s like something out of Mandingo, this is stuff that’s worth talking about.
Also throwing in my two cents, Peter Jackson writes some great women characters from time to time (Heavenly Creatures is fantastic) but King Kong is really where it’s at if you want to see him be all aware of the racial and gender implications of his work.
@ Scarlett- I can’t deal with them there- too sad. Though I feel like just posting a link to the SPLC just so anyone who read them knows what they’re dealing with.
CS Lewis was a misogynist!! I am pretty shocked- I loved his characters. Oh, and yeah, racist as all hell. That shocks me not at all. I wish someone had mentioned that when I was a kid.
and in the comments section of the hobbit thingy, apart from dozens of people telling her to shut up and such, some posters think she should be fired. For writing something they didn’t like on The Hobbit. Seriously.
Oh, and the women who feel the need to post ‘I am a woman, and I still think she’s wrong’- odd, isn’t it?
(rubs eyes) Welp, I only remember a few things from the books (reading and listening). There’s a character named Tom Bombadill? Bombadeer? who sings a ridiculous song all the time, is possibly a grizzled old man and ends up with a beautiful, useless trophy wife. Eowyn (sp?) doesn’t get the man of her dreams. Arwen (sp?) stands by her man, he eventually dies and she’s stuck in the “man world”, bitter and unwanted and ends up becoming something like a comatose rock covered in moss. Oh, yeah, and her son with her man, the heir to the kingdom, gets really upset with dad for not dying soon enough for him.
It’s called The Daily Mail.
(I’m only half joking. The Daily Mail might actually be even worse on race issues, unless we’re talking specifically about The Spearhead.)
Ooh, this was a gem:
TommyVenter
6 hours ago
White females are increasingly becoming like blacks; always whining whenever a white man, in this case the Englishman Tolkien, dares to not promote the interests of their particular group. How about this blacks and white “ladies”, write your own stories and create your own mythologies instead of expecting white males to do it for you. Tolkien wrote for himself, just like Jane Austen or JK Rowling. And if he did not write strong female characters, then so be it. Get over your pathetic politically correct, black wannabe, “i’m a poor oppressed minority ’cause of the nasty white man” nonsense!
Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/31/the-hobbit-why-are-there-no-women-in-tolkiens-world/#ixzz2GjhC6WUQ
“Eowyn (sp?) doesn’t get the man of her dreams.”
I never took her as loving him, certainly not for any length of time, but more being enamored with the idea of someone not as much a lump on a log as the rest of Rohan.
And that whole bit about Arwen being alone forever after Aragorn dies was her (rather annoying) father’s prediction what would happen if she married a human — he didn’t want to accept that she’d also choose to be mortal instead of an immortal elf. Afaik she dies not long after Aragorn does.
I’ve never liked Elrond’s whole thing with trying to protect his daughter driving away the man she loves and running from the battle for middle earth. Elrond is like, the patriarchy incarnate sometimes.
“I mean, there’s a scene where bearded old white dude whose name I forget inspects a nude black-skinned orc and it’s like something out of Mandingo, this is stuff that’s worth talking about.”
That’s Saruman inspecting his new creation, the Urak-hai. Yeah, he created those, doesn’t really help the implications any >.<
I think he was going for light = good and dark = bad in the day/night sense (the long standing religious motif) but failed miserably. Doctor Who got that one right with the Vashta Nerada *shudders*
When I read the Last Battle, I thought the reason Susan wasn’t there was that she was an atheist (no longer a friend of Narnia) and that the rest was just Lewis description of a strawman atheist (vain and superficial, have lost their purpose in life)When I read the Last Battle, I thought the reason Susan wasn’t there was that she was an atheist (no longer a friend of Narnia) and that the rest was just Lewis description of a strawman atheist (vain and superficial, have lost their purpose in life). The suxuality bit could be there too, but I think Lewis means this as a consequence of atheism.
Talcaris- awesome analysis.
Regarding Tolkien. I think his lack of female characters is simply a byproduct of his character writing ability. Some male writers just don’t feel like they can write convincing females. This was also the case with H.P. Lovecraft. Great writer, but lacking in any believable female characters.
Interestingly enough, the comments below the editorial are more interesting than the column itself. A bunch of men trying hard to disprove the obvious. What’s so hard about accepting that the Hobbit doesn’t have a lot of women in it? That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to like it.
BTW, I’m an atomic bear. Nice to meet you! I recently discovered this site and it’s awesome.
My “impressions” could so easily be wrong. In the movies, I thought that Eowyn just fell for the first guy that was not from her area and that Aragorn, while being correct about her being in love with an illusion, was still a meanie. Both Eowyn and the Hobbits were treated badly when they wanted to go fight: this is man’s work, not for silly women and Hobbits. I’d forgotten what the Elf King did to his daughter. It’s ..interesting that the comments from these guys call Elrond “feminine” when the elf fought in deadly battles. He’s an arrogant pain in the ass but certainly didn’t shy away from “manly” battles in his youth. Thanks, Argenti.
That poster in the OP, really?! Ok, Bombur is “twice the size of the other dwarves” and they kept him as a fat dwarf, I can live with this (it does become relevant), but they’ve got him with a pastry half in his mouth? Really?!.
SPOILER-ish — Bombur gets stuck carrying Bilbo, because he’s the largest. So his size is actually relevant to the plot.
I was hoping they’d cut some of the fat jokes…clearly not.
I mean, we can see he’s fat from the poster. Why do we also need him to be holding a plate of pastries while demonstrating his poor table manners?
On the whole “feminine” thing with the elves, um, I guess they have long hair? I could almost see their point if they were talking about Orlando Bloom, but the Aussie dude who plays Elrond? Really?
I thought that comment was funny too. “No fair! You forgot to mention the feminine dudes!” They’re operating on another plane of reality.
“Aragorn, while being correct about her being in love with an illusion, was still a meanie”
Oh yeah, he kind of was, a bitter meanie, but a meanie all the same. Of course, I do think him rejecting her was part of why she rode to the battle of middle earth, which would’ve gone a whole lot worse without her there. As for “this is mans work”, I’m pleased that they basically got that handed back to them on a dead witchking shaped platter.
Only thing feminine about Elrond is that’s he’s a high elf with fancy hair!
And no problem, my Doctor Who is better than my Tolkien, but my sponge memory collects many useless bits of trivia XD
A can of fantasy gender worms: http://imgur.com/mDhLa
I may be bitter.
I got annoyed pretty quickly by the dark-skinned slanty-eyed orcs and the dark-skinned slanty-eyed Uruk-hai and the dark-skinned slatny-eyed men from the East.
Which is also linked in with the “pretty people are good, un-pretty people are evil” thing that shows up in fantasy all the time. We know that the orcs are super-evil because they’re ugly! And the elves must be good because look how damn pretty they are!
I feel like this is one of those things that the movie didn’t actually need to duplicate. They already decided to make changes, sometimes even quite radical changes (Arwen being far more of a bad-asss than is canon, for example), so why not try to fix some of the racist crap while they’re at it? But nope.
Well, in the movie they added the “Men of the West” speech, which not unsurprisingly has found its fans among a certain group of people.
“I got annoyed pretty quickly by the dark-skinned slanty-eyed orcs and the dark-skinned slanty-eyed Uruk-hai and the dark-skinned slatny-eyed men from the East.”
Even in universe it doesn’t make sense — orcs are basically allergic to sunlight, so shouldn’t they be vampire pale? (And more so for the “we literally live underground” goblins)
“Why do we also need him to be holding a plate of pastries while demonstrating his poor table manners?”
Idfk, they have decent to excellent table manners in the book, they even do Bilbo’s dishes! But hey, Bombur is fat, so let’s make him eating and a slob! *sigh* No, let’s not.
“I feel like this is one of those things that the movie didn’t actually need to duplicate.”
They really didn’t, even if they kept the high elves as absolutely gorgeous, no reason the orcs at al couldn’t just look like normal people (well, normal with pointed ears I guess?) iirc, the elves are so damned gorgeous because they’re magical, so I guess I can understand the justification there
That kind of needs the tradition of fae as gorgeous and terrifyingly powerful to really work though. If they are that tradition, they should make even Gandalf fear them, which he only sort of seems to — he defers to Elrond out of respect it seems, not fear (respect as old friends and simply because Gandalf is a guest in Rivendell) Basically they’re too damned peaceful to be fae.
Well that became a rant! Sorry!
And my italics were only supposed to include “and terrifyingly powerful”