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:
@Argenti Aertheri:
“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*"
I don't think the movies are entirely misguided when it comes to their depictions of evil racial Others. Like the origin put forth in the first one is that they were elves who were tortured, enslaved and made 'inferior' (I don't think we're ever shown elves being turned into orcs, only told, unfortunately). So there's some grasp at people being the results of societal forces beyond their control (hence the white handprint on the black orc face).
But yeah it's very half-formed and I think it's done much better in King Kong and Jackson's production, District 9.
Have you read Pratchett’s book about elves? It’s a pretty good take on the whole thing.
And yeah, I can see keeping at least the big name characters gorgeous (Arwen, Legolas, Galadrial), but there’s no reason the orcs have to be dark skinned. For the goblins surely they should be fishbelly white with a greenish tinge to their skin as a nod to tradition?
The books did go on a lot about how dark all the bad guys were, if I remember correctly. I think the movies are better at that point, except for the uruk-hai.
In the movies, “normal” orchs are gray rather than brown. And now in the new film we have a big bad orch with porcelain-white skin. I think the goblins in the LOTR movies also looked gray rather than brown, while the goblins in the new movie had a skin colour rather like regular white people.
The uruk-hai, yeah, they’re dark-skinned… However, I noticed on re-watching the movies that they actually have not just straight but also blonde hair. Only their hair is so muddy that it’s hard to spot, except in a few strands here and there. So here’s what I imagine going through the minds of the designers…
“Okay, the uruk-hai tolerate sunlight, so they should have pigmentation! Let’s make them brown!”
“Yeah, good idea! And this also shows how evil they are, since everyone knows that dark=evil!”
“Um… guys… isn’t that kind of racist?”
“NO! They’re NOT black people! Because…. they can have blond hair! Yeah!”
“And everyone knows black people have BIG lips, so let’s give them NO lips instead!”
“Yeah! Totally non-racist then!”
I mean… they do have almost no lips. And as I said, blonde hair under the mud. BUT IT DOESN’T HELP.
When it comes to beautiful=good and ugly=bad I don’t really care that the orchs look grotesque and the elves are all beautiful. I can buy that elves as a species are distinguished by a sort of ethereal beautiful look, and that the tortured orchs look terrible. What bugs me is that Grima is like a hundred times uglier than all the good Rohans, and the only one in the entire kingdom with dark rather than blond hair. That’s just weird.
“That’s just weird.” *dies* You put that well, if simply.
“Have you read Pratchett’s book about elves? It’s a pretty good take on the whole thing.”
I have not, wonder if I can iBook it… (Thank the gods for digital books, much as I love that old book smell, my shelves are overflowing)
*looks at white bellied fish* it already is a sort of green grey.
“Like the origin put forth in the first one is that they were elves who were tortured, enslaved and made ‘inferior’ (I don’t think we’re ever shown elves being turned into orcs, only told, unfortunately). So there’s some grasp at people being the results of societal forces beyond their control (hence the white handprint on the black orc face).”
How much of their origins made it into the movies though? The books it was clearly meant as an almost biblical “fall from grace” — iirc that’s barely mentioned in the movies. And I don’t recall the origins of the Urak-hai being in the movies at all.
“How much of their origins made it into the movies though? The books it was clearly meant as an almost biblical “fall from grace” — iirc that’s barely mentioned in the movies. And I don’t recall the origins of the Urak-hai being in the movies at all.”
Like I said, I never read the books so I have no idea. Saruman has the line:
“Do you know how the Orcs first came into being? They were elves once, taken by the dark powers, tortured and mutilated. A ruined and terrible form of life…”
So it is barely a mention, which is why the movies don’t really succeed when it comes to this. That this information is relayed to us in a small bit of expository dialogue, it’s practically forgettable. As for the Urak-hai, all I can recall is that scene of full-grown ones being born right out of the earth, literally created by their environments.
Re Pratchett, I liked his scary elves, but I can’t say that they’re a better take on elves than Tolkien. I don’t think you can compare the two, they’re such different concepts.
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That wasn’t my impression from the books. If you want to compare anything in the elves’ history to a fall from grace, I think Feanor leaving Valinor would be a better example. But he and his gang, after being corrupted by Morgoth’s lies, rejecting the Valar and even murdering their kinsmen were still elves and nothing else.
The orchs weren’t elves that were TEMPTED by Morgoth or Sauron, but elves who were captured and then subjected to some terrible process that turned them into orchs. Or at least this is presented as a theory in the books. It’s never told that this is definitely the case.
It gets a longer explanation in the books, but only early on. As for the Uruk-hai, they’re born from the earth, and might be a hybrid of orcs and humans, which means I really don’t want to think how they’d have been born if not born from the earth. I just checked and “tree beard speculates” is all I can find regarding their origin.
(I googled, is that intellectual dishonesty? XD )
Something that never made sense to me about the orc origin story – if they’re transformed elves, how are there so many of them? As in, far more of them than there are actual elves?
“The orchs weren’t elves that were TEMPTED by Morgoth or Sauron, but elves who were captured and then subjected to some terrible process that turned them into orchs. Or at least this is presented as a theory in the books. It’s never told that this is definitely the case.”
Fair enough, that is an important part of the biblical fall.
Scary elves = fae elves, you have my interest!
“Something that never made sense to me about the orc origin story – if they’re transformed elves, how are there so many of them? As in, far more of them than there are actual elves?”
Orcs and men? This bothered me too. I guess maybe there used to be more elves and most left already?
Sample!
“Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies
That book also has possibly my favorite Pratchett line of all time.
“In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.”
Which book? All I’m finding is the entire Discworld series.
They remind me of white wolf’s changelings, which are definitely my favorite take on fae.
The one about elves is called Lords and Ladies.
I think there’s some point in Silmarillion where it says that once the first orchs were created, they then reproduced, or something like that. Like, the species was first invented by an evil transformation of elves, but after that they reproduced and made more orchs the old-fashioned way.
Now one would think that orchs would get elf-children, not orch-children, because if you merely abused and tortured someone until zie looked grotesque and were evil zie would still have normal children. BUT the laws of nature are clearly different in this world… I mean, there’s magic and stuff… So somehow, once the elves had become orchs, they could have orch kids.
What bugged me about “Lords and ladies” was how Nanny and Granny couldn’t just straight-out tell Magrat that “look, elves are sometimes portrayed as nice in fairy-tales, but they’re actually evil”. You know, just SAYING that early on would have saved them SO much trouble.
But Magrat’s moment of ass-kickery is really cool.
The bit where she points a bow at someone and says “Bake my quiche” is pretty funny too.
It is on iBooks, in what looks like German *sigh*
Worst part is I was at B&N two days ago!
I think my favourite part of Lords and Ladies is in Magrat’s ass-kicking – the little dig at Schrodinger’s Cat, where the possibilities are Alive, Dead or Bloody Furious, and what that means when Greebo meets elf.
I’m glad other people have been side-eyeing the Hobbit poster a bit. It’s not just Bombur, to me – though the pastry business is really off – it’s the whole way they have the dwarfs looking. They just look like stupid caricatures to me, except Thorin and (I presume) Fili and Kili. They seem to have gone for a grotesque, point-and-laugh look, and it just annoys me.
They do look very different to the dwarves in LOTR. I’m all for adding a bit of humor, I’m just not convinced that “LOL the dwarves are goofy looking” is the best way to do that.
Yeah, it strikes me as very heavy handed, to say the least. I don’t seem to remember that Aule (?) made grotesques with the first seven dwarfs, just small, strong beings. Now there’s an oddity about reproduction, too. They’re the dwarf fathers in all the references. When did the first dwarf women appear? They do exist, one at least is mentioned by name, briefly, in the LotR appendices. Did Illuvatar fix up Aule’s curious oversight? It’s not like the Valar were sexless.
I like Pratchett’s take on dwarves better too. Especially Cheery – I’m very fond of Cheery.
(And yes, I realize it’s unfair to compare the two given the difference in eras. I feel like Pratchett would have been more feminist than Tolkien even if he had been born in the same era, though, and probably better about race too.)