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:
Oh and while I’m on the subject of LotR, being in the middle of my annual rewatch, I really want to smack Eomer around for dismissing Merry’s readiness for battle in “Return of the King.” At that point in time, Merry had been kidnapped by the Uruk-hai, fought goblins and orcs and the freaking Black Riders, rousted an entire species into going to war on Isengard, witnessed several of his friends die or nearly die, saw Gandalf fall to the fire demon and oh yeah FOUGHT A FUCKING CAVE TROLL. So fuck you Eomer for treating him like he’s going to piss himself in a fight.
(I have issues.)
Oh, but Merry’s just a little hobbit, not a big strong human! (Eomer has the issues, not you.) 🙂
“Oh and while I’m on the subject of LotR, being in the middle of my annual rewatch, I really want to smack Eomer around for dismissing Merry’s readiness for battle in “Return of the King.” At that point in time, Merry had been kidnapped by the Uruk-hai, fought goblins and orcs and the freaking Black Riders, rousted an entire species into going to war on Isengard, witnessed several of his friends die or nearly die, saw Gandalf fall to the fire demon and oh yeah FOUGHT A FUCKING CAVE TROLL. So fuck you Eomer for treating him like he’s going to piss himself in a fight.”
Seconding all this, even if battle was unknown to most hobbits, Merry had seen quite a bit of it already. He and Pippin basically defeated fucking Saruman by simply being awesome. Sure they had help with the battle, but it only happened because of them. Not to mention the way they just straight up jumped on tha cave troll all “fuck if we die, this thing just killed Frodo!” (Go mithril armor!)
Mysteries in the world of Tolkien: Where did the hobbits come from? They don’t have a creation story of their own. Illuvatar made the elves and men, Aule made the dwarves and then Iluvatar gave them souls. But what about the hobbits? Now in various places Tolkien suggested they’re not actually a separate species like dwarves and elves are, more like a sub-species of humans. Okay… So you’d think they might have evolved out of regular humans somehow. Only creationism rather than evolution is true in the Tolkienverse.
As far as I know Tolkien himself hadn’t worked that bit out before he died.
In the movie, the uruk hai are explained as Sauruman breeding them from Orcs and Goblin men, presumably through some kind of evil sorcery.
OT, but Jacksons film ‘Forgotten Silver’ is a masterpiece of hoaxing, and a level which all trolls should aspire to.
I kind of want to talk about Pratchett’s take on orcs, but I don’t want to give away a major plot spoiler for one of the books.
“Come on, if you think you’re hard enough!” Good book.
Actually that book sort of illustrates the quality (other than humor) that sets Pratchett apart from a lot of other fantasy writers, but I’m not quite sure what to call it. Compassion, maybe?
Empathy.
Empathy works.
@CassandraSays and @Freitag235: Yes, yes, it does–compassion, empathy, and that’s not only what sets him aside from fantasy authors, but also satirists!
Every time some fool claims that it’s impossible to be both funny and kind I want to point at Pratchett.
It’s easy to like his characters, because he likes them and paints them so vividly. Not perfect but easy to relate to and with characteristics that make them people you’d enjoy knowing. I can understand Sir Sam and his fondness for bacon sammiches even if they’re bad for him. (Mmmmmmm…bacon…)
Argenti: I just reread the book, and there is more in the story which is related to Bombur’s size.
To someone else: I have to say that I never found the Hobbit, or the LOTR (which I never managed to finish until I was an adult) to be lacking in humor. It’s dry, and a lot of it is sublte.
I suspect The War had a strong effect on both TOlkiens sense of humor, and the nature of its expression.
I’m always a little baffled by the attitude that criticizing a work is equivalent to saying, “I HATE THIS WORK AND WANT TO DESTROY IT.” It would be exceedingly difficult to find anyone who loves LOTR and The Hobbit more than I do. I’m about as likely to want to destroy them as I am to want to chop off my own arm. And yet, somehow, that does not magically render me incapable of noting that Tolkien was very much a white man and a product of his time. As white male products of his time went, he was a pretty awesome one, and he created one hell of an interesting universe, but it is not in the least bit unfair to him to say that he wasn’t particularly good at including anyone other than white males in his interesting universe, and that it might have been an even more interesting universe if he had been better about that.
Awesome bit of Hobbit film trivia!
The Hobbit Chronicles: An Unexpected Journey
An absolutely AWESOME work. I am dipping in and out of it. When I saw this bit, I had to share!
Page 48: in the section on Dwalin’s weapons:
“Argenti: I just reread the book, and there is more in the story which is related to Bombur’s size.”
I know, I only read it a few weeks ago, but shhh, no spoilers! And yeah, they’re funny in a weird way, making me laugh at giant spiders is a rare thing. Everything with Gimli and Legolas, particularly the drinking.
And OMFGS, I’m stuck watching Fox News go on about the fiscal cliff >.<
bacon…
@Polliwog: *nods*
And these days, it seems that just as people who point out racist issues are considered horrible and awful (ditto gender), so too criticisms of the constructions of race or gender or class in a literary work are treated in the same way–i.e. “how are you call X a racist or sexist, you evil racist/sexist/person”
I spent a lot of years not reading Tolkien because I was afraid I’d hate it (after getting into my angry young feminist phase in my 20s)–but I never gave away the books because it meant so much to me in my childhood.
When I came back to it (because of the film), I found that I still loved it. And I don’t consider myself any less a feminist!
“I can understand Sir Sam and his fondness for bacon sammiches even if they’re bad for him. (Mmmmmmm…bacon…)”
Hey, we all have our vices!
Sneaking a bit out of my dreamwidth journal–I love the Dwarves despite the various issues–I saw an interview with a trainer about the six months of work with the actors for the escape from goblins/fight scene, and got inspired to write this up about Dwarves, choreography, spatial issues, and how the dishwashing scene is a great foreshadowing of their fighting style.
I love the dishwashing scene in the novel and in the film–one thing I told my students this past fall was that in order to analyze the dwarves, which some of them did, they had to take into account not only the heroic charge at the end (can hardly wait to see Thorin in that GOLD armor, and wow, loved how they set up the falling too hard for gold in the film), but the dishwashing and singing (and the Misty Mountains song). They’re ALL part of the narrative arc–you don’t get to focus on just one part to make a major argument!
Anyway–the film did a beautiful job of it.
Here are some of my current thoughts on what that set up, and how it relates to the fighting style of this group anyway.
The Dwarves are larger than hobbits, and there thirteen in Bilbo’s hobbithole. They are bustling around, moving furniture, setting up a meal, and there’s never a clumsy moment or a dropped dish (that I saw! correct me if I’m wrong). Bofur throws an egg into Bombur’s mouth (yes, yes, I know, fat jokes–but that’s pretty much in Tolkien’s book as well–if there’s anything about Bombur in teh book that doesn’t involve him being fat, I’ve missed it). Even when Kili is on the table handing out ale, there’s no dropped mugs. The dishwashing song has incredible choreography, building on what was shown before–with dishes shooting through the air, the rhythm kept (never a dropped note), and everything ending up exactly where it should be.
They handle fragile, breakable things with no problem despite the boisterousness (and the really big boots). And they’re miners–yes–but incredible craftspeople (I am firmly convinced that Dwarvish culture does not discriminate on gender!)–on all levels (monumental down to fine jewels).
AND when they fight, they fight in a group (Thorin’s heroic single stands, although they evoke Boromir and Aragorn’s fights in LOTR, are not successful–the Dwarves work and fight and lives in groups–clans, really, I suspect (there is some scholarship on Dwarves but not that much, and not that great). We see them in action against the Trolls–they have to surrender to the trolls to save Bilbo, not because they’re not winning.
And in the goblin caves, after Gandalf arrives, they are tossing weapons back and forth like they were tossing dishes–and never fumbling even one. (And I’m sure there was CGI enhancement, but I’m not talking about how the effect was achieved, but the impact of it.)
Thorin is more of the lone/epic hero type in the film–but not anywhere near the extent that Aragorn and Boromir were, with those long single set fights.
It’s all about the group.
Back (briefly) to Pratchett, here’s a quote that made me love him at first read:
Pratchett, Sourcery.
The idea that identifying issues in books, particularly old books, means that you must want the books to be DESTROYED FOREVER AND THEIR AUTHOR EXCOMMUNICATED FROM THE CANON is so baffling to me. Literary criticism – it’s a thing! A thing that’s usually done by people who love books!
Although I started reading the books earlier, I think this was the bit that really made me fall in love with Pratchett.
Wyrd Sisters
Also the Death of Rats.