Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Cabby44 on December 19, 2002, 06:51:46 AM
-
From the Leftist rag "Manchester Guardian":
Monday December 2, 2002
Quote:
Wraiths and race
"What with the dark skin, broad faces and dreadlocks, it's a wonder Tolkien didn't give his baddies a natural sense of rhythm, says John Yatt, examining Middle Earth's suspect racial undertones.
It was the same with The Phantom Menace - I had no choice. When part of your childhood is playing down the road on a big screen with surround sound and popcorn, there's no escape. But as the wonder of discovering that there was more to New Zealand than sheep wore off, something began to worry me.
Maybe it was the way that all the baddies were dressed in black, or maybe it was the way that the fighting uruk-hai had dreadlocks, but I began to suspect that there was something rotten in the state of Middle Earth.
Perhaps Dubya's war on terror is making me a bit uneasy, or maybe it's just good old-fashioned Guardian-reading imperial guilt, but there was something about watching a bunch of pale faces setting off into the east to hack some guys with dark faces into little bits that made me feel a little queasy.
When I got home I dug out my copy of The Lord of the Rings from a box somewhere - okay, so I pulled it straight off the shelf - and found there was worse to come. The Two Towers is the story of the battle between Isengard and Rohan. In the good corner, the riders of Rohan, aka the "Whiteskins": "Yellow is their hair, and bright are their spears. Their leader is very tall." In the evil corner, the orcs of Isengard: "A grim, dark band... swart, slant-eyed" and the "dark" wild men of the hills. So the good guys are white and the bad guys are, erm... black.
This genetic determinism drives the plot in the most brutal manner. White men are good, "dark" men are bad, orcs are worst of all. While 10,000 orcs are massacred with a kind of Dungeons and Dragons version of biological warfare, the wild men left standing at the end of the battle are packed off back to their homes with nothing more than slapped wrists.
We also get a sneak preview of the army that's going to be representing the forces of darkness in part three. Guess what: "Dark faces... black eyes and long black hair, and gold rings in their ears... very cruel wicked men they look". They come from the east and the south. They wield scimitars and ride elephants.
Perhaps I'd better come right out and say it. The Lord of the Rings is racist. It is soaked in the logic that race determines behaviour. Orcs are bred to be bad, they have no choice. The evil wizard Saruman even tells us that they are screwed-up elves. Elves made bad by a kind of devilish genetic modification programme. They deserve no mercy.
To cap it all, the races that Tolkien has put on the side of evil are then given a rag-bag of non-white characteristics that could have been copied straight from a BNP leaflet. Dark, slant-eyed, swarthy, broad-faced - it's amazing he doesn't go the whole hog and give them a natural sense of rhythm.
Scratch the surface of Tolkien's world and you'll find a curiously 20th-century myth. Begun in the 1930s, published in the 1950s, it's shot through with the preoccupations and prejudices of its time. This is no clash of noble adversaries like the Iliad, no story of our common humanity like the Epic of Gilgamesh. It's a fake, a forgery, a dodgy copy. Strip away the archaic turns of phrase and you find a set of basic assumptions that are frankly unacceptable in 21st-century Britain.
But it's the same with The Attack of the Clones - I've got no choice. Maybe the fizzy pop will go to my head, maybe the Pearl and Dean music will be able to work its magic, but I'm worried that the popcorn is going to taste a bit wrong - I'm worried that childhood isn't going to be quite so much fun the second time around."
Are Lefties just genetically sour-puss negativists with little or no imagination? "Scratch the surface" of a Leftie and you find a bitter, frustrated person tilting at the windmill of life's "unfairness". Must suck to be this guy.............
Cabby
-
Liberals are better than the rest of us.
-
What does he mean by "Natural Sense of Rhythm"? Who is stereotyping now?
-
"it's shot through with the preoccupations and prejudices of its time"
This is a big surprise?
-
Orcs are elves who were captured by Morgoth, the first "Dark Lord." He tortured and ruined them physically in order to bend them to his will. In "The Hobbit" they are called goblins, and are never considered to be men, but a separate race entirely. The description of men from out of the south and east that the author of this article quoted came from the mouth of Gollum, who tended to speak of all fierce races in this manner. For instance, in one scene he speaks of the "...terrible elves with bright eyes."
Yep, sounds perfectly racist to me.
Shuckins
-
Originally posted by Apeboy
What does he mean by "Natural Sense of Rhythm"?
I wouldn't know as I sure don't have it ...
.. and I can't jump either :)
-
LOTR Racist? Of COURSE it's racist. ROFL!! Gee.. that might mean something if ORC's, GOBLINS AND OTHER FREEKIN CREATURES IN THE BOOK WERE REAL!!
hahah... what a bunch of dorks.
-
and he completely forgets to mention the fact that the overseer of the Uruk-Hai is Saruman the White. Clad in white, the Uruk-Hai carry the shield with the White Hand of Saruman on it... Saruman is the white master and the Uruk-Hai are his black slaves.
I can't believe he didn't use that as well. :p
Anyways, are dark colors associated with evil because of those of African descent or because people were afraid of the night? Think of just about any suspense or horror story/movie ever. They always take place at night, well the scariest parts. Hmm, so why would those using the cover of night to be evil wear light colors? Or if you're creating a race of warriors that mostly travel at night (I think until Saruman created the Uruk-hai, orcs/goblins feared the sun? I know the trolls in the Hobbit turned into stone in the sun, can't remember about orcs/goblins) why on middle-earth would you leave them fair and light skinned? The darker the skin, the better... the darker the clothes they wear, the better. We fear the night as humans. We associate evil with the night, and that means with the dark.
-
Hell... the title of the thread is enough for a chuckle... "the liberal left." Don't want to confuse them with the liberal right or the conservative left. :D
AFAIK, Tolkien didn't write the books as some sort of social commentary. It was written in the 30's. Still you can draw whatever whackjob conclusion you want.
Here's the spin on LOTR from the conservative-right :D. Anyone find it amazing that neither the extreme left nor the extreme right like this movie?
http://www.capalert.com/capreports/lordofrings_fellowship.htm
This movie is likely another maneuver to capitalize on the new found infatuation of visually oriented youth with bright and dazzling display of the occult, witchcraft and evil. It is another presentation of the "good" using evil to fight evil. And it presents sorcery as both "good" and evil. Violently. Grotesquely. While the story being based on "good" fighting evil using evil is bad enough, it is clear the filmmakers capitalized on extremism. Tolkien certainly described the evil and demonic characters in his novel quite grotesquely but not nearly as hideous and vile as those in this movie. After more than 500 movies I suspect I can say with credibility that any of the imagery of evil you have seen before now does not match the evil in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. And there are two more Lord of the Rings coming.
--
I am not going to try to debate the claims that Tolkien's Rings trilogy parallels shards of the Truth shattered from the Bible. Satan is very good at making the truth into a lie through the most innocent vehicles and by the least obvious methods. Nor am I going to try to debate the involvement of C. S. Lewis in Tolkien's life who placed the Gospel on the level of a myth in 1931 after a dinner with Tolkien:
"Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it Really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God's myth where the others are men's myths..."
-
In the 60's everyone thought it was an antiwar commentary, before that it was an alegory about Hitler. Tolkein always said it was neither.
-
Man the guy who wrote that is lame.
Didn't Tolkien say his world was NOT a metaphor?
-
the new movie has dwarf tossing in it too, !!
-
They un-sexist the book quite a bit for the movie..and they left out some of the real racist stuff..racial purity is a real Tolkien issue, The High men are sullied and weakend by breeding with the lesser men, Thats one of Aragorns big claim to faims..he is one of the only Racialy pure dunadain..
-
how often do you actually suppose that an hispanic, a black, an indian and a white guy all get together to watch monday night football or go to a burger joint?
from what i see in the real world, people are more inclined to just hang out with their own crowd even when they don't have to. yet every commercial i see always has one of every group represented. liberals want to force us into living their way whether we like it or not. if we don't they will whine and hold their breath til we change....
as for this load of crap article - i don't even know what to say....just more excuse making is all it is.
-
Originally posted by mrfish
how often do you actually suppose that an hispanic, a black, an indian and a white guy all get together to watch monday night football or go to a burger joint?
Have you ever heard of the Village People? :rolleyes:
-
Originally posted by Pongo
The High men are sullied and weakend by breeding with the lesser men, Thats one of Aragorns big claim to faims..he is one of the only Racialy pure dunadain..
You mean Aragorn the Half-Breed?
Dude, he's part elf.
-
Originally posted by Cabby44
So what?
I can find dozens of kooky right wing articles that claim Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter promote Satanic witchcraft.
-
Tolkien was on the Western Front during WW1 if I'm not mistaken. In the trenches. The bleak picture he drew of the dark world and those that inhabit it may have come from there. Not the racism arguement of the late 20th century.
I think it is a little bit of a stretch and a little too convient to have the story spun into a debate of the late 20th century.
-
Originally posted by Thrawn
You mean Aragorn the Half-Breed?
Dude, he's part elf.
WHAT??????
-
writer is a moron
this racism crap (where they try to figure out exactly how everything could be racist) is getting to be more retarded than political correctness...lets find him and put a 20mm hispano through his head
-
I have it on good authority that all white people are indeed racists, apparently it's because of their race.. :D
-
Did Cabby do another drive-by without sticking around to support his opinion of the article? Sheesh!
-
Originally posted by mrfish
how often do you actually suppose that an hispanic, a black, an indian and a white guy all get together to watch monday night football or go to a burger joint?
Not too often, but once there was a priest, a rabbi, and a minister playing golf. They walked up the fourth fairway, after each had hit into the lake....:)
-
Originally posted by midnight Target
WHAT??????
Yeah, he's part elf. When you see him in the movie he's supposed to be about 60 years old. Pretty well kept, eh?
-
LOL
you really should read tolkien thrawn..maybe more then the Hobbit..
-
Originally posted by Thrawn
Yeah, he's part elf. When you see him in the movie he's supposed to be about 60 years old. Pretty well kept, eh?
Me thinks this is Thrawn's new geek bait.
Misquoting LOTR will always raise the shackles of the true believers.
BTW Aragorn is not Elvish at all, but his chick is 3/4 elf. His great age is due to his unmixed Arian... er Dunadin blood.
-
Wait if Darth Vaders black (the blackest brother in the galaxy..Nubian god) and stormtroopers are white.........?????!?!?!?
Now I'm just confused...when I see Towers, I'll just have wait till Gríma Wormtongue says: Kill Whitey!
Tronsky
-
Great movies, even better books. Too bad these aformentioned handsomehunkes pens move faster than thier intellectually stunted brains.
Tolkien has generated one of the freshest intuitave and creative worlds the literary world has ever seen. I look at those who would tear it down as simply consumed by envy as they lack the creative skills to do the same, as well as just simple trolls looking for a moment in the spotlight as the cannot get there by their own merits.
fediddle 'em.
-
Are you kidding me? :rolleyes:
-
Interestingly though, Boromir is a Slavic name.
And names like Nazgul, Uruk-Hai, Barad-dur sound plain Turkish.
Slavic nations were the first to fight against Turks, since they were more to the East than others.
It probably means little, but Turks were known to take away young boys from occupied countries and train them for their army.
-
Hristo is right! You can thank the Croatians for the fact Europe is not under Turkish domination.. :D
-
This guy HAS to see "Chasing Amy":
Hooper X: For years in this industry, whenever an African American character, hero or villain, is introduced USUALLY by white artists, they got SLAPPED with racist names that singled them out as Negros! Now--my book, "White-Hating Coon", don't have any of that bull-s**t. The hero's name is Maleequa and he's descended from the black tribe that established the first society on the planet while all you European motherf**kers were all hiding out in caves n' s**t, terrified of the sun. He's a strong role-model that a young black reader can look up to. 'Cause I'm here to tell ya: the chickens are coming home to roost, y'all. The black man is no longer going to be playing the minstrel in the medium of comics and sci-fi fantasy. We're keeping it real! And we're going to get respect by any means necessary.
Holden (Ben Affleck): Ah, c'mon, that's a bunch of horse s**t! Lando Calrissian was a black guy, y'know, he got to fly the Millenium Falcon! What's the matter with you!
Hooper: Who said that?
Holden: [standing up] I did. Lando Calrissian is a positive role-model in the realm of science fiction fantasy.
Hooper: Hey, F**K Lando Calrissian! [Holden shrugs and sits down] Uncle-Tom ni**er, heh. It's always some white boy got to invoke the holy trinity. Bust this! Those movies are about how the white man keeps the brother-man down--even in a galaxy far far away. Check this s**t. You got cracker farmboy Luke Skywalker, Nazi poster boy blond hair blue eyes. Then you got Darth Vader, blackest brother in the galaxy. Nubian god!
Banky (Jason Lee): [standing up] What's a nubian?
Hooper: Shut the f**k up! [Banky sits down] Now. Vader, he's a spiritual brother, down with the force and all that good s**t. Then this cracker Skywalker gets his hands on a lightsaber, and the boy decides HE'S gonna run the whole f**king universe! Gets a whole KLAN of whites together and they go bust up Vader's hood, the Death Star! Now what the f**k do you call that?
Banky: Intergalatic civil war?
Hooper: Gentrification!! They gonna drive out the black element to make the galaxy quote-unquote safe for white folks! In "Jedi," the most insulting installment when Vader's beautiful black visage is SULLIED when he pulls off his mask to reveal a feeble, crusty old white man! They trying to tell us that deep inside, we all wants to be WHITE!!!
Banky: Well, isn't that true?
[Hooper grows furious, pulls out a gun, releases the safety, kicks over the podium and shoots Banky several times, and Banky falls, clutching his chest. All the other audience members (excluding Holden) scatter screaming as...
Hooper: [shooting into the air]: Black rage!!! Black rage!!! I'll kill all the white folks I lay my motherf**kin' eyes on!!
-
All Numenorians are half breeds.
Aragorn gets his elvish blood from Beren and Luthian (elf).
To paraphrase the Silmarillion. Beren and Luthian had two sons. They were given the choice between a mortal life or a immortal (elven) life. One son name was Elrond chose an immortal (elven) life. Elrond's brother chose the mortal life and started the race of Numenor.