I'm sorry if this has been discussed to death before, or if there's a thread already on it (if there is I couldn't find it via search), but watching through the Trilogy now on Blu-ray, one of my favourite trilogies ever I might add, I can't help but think the trilogy really does have a racist undertone despite what defence I may have initially granted the film.
It's not that there aren't White guys that are bad. It's that there aren't any good guys that are Black, even Brown, not that I've noticed so far anyway. And the bad guys? Predominantly Black (build, faces, dreadlocks etc), Arab (turban wearing brown skinned, riding elephants etc) and so forth. It's literally like in casting they said, only obviously fair typically White people for the good guys, and aside from a few White traitors and people you won't know are White because of hair and make-up, mainly Arabs, Asians and Blacks for the bad guys. Then there's the constant "Men of the West" and similar comments which almost sound like they could come from Dubya himself (films releases were after all around the time of the invasion).
I'm finding it almost impossible to defend against the whole argument in favour of it. Yes it's based in fiction, and Middle Earth doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean it can't be racist. Any tale, story or novel can have racist undertones, often just in language alone. But in LotR I feel it's altogether more obvious than that, going beyond the boundaries of mere language and in to imagery and casting as well.
Now there's the recent drama about how a casting Agent from "The Hobbit" was fired for telling a Pakistani girl she wouldn't be cast for a role as a Hobbit because she wasn't "pale-skinned" enough. Kind of emphasises what many already feared.
Whilst the main characters may have been described as White in the books themselves, hence why I'm not saying Aaragon, Legolas etc should have been of a different colour. But there was nothing in the Novels as far as I could tell that stated not a single one of the thousands or hundreds of thousands of good Rohans, Elves, Drawrfs, Hobbits or Gondorians were Black or Brown. Which is why I'm perplexed not a single one exists in the Trilogy. It's not like they don't exists in the Trilogy at all mind, they do, just not as a single one of the good guys.
What are your thoughts?
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It's not that there aren't White guys that are bad. It's that there aren't any good guys that are Black, even Brown, not that I've noticed so far anyway. And the bad guys? Predominantly Black (build, faces, dreadlocks etc), Arab (turban wearing brown skinned, riding elephants etc) and so forth. It's literally like in casting they said, only obviously fair typically White people for the good guys, and aside from a few White traitors and people you won't know are White because of hair and make-up, mainly Arabs, Asians and Blacks for the bad guys. Then there's the constant "Men of the West" and similar comments which almost sound like they could come from Dubya himself (films releases were after all around the time of the invasion).
I'm finding it almost impossible to defend against the whole argument in favour of it. Yes it's based in fiction, and Middle Earth doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean it can't be racist. Any tale, story or novel can have racist undertones, often just in language alone. But in LotR I feel it's altogether more obvious than that, going beyond the boundaries of mere language and in to imagery and casting as well.
Now there's the recent drama about how a casting Agent from "The Hobbit" was fired for telling a Pakistani girl she wouldn't be cast for a role as a Hobbit because she wasn't "pale-skinned" enough. Kind of emphasises what many already feared.
Whilst the main characters may have been described as White in the books themselves, hence why I'm not saying Aaragon, Legolas etc should have been of a different colour. But there was nothing in the Novels as far as I could tell that stated not a single one of the thousands or hundreds of thousands of good Rohans, Elves, Drawrfs, Hobbits or Gondorians were Black or Brown. Which is why I'm perplexed not a single one exists in the Trilogy. It's not like they don't exists in the Trilogy at all mind, they do, just not as a single one of the good guys.
What are your thoughts?
.
