The 'Racist' Tapestry of LotR

[kirinke]

lol

in all of the polls and such in which they need a 'racial' break-down u know, caucasion etc and at the end they put down other:______
i always go the the other thing and write down 'human'
cuz in this day an age with the multi-cultural thing goin on, we're alll mutts.
and i'm darn proud of my junk-yard dogism. ^_^

 

[Templetroll]

Yet, strangely, no one complains that all the bad guys in A New Hope were all white, British men, even Vader (his voice may have been portrayed by James Earl Jones, but his body was provided by British David Prowse).

From what I recall hearing the reason they got an American voice for Vader was because they realized all the Empire villians all had British accents. Had some uncomfortable overtones to that.

So, do you think James Earl Jones will cameo Vader's voice in Episode III ? That at least would be something worth going for other than Natalie Portman.

 

[Hypersmurf]

From what I recall hearing the reason they got an American voice for Vader was because they realized all the Empire villians all had British accents. Had some uncomfortable overtones to that.

I always assumed it was deliberate, just for consistency.

-Hyp.

 

[Chain Lightning]

Off the top of my head? Zero.

Guess I haven't seen as many movies as you.

Possible. I do watch a ton of movies. Probably too much. I could go to IMDB and start a list of all the movies that do this.....but I'm too lazy at the moment. Plus the debate isn't important enough for me to go spending that much free time to trying to prove my point.

Bah.

For the last decade or so, Hollywood has been extremely reluctant to portray arabs as bad guys. Take The Sum of All Fears, for example. In the novel, the terrorists were Islamic fundies. In the movie, Hollywood decided to politically-correct it and turn the bad guys into rich white male neo-fascists. Because in this day and age, the only inoffensive bad guys are space aliens and white people.

Even movies that have arab villains such as The Siege and True Lies often include at least one good guy arab.

A good villain should be judged not by race or gender, but by the evilness within.

I agree.

But just to clarify my point......I wasn't judging equality and fair portrayal on how many times a race is made a bad guy or a good guy. I judge it on how they're characters are written. An accurate non-offensive ethnic portrayal can still be one from a 'bad guy'....so long as its done correctly. So long as the character's reasons from doing his/her evil actions are realistic.

However, it is true...along side accurate portrayals, realistic or not....some ethnic groups seek diversity as well. Its not that they hate it when they see someone from their ethnic group being a bad guy. The regular guy from that ethnic group doesn't mind that at all. Its just that they want one playing a good guy every now and then too. That's all. I find this to be one of the most misunderstood complaints. Then usually someone who is having problems empathizing with them comes along and scoffs at the validity of their complaints. You really have to look at it from their point of view.

I will give the entertainment industry one positive comment. They are getting better. It is mosty an offensive thing from older films. Mostly the 80's. However, I should've clarified my original complaint against them by saying, "although they have been getting better over the years, they still have a ways to go."

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Just to bring this sucker back to topic:

From the article:

Can you imagine how people of skin color, of Persian, Arab and East Asian ethnic background feel when they come out of these films where all the heroes are white and all the "evil doers" are of dark skin.

I can imagine their first feeling (if they're anything like me) is an intense need to hit the bathroom. Their next thought is, Holy Crap, Legolas killed that oliphant BY HIMSELF!

Because, yeah, not every "person of skin color" goes to movies and plays Spot the Minority.

Being married to an Asian American I watch people disregard my wife everyday while regarding me, simply because of her skin color.

Or maybe because she's a woman and people automatically assume it's the man they should be talking to. I think that's a lot worse than a racial stereotype.

Being part of a European family that has lived on the North American continent for 400 years I've been lucky enough to gain perspective that when you create an evil character (Uruk-hai) that resembles native Americans as they have done in the Lord of the Rings films a great deal of cultural and racial alienation will occur.

Uhhhh, how does being a white guy dating back 400 years (I'd like to see his paperwork on that, please) grant him some unique perspective on the plight of the Native American? Weren't those guys the ones who screwed them over in the first place? I guess that's a perspective. Oh, and if he thinks they look or act like Uruk-hai, maybe he should try MEETING one before he decides to champion them.

I am sure that once the filmmakers read this article

I'm sure once Peter Jackson's done counting his money and polishing up his acceptance speeches, he'll get around to reading this guy. I hear he's just kicking himself that he hasn't gotten around to reading every internet article that comes up on a Google search for "LotR AND Freemason conspiracy".

In fact allEurope's mathematics, reading and writing and technological advancements in transportation and warfare are allbased on African and Asian concepts. The reason that Western medicine has not advanced to the enlightened technological level as Chinese herbal medicine and why most Western technology is diametrically opposed to all life on this planet, poisoning our air and water and causing widespread disease and death is for the simple fact that the Freemasons and the Church have not yet let go of the death grip they have on each other's throats.

And the award for Run-On Sentences that Start Off with Fashionable Bashing of Western Cultures and Devolve into Gonzo anti-Catholic Rantings goes to...

It would not have been that difficult to make a contemporary version of the Lord of the Rings that included the heroic symbols of people of skin color.

I can see it now...elf and man locked in mortal combat with the Uruk-hai when, at first light on the fifth day, Aragorn casts his eyes look up to see...Tonto, Bruce Lee and Shaft appear!

Filmmakers: "Huzzah! We've pleased everyone!"

After watching the Lord of the Rings films I thank the universe and Mother Earth for the Rap/hip-hop culture and the counterbalancing influence the Rap/hip-hop culture has on the youth here in America and around the world.

...And who can forget the time people of all races, creeds and colors came together as one, linked their hands, and sang:

I like big butts and I cannot lie...

 

[Dark Jezter]

Bravo, Terrasque Wrangler!

Mike Nelson, Crow T. Robot, and Tom Servo couldn't have done a better point-by-point rebuttal of that article.

 

[Oubliette]

in all of the polls and such in which they need a 'racial' break-down u know, caucasion etc and at the end they put down other:______
i always go the the other thing and write down 'human'
cuz in this day an age with the multi-cultural thing goin on, we're alll mutts.
and i'm darn proud of my junk-yard dogism. ^_^

Hybrid vigor all the way, brother (or sister?)

 

[Numion]

About the only thing in common between native americans and the movie Uruk-Hai is that they both use war paint on their face. I'm no expert, but even those aren't very similar.

 

[WizarDru]

Oh, it's true, alright. I never bothered to watch it as it was pretty boring (they took out all the magic and watered down the action), so I never found out if the black knight was really supposed to be The Black Knight. I'm serious, would anyone be surprised if he was actually called that?

I'm still stunned that they took out the magic. It's a cartoon! You could do some great stuff with magic! The reason they axed it was because the producers said they wanted to stress realism...so they included a black guy...in King Aurther's court. Look out for all that realism!

Well, I thing you're lacking perspective on that one. You need to consider who produced Prince Valiant. The Family Channel, in it's original incarnation (i.e. Pat Robertson and friends) produced the show. Hence, there could be no magic, few if any fantastic elements, very little violence and they sometimes went way out of their way to try and be politically correct. A classic example is the episode with the thinly vieled 'children shouldn't play with gu....err, crossbows' plot. Pity, that.

However, the idea of a black knight is not on the list of political correct mistakes, per se. Prince Valiant's cartoon was, because they didn't use the actual members of the Round Table who were black (or Moors, technically), but instead invented one...showing that they really weren't that aware of the source material at all. The knight Pallamedes, a companion to Sir Tristam supposedly named for the figure from Greek mythology, was clearly defined as being black and a moor, being the only knight to carry two swords (as he was ambidextrous). So too was Sir Morien, the literal Black Knight, who once fought Lancelot, saves Gawain and then goes on to join the Round Table.

Oh, and ss for James Earl Jones, he mentioned that he'd be doing about 5 minutes worth of dialogue for the end of Episode III at a public speaking event back in January of 2003.

 

[Atridis]

I'm always dismayed by articles such as that one because they take away from genuine complaints, a sort of guilt-by-association. It's easy for us to get annoyed by something like this and disregard all cries of racism as hysterics or paranoia, but I feel it's my personal responsibility to not allow myself that luxury.

imho, Hollywood is guilty of racism*, but I don't think LOTR is the right ground on which to make the point. furthermore, this author brings WAY too much into his article. for his own sake, I would have advised him to narrow his focus, and to be sure of the "facts" that he cites. a published article, regardless of the forum, should be a little more thoughtful than this.

lastly, I think this complaint has too often been misdirected: the problem, in my view, is not that there are too many non-white villains but that there are not enough non-white heroes. I was knocked over by the people who complained that "Saving Pvt Ryan" didn't reflect the experiences of Black soldiers in World War Two. well, duh!! the problem was not "Saving Pvt Ryan", the problem was the lack of movies about Black servicemen in WWII (such as "The Tuskeegee Airmen", a fun movie if you've never seen it).


* in the year following Halle Berry's "breakthrough", 3 of 25 nominees for major individual Academy Awards were non-white (Salma Hayek, Queen Latifah, and Pedro Almodovar). of this year's Golden Globe Awards nominees, 1 of 27 is non-white (Ken Watanabe). I think it was either Denzel Washington or Samuel L. Jackson who, when asked about the awards given to Washington and Berry, said "I'll consider it progress when it's no longer such a big deal."