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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mark Chance" data-source="post: 1294791" data-attributes="member: 2795">This can still be the result of ducking real issues. A lot of those offensive ethnic portrayals are based very much in reality. There are offensive ethnic "subtypes" (for lack of a better word) out there. For me, the key is whether such offensive ethnic "subtypes" are portrayed in a cause-effect manner, such as "Sayd is a terrorist because he is Arab." Using ethnicity as the cause for aberrant behavior is, at least, a sign of lazy writing. To use an example that hits close to home for me, there are very real reasons why about 3/4 of Hispanic students in Houston, Texas, do not finish high school. There are very real reasons why huffing paint is on the rise among Hispanic teenagers. There are very real reasons why Houston, Texas, has some profoundly violent gangs, many of which are Hispanic (and few of which are white).But none of those reasons are because the kids involved are Hispanic.This cuts both ways. Someone cited Denzel Washington and/or Samuel L. Jackson as saying he'll be happy (or whatever) when it isn't such big news that an African-American is nominated for an award such as an Oscar. The assumption is that larger numbers of African-Americans (or Hispanics or Asians or whomever) aren't nominated because Hollywood is racist. This begs the question. It might be that, for example, fewer African-Americans are nominated for Oscars because there are fewer exceptional African-American actors, screenwriters, directors, et cetera. I'm not saying this is the case, mind you. It's not like I've done an exhaustive study on the subject, but too often people (such as an actor) ascribe false motives to others (such as the Academy) because they mistake their perception for reality.But, more to the point, anyone who reads LotR as a racist allegory is a bonehead. Tolkein himself was quite clear that his work is not an allegory, that he, in fact, disliked allegory as a device in fiction. What's more, to the extent that LotR is at least analogical, it is largely a Catholic Christian analogy, another point that Tolkein was rather clear about.</blockquote>

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