Shapiro's slanderous rubbish

[Elvellon]

Have any one read This?


Such ignorance and arrogance!, if this weren’t a slander it would be laughable.

[Elfhelm]

He was born in Africa. He opposed racism.

Orcs represent people who hate life and want to rip down forests to make war machines. They are ugly because their hateful insides can not be hidden.

The compassion that the dwarf Gimli and the elf Legolas learn to feel for each other is a LESSON IN TOLERANCE! Anyone who thinks he as a writer prefered dwarves to elves is blind. In the story of these two we learn that if we can come to understand a different race if we can learn to see what they see as beauty - The glittering Caverns and Fangorn Forest.

Black people live further to the south. They are not "represented" by goblins. They don't figure into the war.

[Erawyn]

I actually can undersatnd where this guy is coming from, although I don't think that Tolkien was racist. Far from it as I agree with the whole Gimli/Legolas thing as sort of proof that he wasn't.
Sor ot off topic, but I think that if the guy was talking about the Narnia books he would be right.

[Lanelf]

Are those people drunk or just stupid?
The whole article is based on particular races being evil. Yet Tolkien makes it clear that no race, no person is safe from the greatest Evil of all, the Ring. If the Fellowship is "Uber-Aryan" and is meant to be the embodyment of good, then how come they're still corruptible? It just doesn't make sense...
Lanelf.

[Beleg Strongbow]

That's just sheer rubbish. Tolkien makes it very clear that the only evil is those who plot to cover the world in darkness. How about Saruman, who's white as can be on the outside and evil as can be on the inside?

[Dunadan]

The academic claimed: "Put simply, Tolkien’s good guys are white and the bad guys are black, slant-eyed, unattractive, inarticulate and a psychologically undeveloped horde."

I thought that about Tolkien from the first time I read it. You can add the abundant stuff about "pure blood" for good measure.

Indeed, I've considered posting a thread on it but can't be bothered searching through all the other threads to see what's already been said.

There's lots of ways you can think about it:
1 it's an extension of the simple "light=good, dark=evil" metaphor which is used throughout;
2 it reflects a deeply conservative, reactionary and racist world-view;
3 it's political correctness gone mad;
4 it's today's commentators and academics putting a 2002 context onto a 1950s book which was originally intended to be absolutely removed from the real world;
5 it's just a story, for god's sake get a life.

Others might like to add other possible interpretations.

Here are my thoughts, for what they're worth:
1 - this is probably the original intention by JRRT. Note that even "good" peoples could be corrupted by (original) sin (Morgoth). It doesn't explain other aspects of racial purity, though again these could be metaphors (dilution of dignity, etc.)

2 - there may well be a bit of this, but the only way of finding out would be to talk to the man, or to those who knew him. They seem to be of the view that JRRT hated racism and I think we have to take their word for it.

3 - Definitely a bit of that going on here. And/or some obscure academic trying to get his name in the papers on the back of the high profile of LOTR.

4 - I think it's valid to critique works like LOTR in this way. Questioning the assumptions and motives which underly art is part of what makes life enjoyable and interesting. One sign of truly great art is that it still stands up to this kind of scrutiny in a modern context (e.g. Shakespeare). However, you always have to remember what you're superimposing on it and what's emerging from the source. This is a case of the former.

One test would be to examine whether anyone else perceives it as racist, particularly the people who are supposed to be being stereotyped. Just because some white, middle class professional thinks it's offensive to other cultures, doesn't mean it actually is. As a Scotsman, I can confirm that I do not and have never felt discriminated against by association with Gimli.


5 - That's what I used to think: that it was a completely separate world, created in painstaking detail without reference to ours. However, I've since discovered this is not the case: Rian educated me on another thread that Eru = Christian God, for example. Now I'm more inclined to believe that there were aspects of the story which are intended to reflect our world, and therefore, maybe, there are things which unintentionally reflect the author's disposition.

[Falagar]

There was good "swarty" men, in the beginning.
Oh, and Gondor fought a sivil war over racism (sort of), and the good side won...

[Beleg Strongbow]

I think that defeating this racist argument entirely is one of Tolkien's main messages.

No matter how small a character is [or, by inference, how foreign or whatever] they can still make a difference.

[Cirdan]

The article is just a cynical calcuated bid for attention at the time the movie is coming out.

[Millane]

ohhh i think people are just finding things to pick **** at... if the fellowship had all been built like the Elves then he'd be complaining about large peoples rights but they cant coz gimli and boromir and sam are there and there stout well built fellows.
if eowyn didnt kill the witchking well the mob would be out screaming EQUAL RIGHTS!!!.
this is a book about good vs evil two themes that are commonly symbolosed through light and dark... it is also natural the elves were born into darkness with the stars around them the orcs who were basically ruined elves had the elves properties twisted around hence there darker skin...
didnt tolkiens dwarves come from norse mythology i assumed they did because they were short and stout and were said to be great smiths and craftsmen (scots???)
anyways i agree with cirdan he is just finding something to write an article about coz the movie is out (not in aust. yet!!!!!)

[Wayfarer]

I agree with everything he says.

I also think that tolkien was predjudiced against people with only one eye (like sauron) or have white hands and manicured nails (like saruman)

Oh, and I think the entire main plot represents his fanatic belief that men wearing jewelry is profane.

]: )

[markedel]

Interestingly Tolkien was passionately anti-Nazi at a time when much of the British upper-class was at least mildly pro-fascist.

[samwiselvr2008]

Yup, I read that. I tried to reply to the guy that published (if that is the right word) the artical, but I couldn't, because after writing a verry long letter to him, it was sent back to me, because the email adress that was supposed to be his did not exsist. (That was a couple of days ago.)

All though in ROTK, it says that two of the orks were black, I don't think that Tolkien wrote that to afend anyone. Before I read any articles what-so-ever on LOTR being racist, I thought that one of the main themes of the book was to look at the personality's of others, not what they looked like, or what race they are (meaning what country they came from). I never felt that Tolkien had spent years creating a story to make fun of someone who was not black. I don't think that Tolkien would have cared what color anyone was: white, black, red, brown, pink, purple, orange, I don't think that he thinks any one person is better then another, because they look evil.

You also have to remember that even if the orks in one place where labled as black, that at the end of ROTK, all of the orks (or most of them) turned good, and were exsepted in Gondor, if I am remembering correctly!

I think that the main resone why people might think this is becuase of the "black riders," but that is a statement made by the unegacated, because the "black riders" were really Nazgul, and ones white men, who are now invisable, not black. I think that the reason for any evil charicter being black would be for scaring the reader. I don't know about you, but I admit that I was scared of the "blackness" of night when I was little, and sometimes, I still am. The reason is because the "blackness" of dark brings unknown things, unless you new, then anything could have been under the black clokes of the Nazgul.

Oh well, it is a question that I like, because I am 100% agianst racisom of any kind, and it was a good question to ponder on. For a while, articles like these made me sit and wonder if he was, but then I thought up all of these things, and rememberd back to the time when I had first read the book, and was trying to think up all of the diffrent possable themes, and that "don't judge and book by its cover" was one of them (or, you could say "don't judge a men by his color")!

[zavron]

He probably hasn't even read the books! To me that appeared as if he was the Racist, pointing out small things and making them into something completely different to start a dispute!!!

[Elf Girl]

Some people are just looking for a fight, aren't they?

[TinuvielChild]

Needs to remove his head from his arse and join the LotR-addicted. That would be good for him. *Nods sagely*

[Amandil]

If anyone's got a copy of the Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien handy, rustle up the stats on the Prof's letter to the Nazis, where he gives them scheisse for reading Aryanism into his work (alluded to above by markedel and samwiselvr2008).

Sor ot off topic, but I think that if the guy was talking about the Narnia books he would be right.

Yes off topic, but here I go. Lewis' portrayal of the "foreign" countries is not at all easily stamped as "racist' or whatever loaded term you want to use. Archenland was a staunch ally of Narnia, for one. Calormen wasn't all bad, either. If Lewis was as bad as this Dr. Shapiro thinks Tolkien is, then why would Lewis trumpet the romance and marriage of Aravis and Cor (the Horse and His Boy)? Aravis was hot, man. Lewis even confuses naive Christians with Aslan's acceptance of a devoted Calormene worshiper of their god Tash (the Last Battle). The baddies in Prince Caspian, the Magician's Nephew and the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe all come from EUROPE. I really don't think that the Chronicles of Narnia succumb to a criticism like Shapiro's, Erawyn.

It's an interesting, thing, though, the fact that we tend to fight with our neighbours, and our neighbours often look different (etc.) from us. If you're wanting to write a book on an archetype taken from world history, that's a safe bet. I wonder if other cultures/races write stories that run on the general assumption that the different cultures/races next door are the ones they go to war with? If they don't, then something is sincerely fart-knockered up with us palefaces.

[Arathorn]

My favorite comment on this thread:

The article is just a cynical calcuated bid for attention at the time the movie is coming out.

...although the others were hilariously inventive.

Being multi-racial southeast-asians, all we can do here in Manila is shrug, buy new copies from Harper Collins, and watch TTT at least twice.

[diannah]

In any other case I would try to find a better word, but I wouldn't grace this load of the garbage and somewhat the worser side of the human mind, with searching my exstensive vocabulary--in a word, this Shapiro is nothing but a pile of horse s*** with feet and his column just mirrors it. I have learned to take Tolkien's work at face value. I try to find no inner meaning (other than the humorous) and no interior motives to his writing these wonderful works. Other thoughts to back him up (though this great man, though deceased does not need me to back him up--I am doing this for my own point), Tolkien was creating another world. Now unless you favor the Teletubies and the like, all things in this new world is not going to be nicey-nicey. Some parts are going to be lovely but others not. That's how life is. That's the mindset most people put themselves in (at least me) when they read or write fantasy. It's a whole new world, not akin to ours, in some places it may mimick ours thats to be expected because our soceity is one example that has an impact on human life and it may hint in the written works. But thats no reason to say Tolkien is a racist! We have certainly gone mad or stir-crazy when we need to tear down the greatest work of our time.

[TinuvielChild]

Originally posted by diannah
In any other case I would try to find a better word, but I wouldn't grace this load of the garbage and somewhat the worser side of the human mind, with searching my exstensive vocabulary--in a word, this Shapiro is nothing but a pile of horse s*** with feet and his column just mirrors it. I have learned to take Tolkien's work at face value. I try to find no inner meaning (other than the humorous) and no interior motives to his writing these wonderful works. Other thoughts to back him up (though this great man, though deceased does not need me to back him up--I am doing this for my own point), Tolkien was creating another world. Now unless you favor the Teletubies and the like, all things in this new world is not going to be nicey-nicey. Some parts are going to be lovely but others not. That's how life is. That's the mindset most people put themselves in (at least me) when they read or write fantasy. It's a whole new world, not akin to ours, in some places it may mimick ours thats to be expected because our soceity is one example that has an impact on human life and it may hint in the written works. But thats no reason to say Tolkien is a racist! We have certainly gone mad or stir-crazy when we need to tear down the greatest work of our time.

Hear, hear!