Lord of the Rings Racist!!!

[Sir Taliesin]

Yeap! Here is what this guy's got to say! Racist!


Here is the article in it's entirity.

The Racist Tapestry of Lord of the Rings !

By Lloyd Hart

I don't imagine that it was the intention of the director or the producers of the Lord of the Rings films to paint a racist stereotypical tapestry over what could be described as a basic set of principles of humanity's behavior in the natural environment and with each other. However, the fact is that the only people of skin color in the entire three part series of films are all associated with the Dark Lord Sauron, the destruction of the earth and all of its occupants. Not to mention the elephant riding mercenaries that resemble the cultures of the Arab world as well as Africa, Persia and East Asia and the fact that the Monarch of the land of Rohan, King Théoden a white guy yelled out "You great warriors of the West" in the final part of his speech to rouse the troops into battle in the third film.

In these times when a homicidal maniac from Texas (the Texas capital punishment policy under Bush) has stolen the American throne and called for a "crusade" against the "evil doers" in nations that white people have been invading, terrorizing, raping and pillaging in for 5000 years with zero provocation, I think we could manage some cultural sensitivity in our popular culture which one must acknowledge has a powerful propaganda affect on the general population that participates in it.

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

I am sure that once the filmmakers read this article there will be claims that they had to stay true to the story that J. R. R. Tolkien wrote, but the fact is, African and Asian cultures have always been a part of the European fabric whose ancient legends and fairy tales gave birth to J. R. R. Tolkien's epic portrayal of the battle between good and evil. And what about the Ancient Picts, a tattooed darker skinned cultured that once dominant in the UK. As someone who has grown up in one of the nation's of the Commonwealth of the British Empire, I know for a fact that J. R. R. Tolkien's generation were deeply influenced and thus deeply moved by all those people of skin color that fought alongside white members of the British forces in World War One and World War Two forming lifelong friendships and deep emotional ties.

In fact all Europe's mathematics, reading and writing and technological advancements in transportation and warfare are all based 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. In other words, the enlightened knowledge that the church has attempted to destroy that the Freemasons attempted to save and capitalize on with Western patents has turned into a death struggle that has created destructive technological paradigms here in the West that are now being forced on the populations of the entire earth destabilizing life and bringing with them the pollution of the air and water that once existed only in Christendom.

Of course there are redeeming images and ideas portrayed in the films such as the Ents protecting the forests by destroying the industrial military complex as well as the fact that white people can be turned to evil to join forces with all the evil dark skinned man flesh eating Orcs and Uruk-hai.

It is important to understand that young people are impressionable and influenced by the symbols foisted on them by the popular culture. 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 think J.R.R. Tolkien wouldn't have minded including people of skin color as heros in these films if he were alive today. Especially after witnessing the rise of the civil rights movements in both the U.S. and the U.K.. I'm so glad that the Dwarfs, Elves and Hobits finally got their due but unfortunately this was washed away by the lack of heroic images of people of skin color. 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.

indymedia.org

What a load of crap! READ the book you F@#$ing moron! Why is it, people feel like everything has to be some sort of political statement about something?

[ 12-29-2003, 12:17 PM: Message edited by: Sir Taliesin ]

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Well, let's see....he manages to maliciously attack President Bush, America, whites, Christians, Freemasons, and industrial technology (and perhaps more - I may have missed one or two).

At the same time he bemoans the victimization of Arabs, Africans, Persians, East Asians, Native Americans, and {of course} African Americans.

I suppose in his "contemporary version", Aragorn should have been black, Gandalf should have been a shaman, and the Riders of Rohirrim should have been Arabian. OH...and of course Sauron would be portrayed as a rich, white corporate CEO and Jerry Falwell would have replaced the Witch King.

You know, it must really be sad to go to a movie such as ANY of the LOTR trilogy and not be able to enjoy it because it doesn't meet your a specific quota of political correctness. [img]graemlins/dontknowaboutyou.gif[/img]

I also think it is ironic that this guy wails against the lack of PC figures in the LOTR series because of the influence that popular culture has on impressionable young minds and he then hails rap/hip hop as a model of positive influence. Yet the fact is that "gangsta rap" has been accused more often than any type of music for having a "negative influence" - but the rebuttal from the music industry has always been that the popular culture does NOT have as big an impact on impressionable minds as their opponents would have you think.

So which is it? Do the movies, music, and TV shows have an impact on the kids that listen and watch them or don't they? The answer seems to be dependent on which side of the argument your on, and it also seems to shift as needed when examples of negative influences need to be either spotlighted or downplayed.

[Dreamer128]

Is this meant to be taken seriously?

[johnny]

Wow, what a lively imagination. I gotta find out where that guy buys his acid.

Hey Cerek, ...that might make an interesting movie [img]smile.gif[/img] heheheh Rich White CEO with the Oil Ring of Power and Jerry Fallwell riding a hippopautomus as a "olive drab" rider as opposed to the racist color maligning Black Riders.

You know..come to think about it..when I saw RotK we sat with an african american college kid and his "homies", they didn't seem to take any offense and were whooping and cheering along with the rest of us melenin challenged peeps......

[ 12-29-2003, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Yorick]

I'm just thankful that the movie wasn't made to pander to American political correctness, and it's hypersensitivity to matters of race, (both positive and negative infatuation with racial delineation). LoTR is outside American domestic problems and the pathetic attempts to rebalance it by enforcing political corectness into artistic expression.

Nothing would have reeked more of tokenistic overcompensation than for Morgan Freeman to play an oathbound former Corsair from the south trailing beside Aragorn (played by a dick unable to do an English accent); simply to have a person of colour to silence moronic criticism like this.

WWI is not middle Earth. No the Picts were not Congolese. Yes racism exists, but YES the New World is largely responsible, where people were taken from climactic extremes and placed alongside each other, so the gradual increments were replaced by marked en masse differences. Tolkien was not American. Tolkien looked to Teutonic myths. "The East" was the source of countless invasive nomadic hordes for generations. Hun, Magyar, Bulgar, Mongol, Tartar.

People get so hung up with inoffensive bullcrap, they attempt to silence representations and echo's of truth. The truth IS offensive. Middle Earth is NOT heaven anymore than Earth is.

[The Hierophant]

Just ignore him. The more exposure that this Lloyd Hart's work is given (and pieces like it), the longer the invented problems of racial {in)equality will play out in people's minds.

[Davros]

My response to the article is

BOLLOCKS .

Tolkien wrote a series that predated all this political correctness crap that we stifle ourselves with today. Putting in token actors of various races that didn't fit the book would have totally sucked. Like Ray, I didn't see anybody (of any race or colour) muttering this type of inane racist twaddle as they watched or left the movie. All the faces I saw were glowing with enthusiasm and contentment.

Political correctness is a curse of today's times. I was just as glad that Jackson didn't bow to the wacky political correctness police who petitioned him to change the title of The Twin Towers because of 9/11. Sure it was a very sensitive issue, but the title was selected 60 years ago and the lunatic fringe should not have been insisting on a change just because of a coincidence (although it was a very sad one and the relative timing was unfortunate).

[Djinn Raffo]

Well that settles it then. I refuse to watch these movies!

[Link]

Originally posted by Djinn Raffo: Well that settles it then. I refuse to watch these movies!

You racist! You deny credit to honest white people! [img]tongue.gif[/img]