Is JRR Tolkien racist?

There is no proof of this, freemason, only speculation. If you look closesly, the "southerons" are portrayed by people of arabic descent in the Two Towers.

What are you talking about? I'm talking about the books, in the Books they were "Blacks" from the south.

Plain and simple.

Tolkien's books mirror what we'd consider "racial structures" but in reality it was written as if from the view point of a Norseman.

The world was full of great good, and great evil...the world was ancient and impossible to fathom, but yet very human (represented by the elves).

And beyond their lands, were many strange things, such as the Southerons and the "Oliphants" which were just elephants and even called such in the movie.

There is no trace of racism in it at all.

It's mainly about thinking for yourself while doing what's expected of you.

Come on give us a break. How can you be considered racist when you are writing a fantasy with hardly any humans in it? Or where there is no text to suggest that he voiced any racist comments in his books, so he is silent on the topic. He wrote the books in the 30's in rural england, for his kids, the topic of racism wouldn't even have been an issue to him.


This is just stupid.

Originally posted by surfup
Is JRR TOLKIEN - Lord of the Rings author racist? Last night when I was watching the movie, I noticed that everyone was white. There wasn't one Black guy!! Maybe it was just coincidence. I am just trying to clarify a doubt, not accusing anybody of anything.

gg, FM

Just a question:

Are you sure you have the ethnic mix right for the guys you are talking about in LOTR: Two Towers?

Filmed in Aotearoa (NZ).

Were there really Arabic people in the cast, or Maoris and Polynesians?

I've only seen it once, interested to check. Arabic would surprise me a little.

I wonder if anyone even bothered to look on J.R.R Tolkein's letters to the Nazis?

MA I still stand by the statement that the southerons in the Two Towers were Whites...though some Arabs can look fairly white But they were wearing those black masks and you only saw their black painted eyes....probably a bunch of New Zealanders used as extras lol

They were garbed in the manner of egyptians, note the eye makeup. In any event, this is semantic. No where in any part of the trilogy does he refer to saurons minions as "blacks". He refers to them as swarthy, but never a specific race.

FM

Yes a cast of thousands of extras, including no doubt members of this Board.

I suspect the majority of the more heavily muscled guys would be Maori and Polynesian extraction as most NZ men are wimps. (Apologies to maddas and NC). I will have to watch it again some time.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) was a major scholar of the English language

Rather than asking the question if JRR Tolkien was a rascist, one might ask if the producers of the motion picture were racist since as you can see above that Tolkien had little to do with the movie (unless the producers were using channelers). Also would it not be just as racsit to cast a minority in a motion picture when that minority would not normally be present?

jag

I can guarantee that Peter Jackson is not a racist.

He is a fine craftsman.

To the extent that he employed different kinds of people to take on roles that had some element of 'ethnicity' in the original storylines, he would have stuck closely to the physical portrayal in the narrative I think.

I will look at this with a renewed interest. I confess, though, I have never had a desire to read the century's most popular book trology.

Originally posted by surfup
Is JRR TOLKIEN - Lord of the Rings author racist? Last night when I was watching the movie, I noticed that everyone was white. There wasn't one Black guy!! Maybe it was just coincidence. I am just trying to clarify a doubt, not accusing anybody of anything.

Thats the same for Saving Private Ryan did you notice
that there wasn't one black soldier in the movie.

It has been a long time since reading the Tokien triology, but personally I always thought that the "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever" by Stephen R. Donaldson were better.

goregrinder the Southerons were black, and are not referred to as Sauron's Minions but rather as "Peoples who live under Sauron's shadow and therefore consider him their master" which rather implies that they simply have no choice but to serve him, as there is no one to fight him in their lands, and they are not strong enough.

Originally posted by jagdflieger
It has been a long time since reading the Tokien triology, but personally I always thought that the "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever" by Stephen R. Donaldson were better.

Half-hand was a sorry, constantly complaining whimp.

Donaldson's series started strong, but ended poorly... while the ring trilogy had a solodly constructed prologue, beginning, middle, and end.

Now, Elric of Melnibone... that was a saga!

WOOT!! Elric rocked.....got the whole series and STILL waiting for a movie or two.......or three..... !

regards
seekerof

Surf, that was the movie. Have you read the books? No? Then shut your mouth! If you base your belief of a guy because a movie that was based on his book is messed up, then Micheal Chricton and Stephen Speilberg and Edgar Allen Poe and........ you get my point.
Edit:
Where in the book series does it say the hobbits are all white? Or the elves are all white? Or the Orcs are all greenish? It doesn't, it just describes the ones in the story. For all you know, there were green hobbits that lived in another hobbit village and there are blue elves and black Orcs? You don't. For it only describes the things in the story, not the ones who aren't in the story.

Say you do a book based off of Ancient Africa. All your characters in Kenya are black, for at the time no whites. The character you use from Zimbabwe is black for not to many whites in the area that I know of. But then a character"from the north" comes in and is white. But, with JRR Tolkien, it is North White Englanders, South white Italians, east white whatever country, and so forth. Now if it was in America, you would have different races, unless ancient then just Indian.

Anyways, if all the people in a place are white and do a movie about the place, it isn't racist to just have whites in it, it makes since, for all white or almost all white.


[Edited on 30-7-2003 by James the Lesser]

Well I doubt you can link the peoples of Middle Earth to any particular nationality.

Plainly the men of Gondor were Europeans, the men of Rohan northmen, the men of Numenor began to cross into the realm of meaningless myth that is the basis for all of LotR.

The whole book is one big Euology, just like Beowulf, because, get this, Tolkein was INFATUATED with Beowulf lol...not too many blacks in Beowulf either, but Tolkein was not about to have his ideas (The Hobbit) be associated with the monster Nazis, as the Nazis tried to take anything "European" and turn it into some propoganda for Nazism.

Tolkein didn't want that...his book like Beowulf, had nothing to do with Ayranism, Beowulf was not spared the propoganda however, like The Hobbit was.

One big Euology...death, that's why the movies SUCK!

Nothing's dying in the movies...in the books, the whole World dies, leaving behind the "4th Age".

yeah he was a racist,
look at the ring wraiths.
they were black.

A black man in a white man's world.
trying to steal gold and jewelry.
yep.

I cannot believe how much stupider i am for participating in this topic.
thank you and good night.


A gang of brothers from the east side?

Not exactly the ringwraiths were "invisible" except when you crossed into the shadow world you saw them for what they were...the undead Kings of old. The 9 kings of man that were given rings by Sauron.

They only WORE black.

But the general nature of your post seems you are being sarcastic anyways?

The only series of any REAl merit is Conan from R.H. Howard. And, he WASN'T raicst. I think his best friend was black (I think his name was Jumo). But, I also think he got killed. It was cause of Conan that I got as muscled up as I am. (Lost a little since I got married but we correcting that this weekend.)