I guess I shouldn’t be stunned, seeing as the author is ~batshit crazy.
I heard this creep (or another creep with the same line of drivel) on the radio yesterday. He pretty much exposed himself as a troll when he said that Orcs (or Uruk-hai…I don’t remember which) were obviously Jewish stereotypes. Um. The host (who’s Jewish) went apeshit and the guy backpedaled and said something like “Oh, I meant they were like Nazi stereotypes of Jews” with the clear implication that that’s what Tolkien was thinking of, 'cause Tolkien (who wouldn’t let the Nazis republish his books and bitchslapped the Nazi who tried to ask if Tolkien was a Jew) was anti-Semitic. :rolleyes:
He also said that 13th century England was a “multicultural and diverse” society. The host (Michael Medved) was aghast and (essentially) said “Cite?!”
The creep responded that African (African=Middle Eastern, apparently) and Indian merchants had shops all over England in the Dark Ages.
I kept screaming at the radio “Michael you putz! DNFTT, dammit!”
Fenris
Oh. It has to be the same guy. He kept saying that “Bac guys riding elephants into war was clearly an attack on Africans” who, apparently were the only people in the world to ever do so. :rolleyes:
Indeed. In fact, I don’t recall a single black character of any significance in “25th Hour” except for the fed with the “Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit” catch-phrase.
I don’t know if this marks me as a prognosticator, cynical, or just a moderately attentive student of human behavior, but I’ve been waiting for this since opening night.
I wondered aloud to Mrs. Skeezix on the way home from the theater, “How long’s it gonna be before somebody starts screaming ‘racism’ about this flick?”
Fenris listens to Michael Medved?
Sigh
Ahem. That’s Tolkiens
Looks like meat’s back on the menu!
You know, NoClueBoy, I purposely did that so I didn’t HAVE to leave a pun. *kicks NCB!
At any rate, these are the same morons who claim that SW is racist-what about the idiots saying that the clones were obviously about illegal immigrants from Mexico-before they found out that Temura Morrison is from New Zealand? 
Well, as Gandalf said to Pippin when he was scattering crumbs of lembas through the Mines of Moria… 
Anyone who wants to see what Tolkien really thought should check out his personal correspondence.
Especially noteworthy are a 1941 letter to his son Michael, in which Tolkien calls Adolf Hitler “a ruddy little ignoramus” who had perverted and cheapened everything Tolkien loved and admired in Germanic mythology. Indeed, Tolkien said that his hatred of Hitler would make him a better soldier as a middle-aged man than he had been as a youth.
Next, there are the letters Fenris alluded to earlier, which Tolkien sent in 1938 to Stanley Unwin and to the German publishers Rutten & Loening. Those publishers tried to get Tolkien to attest that he was an Aryan, and therefore fit to be published. Tolkien saracstically refused to do any such thing, even though he WAS of German descent! He expressed REGRET that he had no Jewish blood. To Unwin, he wrote “Personally, I should be inclined… to let a German translation go hang… I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race doctrine.”
I never knew Tolkien, and can’t state categorically that he held none of the regrettable racist attitudes of his day. But clearly, it’s waaay out of line to dismiss him as a mere bigot.
Anyone who wants to see what Tolkien really thought should check out his personal correspondence.
Especially noteworthy are a 1941 letter to his son Michael, in which Tolkien calls Adolf Hitler “a ruddy little ignoramus” who had perverted and cheapened everything Tolkien loved and admired in Germanic mythology. Indeed, Tolkien said that his hatred of Hitler would make him a better soldier as a middle-aged man than he had been as a youth.
Next, there are the letters Fenris alluded to earlier, which Tolkien sent in 1938 to Stanley Unwin and to the German publishers Rutten & Loening. Those publishers tried to get Tolkien to attest that he was an Aryan, and therefore fit to be published. Tolkien saracstically refused to do any such thing, even though he WAS of German descent! He expressed REGRET that he had no Jewish blood. To Unwin, he wrote “Personally, I should be inclined… to let a German translation go hang… I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race doctrine.”
I never knew Tolkien, and can’t state categorically that he held none of the regrettable racist attitudes of his day. But clearly, it’s waaay out of line to dismiss him as a mere bigot.
Why not?
He has a wide range of guests, I like his movie reviews (even though I normally disagree with them, he’s pretty consistant which gives me a good benchmark), his topics range considerably wider than “What’s the headline on Drudge today?” and generally he spends an hour with a guest on a topic and usually picks someone who disagrees with him on an issue. And when he debates he (used to be) civil (Sad to say, this has been changing as he seems to be trying to take on more of a “angry man” personna (namecalling, shrieking, etc): as a result I’m listening less).
It’s not like I said I listened to Michael Savage or old tapes of Father Conklin. Am I missing something? (I assume that wasn’t a delighted sigh of finding a kindred spirit. If it was, never mind the previous! )
Thanks, astorian, for the link and the excerpts refuting the “Tolkien as racist” crap. I can’t imagine how anyone could read the LOTR sans agenda and come away from it with a belief that Tolkien stood for anything so vile.
This is very interesting; I had no idea. Thanks!
RE Jews, I once read in a pro-Tolkien book, that the dwarves were patterned after them, Of course, there was no cite L
Wait till the Narnia movies get made- I hope to Aslan the Calormenes are shown as purple or orange or something.
That was the same scene I was referring to, except in the book, the words are read from Samwise’s mind by the omniscient narrator. The fallen warrior in question, IIRC was described as what we would call a black man today, wearing copious amounts of gold jewelry. It’s that aspect that makes me think “noble savage”.
PJ, constrained by the fact that movies don’t have omniscient narrators, put the words into Faramir’s mouth.
Ok the dude is clearly a nutjob but while I was watching ROTK I commented to my husband “Notice the racist undertones” in the scene where the oliphants show up.
The cuts from the oliphant-riding guys to the nordic Rohan guys made me think of those nasty evil ethnic african/asian types vs. the virtuous northern white guys. Only place I saw or thought of it, but it was there for me, and for my husband who agreed.
And I’m not frothing at the mouth to see this stuff, and haven’t read the books.
Twiddle
Okay, first a disclaimer…
When I watched FOTR and TTT, I did have an initial (albeit annoying) reaction to the Uruk-Hai being “black.” This is my baggage and I own it. Blame it on being a Berkeley grad or a (ugh) “woman of color,” but I look for these things (even if I don’t always notice the tendency). As others have noted, this is an “agenda,” for lack of a better word.
Sometimes this is a good thing, as it enables me to think critically about certain subjects, movies, books, etc. Most often, as even my closest friends will attest, it is annoying as all get out.
That said, I wanted to ask a question.
Please be advised that I read the books 10+ years ago, so my memory has faded.
I noticed that in the first two films, the Uruk-Hai are dark–they have skin that’s almost black (with the expection of the white, painted hand of Saruman). In ROTK, the lead (?) Uruk-Hai guy (sorry, don’t know/remember his proper name) has light skin. Someone on one of the ROTK threads mentioned that he looked like the guy from the Toxic Avenger (heh).
Anyway, I was pleased to see this because it assuaged my admittedly knee-jerk, ridiculous “but all of the orcs/Uruk-Hai are BLACK!” reaction.
My question is this (and, yes, I will admit that I am thinking too much about this, to be sure!): Did this character exist in the books? Was his skin color discussed? Why the change from the other two movies? Was it PJ conforming or what? I’ve noticed that a couple of LOTR buffs have posted, so that’s why I’m asking.
Thanks in advance.
He’s not a Urak-Hai. He’s a more garden variety Orc, albeit a particularly disagreeable one (which is saying a lot).
The Uruk-hai are a mixture of men and orcs. Specifically, I think they used Haradrim men (?), and because of that, it would make sense for them to be dark-skinned.