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Thread: LOTR called racist

  1. #1
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    LOTR called racist

    Lest you think that all folks in academia actually know what they are talking about...

    http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=1387552002

    Lord of the Rings labelled racist

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

    "For instance, the dwarves were his notion of what Scots were like. It is like a southern England cliche of a dour, muscular race and that represents the
    Scots in the book. "

    What a frickin' DOLT.
    "It's hard being an evil genius when everybody else is so stupid" -- Quantum Crook

  2. #2
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    I know I'm coming in late to the whole LOTR experience, but hasn't the books been labeled racist a lot over the past 50 years or so?

    Anytime something's popular, it seems to attract people willing to punch holes and sling mud.

  3. #3
    Perrryyy Guest
    Not the only recent movie to get dumped on either.

    Die Another Day got dumped on by Korea for its depiction of Koreans


  4. #4
    Perrryyy Guest
    Originally posted by Ineti

    Anytime something's popular, it seems to attract people willing to punch holes and sling mud.
    Exactamundo!

  5. #5
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    What a load of pig's swill. Who is this guy anyway? I doubt he has as many "academic kudos" behind him as prof. Tolkien had. If this guy is right then all fantasy books from the Illiad to A Thousand Orcs has it roots in racism...Everyone show their KKK membership please and remember to put the sheets back on the beds.

    Everything I have seen about Tolkien and his works says all he was interested in is telling a good story. If there was any other motives behind his work it was how industry affected the rural way of life he knew, and an interest in preserving the stories, myths and languages that are rapidly fading from our technological world.

    But, what should you expect every good author is attacked at one point or other from JK Rowlling and now JRR. Once they start getting popular then the small minded bring their knives out and start the hachet jobs. As far as I am concerned just ignore these morons and sit back and enjoy a whopping good story.

    I for one can't wait to the final battles in the TRotK.

    Rohirrim, Ride!

  6. #6
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    Angry What A F*&%ing Moron

    Quote from the above linked page:

    'While Tolkien describes the Hobbits and Elves as amazingly white, ethnically pure clans, their antagonists, the Orcs, are a motley dark-skinned mass, akin to tribal Africans or Aborigines. The recent films amplified a "fear of a black planet" and exaggerated this difference by insisting on stark white-black colour codes, Dr Shapiro insisted.'

    What the hell is this nut on about? If anything, this cracker-head is projecting his own racial bigotry on to Tolkien's races.

    Gimme a break. If this guy bothered to do any research about Middle-earth or its history, he'd realize that Elves were anything but "ethnically pure".

    Steve
    Drunken DM and the Speak with Dead spell: "No, I'm not the limed-over skeleton of the abbot, and no this special key in my boney fingers does not open the door to the secret treasury! ... Oh crap."

  7. #7
    There are most certainly racist overtones contained within Tolkien's work... you'd have to be blind not to see them... but this is more because the man was a product of his era (much like H.P. Lovecraft, who has also been labelled a racist) than any sinister agenda on his part. I believe Shapiro's comments are little more than a ploy to garner attention for himself by creating a (frivolous) controversy.
    “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”

    -- Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy

  8. #8
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    "What the hell is this nut on about? If anything, this cracker-head is projecting his own racial bigotry on to Tolkien's races."

    Whadya expect from some hebe jock?

    This politically incorrect statement brought to you by a Scot with a touch of Red Sea pedestrian in him.
    "War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

    John Stuart Mill

  9. #9
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    Originally posted by RaconteurX
    There are most certainly racist overtones contained within Tolkien's work... you'd have to be blind not to see them... but this is more because the man was a product of his era (much like H.P. Lovecraft, who has also been labelled a racist) than any sinister agenda on his part. I believe Shapiro's comments are little more than a ploy to garner attention for himself by creating a (frivolous) controversy.
    Not to put too fine a point on it, but....

    WHERE!!!

    Please point them out to me.

    This whole PC stuff is really beginning to bore me!

  10. #10
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    Okay, so how many of us calling that article crap are actually white?

    Just in case you didn't realize it, that was a JOKE!


    Ins-Tyg-ator
    Davy Jones

    "Frightened? My dear, you are looking at a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe! I was petrified."
    -- The Wizard of Oz

  11. #11
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    On a more serious thread, I consider the work a product of the era Tolkien wrote in. There's only so much you can hold against a fella who lived his life in the first half of the 20th Century. Even the most charitable white Americans back then had different views toward people of color.

    But, of course, those who only want to see racism will only see racism. *shrug* What can you do?
    Tyger of the People
    Davy Jones

    "Frightened? My dear, you are looking at a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe! I was petrified."
    -- The Wizard of Oz

  12. #12
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    Re: LOTR called racist

    So who are the elves? or Hobbits?


    "For instance, the dwarves were his notion of what Scots were like. It is like a southern England cliche of a dour, muscular race and that represents the
    Scots in the book. "
    “I am a soldier. I fight where I am told, and I win where I fight.”

    General George S. Patton, Jr.

  13. #13
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    Here he is, I believe, in case anybody wants to jot off a "quick note" regarding his thesis...

    Dr Stephen Shapiro
    Tel: 024 7652 3317
    Email: s.shapiro@warwick.ac.uk
    US writing and culture. Gramsci and Cultural Studies. Anti-globalization politics. AIDS activism


    As I understood it, Orcs were derived from Elves, so his theory can't be accurate.

    I have to wonder if this mindset is unique, or if it's indicative of a larger problem amongst university faculties, this creation of a 'race problem' where none is evident.
    "It's hard being an evil genius when everybody else is so stupid" -- Quantum Crook

  14. #14
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    You know, that sort of thing is easy to do if you want people to hear about you. Pick up a popular movie, series, book, and find a controversial theory about it, then enjoy the popularity.
    And it works : look, we all know his name, now (and I'm only barely kidding here).
    "The main difference between Trekkies and Manchester United fans is that Trekkies never trashed a train carriage. So why are the Trekkies the social outcasts?"
    Terry Pratchett

  15. #15
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    ...and what has he published?

    Ah, to think, some of us may live to see the day when our great-grandchildren condem us and the writers of our time for some slight that means nothing now but I am sure will mean everything in the world seventy years from now...
    Insert something clever

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