Racism and The Lord of the Rings
Controversy Over Peter Jackson's Films of J.R.R.Tolkien's Trilogy
Sep 1, 2007
Suggestions that the trilogy The Lord of the Rings had a taint of racism were greeted with disbelief from many, and derision from fans. At first sight the idea looks completely absurd. After all, the books upon which the films are based were written by J.R.R.Tolkien in the shadows of the Second World War. The Nazi state implemented explicitly racist policies towards Jews and gypsies, which culminated in the Holocaust, and though Tolkien always denied any “allegory” or “simple application” of Middle Earth to contemporary events, it is easy to make the connection. If the Shire didn’t specifically represent Britain wartime, it certainly represented what Tolkien felt was best and most worth retaining about Britain. And the character of Sam Gamgee, with his qualities of grit, honesty, and unswerving loyalty comes close to the image propagated by Britain of the “honest Tommy”.
Norse Mythology and Germanic Culture
Thus J.R.R. Tolkien, despite his attachment to Germanic culture and Norse mythology which the Nazi ideology drew upon, is seen by many as having written a series of epic novels about the evil of the Nazi empire. It would seem completely backwards to accuse the works of being themselves racist. Nor does Jackson’s inclusion of predominantly dark-skinned orcs (often mentioned as a hint of prejudice) seem to be an imposition on the original texts: they have not been yanked out of shape to serve a racist agenda. However, the vast differences between the cultural context of the The Lord of the Rings novels, and their modern film adaptations, had led to a situation which makes some audience members uncomfortable.
Given the events of the last seven years, in the context of the “9/11” attacks, the resulting “war on terror”, and the continuing strife in the Middle East, some of the implications of the plot of the Lord of the Rings
feel different. Aragorn and Boromir both stress their ancient lineage from the civilization of “the west”, which needs to be rebuilt for mankind to prosper. This almost feels like a caricature the “Clash of Civilizations” discourse. The inclusion of savages in Eastern clothing riding giant elephants may be an accurate rendering of the books, but they were written in a different geopolitical situation. Frankly, the image of a mail-clad group of warriors making their last stand against a rabble of subhumans with the cry “Men of the West, stand firm!” is enough to give anyone pause for thought.
No Racist Agenda
It would be completely unreasonable to suggest that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote these books with a racist agenda, or that Peter Jackson filmed them with any prejudiced intent. However, works of art do not exist in cultural vacuums, and part of the films could be seen as subconsciously bolstering a discourse in which Western civilization is under threat from subhuman hordes from the East. It’s an astonishing example of how general cultural discourse can overtake and even co-opt works of art as apparently distanced from political reality as a fantasy novel and an epic movie.
