NP "the formerly colonised coming back to haunt us"

[jbor]

on 23/12/02 2:53 AM, Dave Monroe at davidmmonroe at yahoo.com wrote:

> Maybe it's not clear that I was generally speaking
> about the way in which those stories might be taken up
> at any given moment,

What you were saying and trying to do was quite clear. I don't know that
anyone, apart from yourself, has "taken up" TLOTR to be "'about'" WWII. Or
"current events". I certainly don't.

> given whatever notions of good
> 'n' evil, and who counts at what, prevail at any given
> moment.  

As I've said, I think what you're getting at is Tolkien's (and general)
values and attitudes, and how these are reflected in the text.

> Not only, how are people watching these
> films, but what went into them in the first place, in,
> indeed, a different context, but one shaped by the
> same events as the present ...

I don't imagine that people, particularly youngsters, are watching the films
(or reading the books) as either allegory or propaganda at all. They seem to
be the epitome of escapism.

There are, of course, certain values and attitudes which are taken for
granted in the text, and which are thus promoted by the text. The bourgeois
idyll, for example; humility and selflessness. The worlds Tolkien creates
are definitely phallogocentric, and the white (= good) vs black (= evil)
opposition is certainly present, though whether that symbolism is in fact
racially-aligned to human society or societies and events is questionable. I
don't know that these aspects of his text make Tolkien or his books or films
"sexist" or "racist", or even colonialist. Stronger and more specific
arguments in terms of either intent or effect would need to be provided to
support those accusations. If it's being claimed that TLOTR is an allegory,
which, of course, Tolkien says it isn't, then you'd need to say what it is
an allegory of.

best