_NP?_ "the_formerly_colonised_coming_back_to_haunt_us"

[jbor]

It is indeed an incredibly odd argument which says on the one hand that the
book is "racist" and then tries to factor that into the book's immense
popularity with the counterculture of the 60s, which is where "White Male
Guilt Studies 101" and the like originate.

best to all for the festive season



on 23/12/02 11:39 PM, The Great Quail at quail at libyrinth.com wrote:

> Tim writes,
> 
>> And this is precisely why the whole "racism" argument, for me at least, is
>> an absurd one.
> 
> I agree that it is an absurd issue. Tolkien modeled LOTR on a selection of
> myth from white, eastern European sources: Welsh, Anglo-Saxon, Teutonic.
> 
> Imagine an African writer of Tolkien's generation, creating an epic set in a
> distant and mythologized Africa, based perhaps on a hodgepodge of legends
> borrowed from various African cultures. Would you find it racist if they
> "left out" a bunch of heroic white guys? To argue that his writing is racist
> or sexist, well, you might as well argue the same for the Arthurian legends,
> the Niebelungen, Beowulf, or the Eddas. Tolkien wrote for a primarily white
> audience who already had a culturally-programed storehouse of archetypes.
> That's part of why his story is so powerful for many of us.
> 
> Now, I won't completely deny that their are postcolonialist echoes in there,
> certainly: the swarthy Southrons ally with Sauron, blah blah. Of course LOTR
> also bears the impression of Tolkien's time and culture, not to mention his
> personal history in WWI. But to me, it sounds like White Male Guilt Studies
> 101 to take seriously such accusations as, "It's white centered," or, "Why
> aren't there more female characters?" It seems a bit superficial, even
> sophomoric, the kind of argument best made by an over-zealous college
> student. Certainly there are better places to direct energy than to finding
> cultural centrism in a culture's mythology.
> 
> --Quail
>