judging Shapiro

Sun Jan 5 18:50:02 CST 2003

jbor:
>I note that there's still no more news on that
>Shapiro guy's "work" which
>Doug was deferring to while he was promoting the
>guy's press release 
>last
>month. 

This bit of trash-talk goes beyond jbor's usual
persiflage.  I brought to the list's attention
something that has proven to be quite interesting to
many of the frequent posters here (based on the amount
of discussion that it's generated), on which I've
expressed no opinion except to say -- what I still
believe -- that it's lame to judge Shapiro's work (as
"an expert in cultural studies, race and slavery,"
quoting _The Scotsman_ article excerpted below) on the
basis of a press release, and that it would be
surprising to find that Tolkien's books don't reflect
the values of the culture that formed him.  

I haven't read this, but it might be of interest to
some of you:
<http://www.gradnet.de/pomo2.archives/pomo99.papers/Shapiro99.htm>
Periodizing Postmodernism: Betamodernism and the
Political Economy of Geo-culture
by Dr. Stephen Shapiro, University of Warwick

I do wonder how jbor might support  -- absent any
research on the subject -- the notion that "most"
people or "a majority of" people don't make any
connection between the movies based on Tolkien's books
and the current struggle between Good and Evil in the
real world.  jbor's opinion is as good as the next
person's of course, but I'm wary of that sort of
sweeping generalization, and doubt that he's talked to
more than a handful of people who have seen the
movies.  

I'd be surprised if "most people" weren't making some
sort of connection -- in the US, at least, where mass
media these days present little more than a billboard
and bully pulput for Bush's war-mongering crusade to
destroy Evil-doers -- between the Good Guys v. Bad
Guys element of these movies, as so many commentators
have been doing.  Please note that I haven't done any
research to prove this point, it's just my opinion.

Obviously, as others have pointed out (and
demonstrated by providing links to articles online and
quoting from them), not everybody agrees with jbor
about Tolkien's books and what they may or may not
contain.

<http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=1387552002>
"THE Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkien has been
denounced as "an epic rooted in racism" by a respected
acadmic. Dr Stephen Shapiro, an expert in cultural
studies, race and slavery, accused the author of using
the novels to make racial prejudice innocent - by
presenting bigotry through a fantasy world. [...] "

<http://www.overthrow.com/lsn/news.asp?articleID=3326>

Fascists hijack Lord of the Rings
Brits Concerned Trilogy Furthering "Racism" 
12/21/02 1:49:19 PM

Birmingham Post
Birmingham, England --
http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/page.cfm?
objectid=12463394&method=full&siteid=50002 

Fascists hijack Lord of the Rings 

Dec 18 2002 

By Sophie Blakemore, Birmingham Post 

Fascists have hijacked Tolkien's Lord of the Rings as
propaganda to further their cause. 

As the second film of the trilogy, The Two Towers,
comes out on general release today, a Midland academic
has expressed concerns that neo-Nazi groups are
interpreting the Birmingham author's epic for their
own ends. 

One Internet website urges "every white nationalist"
to watch the films, which it claims promote white
supremacy over ethnic minorities living in the West. 

Dr Stephen Shapiro, an English expert at the
University of Warwick, said the adoption of the
literary masterpiece by far right groups was worrying.

Tolkien lovers also expressed horror that the books
were being used to promote extremism. 

Chris Crawshaw, chairman of The Tolkien Society, urged
people not to interpret the trilogy in a far right
context. 

"I am quite shocked and very saddened that The Lord of
the Rings is being used by far right groups in this
way. 

"Tolkien himself would be horrified if he knew this
was happening and I know some of his family, and they
also would be appalled. 

"There is not a grain of truth in their interpretation
and I would ask people to read it for what it is - a
very good story," she said. 

Dr Shapiro said he could understand why Tolkien's
works had been adopted by the far right but he called
for loyal fans to confront the extremists' views.
[...] 

<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0212&msg=73873&sort=date>
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 12:49:43 -0800 (PST) 
From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@[omitted]> 
Subject: re Re: NP "racist" Tolkien? 
To: Pynchon-L <pynchon-l@[omitted]> 

Why not read the texts and discuss what's in them --
as Shapiro appears to have done -- looking deep enough
to understand how they might be working on a reader in
ways that may not be immediately obvious?  And perhaps
also turn to other readers -- Pynchon, for example,
who seems to pay particular attention to black/white,
good/evil binaries-- who provide other perspectives on
the media (movies, fairy tales, adventure fiction for
children, etc.) that shape so much of culture.

<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0212&msg=73810&sort=date>

Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 16:24:19 -0800 (PST) 
From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@[omitted]> 
Subject: T-list or P-list? & SLSL schedule 
To: Pynchon-L <pynchon-l@[omitted]> 

[...] Speaking of racism or sexism in texts and an
author's
statements about what a text is or isn't "about" --
one might revisit the SLSL Intro, where Pynchon has
something to say about how the stories of his youth
might be received a couple of decades later.

In one instance, Pynchon doesn't quite cop to
expressing his own sexism therein but instead says
"maybe I was picking up on male attitudes that were
then in the air -- more decoumentably, inside the
pages of men's magazines, _Playboy_ in particular. I
don't thyink this magazine was the projection,
exclusively, of its publisher's private values:  if
American men had not widely shared such values,
_Playboy_ would have quickly failed and faded from the
scene."  (p. 10)

Later (p.11), regarding another story, Pynchon says,
"Modern readers will be, at least, put off by an
unacceptable level of racist, sexist and proto-Fascist
talk throughout this story. I wish I could say that
this is only Pig Bodine's voice, but, sad to say it
was also my own at the time.  The best I can say for
it now is that, for its time, it is probably authentic
enough. John Kennedy's role model James Bond was about
to make his name by kicking third-world people around,
another extension of the boy's adventure tales a lot
of us grew up reading. There had prevailed for a while
a set of assumptions and distinctions, unvoiced and
unquestioned, best captured years later in the '70s
television character Archie Bunker." [...]

-Doug

=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

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