NP Tolkien Picks Up A Few More Bits Of Cultural Baggage

[jbor]

on 6/1/03 10:22 AM, John Bailey at johnbonbailey at hotmail.com wrote:

>>> I must admit that when it comes to cultural artefacts I'm not so much
>>> interested in "vast majority"-opinions but in the voices of people who,
>> I
>>> think, are worth listening too (like Rushdie).
>> 
>> I'm interested in the way political ideas and cultural attitudes are formed
>> too. But I don't discount "'vast majority'-opinions" either. I don't agree
>> with this implication that 'most people aren't worth listening to' at all.
>> 
> 
> I absolutely agree with this statement, but also think it is one of the
> reasons TLOTR can be considered in light of the 'racist' arguments which
> have been kicking around here. Personally, I don't think that I would call
> it racist per se, but I would definitely start by calling it 'racial', and
> seeing where that takes us.

I think it takes us in the direction of trying to match the different
fictional creatures in the story to actual human "races", which I don't
think is valid or necessary.

> Listening to the 'vast majority' is really, really hard. But I like
> listening to the people around me at cinemas. I've had a long interest in
> this and like it when people tell me what they hear in a cinema. Not that
> the comments of individual audience members are keys to a consensus, but...
> 
> When I saw the first 'Rings' movie there was an audible intake of breath
> when the Uruk-Hai (is that what they're called?) first turned up. One of the
> guys sitting next to a friend of mine (I think he was Thai) swore and was
> vocally angry at this. My friend puzzled over it and discussed it with me
> later. I had already been thinking about these characters; for me,
> considering the film's shooting location and my own proximity to NZ, the use
> of native NZers to make up the orc armies was disturbing. I didn't know if I
> was projecting this. But I'd also just seen Attack of the Clones and so
> Maori armies were becoming a bit of a theme.

And in the _Hercules_ and _Xena_ tv series'. I'd say the NZ'ers used as
extras were happy enough to have the work. I don't think there's any
connection between Saruman's specially-bred orc-warriors and Maoris, Maori
culture, Maori society etc. They're made up to look like Tolkien's orcs (not
Maoris, nor "Africans", nor Mongols) .... The thing which I always find
amusing in this type of story is how really bad these "enemy warriors"
always turn out to be as warriors.

> But when the Uruk-Hai smeared the white hand print on his face, that seemed
> to me a very coded gesture. Someone pointed out 'but it's in the book!'

It's the mark of "Saruman the White", like a cattle brand. The orcs are
specially-bred, less "a race" than a sort of cloned species.

best

> Sure, but I haven't read the books since I was, like, 13. Does that make a
> response less valid?
>
> Why do fantasy and SF stories often feature different 'races', instead of
> different 'species'?
>
> They're racial, alright. So I think we should be able to talk about the
> racialisation of fantasy without necessarily assuming racism (ie that word
> automatically bringing up connotations which shut down debate.) We can
> discuss what the racialisation means, and if it turns out be racist, then
> we'll get to that.
>