NP Tolkien Picks Up A Few More Bits Of Cultural Baggage

[jbor]

on 8/1/03 3:14 AM, Otto at ottosell at yahoo.de wrote:

>> 
>> "Racism" refers to the way humans perceive and treat other humans.
>> 
> 
> This mustn't necessarily be the case in SF & Fantasy literature where
> inter-species "racism" as a topic is imaginable, take for example "Enemy
> Mine" where each side regards the other as culturally inferior.
> 
> "Enemy Mine translates (...) themes of xenophobia and cross-cultural
> misinterpretation to the outer reaches of the universe with effective
> results.(...)  Enemy Mine is a rare and unique example of science fiction
> being used as a means to ponder humans' relations to each other and the
> universe (...).
> http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll

Yes, I don't disagree that fantasy, sci fi, fairy tales, animal fables and
the like can have allegorical purposes, and can function allegorically. I
also agree that readers can read texts in idiosyncratic ways if they choose
to. They can also choose not to.

>From the biographical info on Tolkien I've read, from what I recall of the
text itself, from seeing the two movies, from the arguments and (lack of)
evidence that've been proposed, and having an understanding of and interest
in racism and its effects, I choose not to read racism into _TLOTR_. Simple
as that.

best