A Response to Lloyd Hart's article

on LOTR: Return of the King

This morning I was surfing the internet when I came across a review of The Lord of the Rings.  Actually, accusation would be a better word than review, because this author is convinced that Peter Jackson’s vision of the story is, in fact, a racist one.  In this glorious age of information we have reached what is perhaps the pinnacle of self-expression.  One of the great things about the internet is that everyone has a forum to express their views.  The bad thing about the internet is that everyone has a forum to express their views.  We are free to place our opinions, sometimes under the pretense of fact, without the need back up what we are claiming.  I believe there is an old saying that goes: “Just because you can do a thing does not mean that you should do a thing.”  I would say that we can amend that to: “Just because we can publish our thoughts, unchecked and without supporting facts, does not mean that we should publish our thought, unchecked and without supporting facts.”

The article to which I am referring was written by a Mr. Lloyd Hart and published by Indybay.org.  I know nothing of Mr. Hart, nor of Indybay.org other than that Mr. Hart wrote it and that Indybay.org published it to the web.  I say this to clarify that my response is directed toward the ideas and writing that Mr. Hart has presented, and is in no way a personal attack on him.  As I said, I do not know the man.  While I respect his right to express his opinion, I would like to take this space and use my right to respond to it.  With that said, I have included his original article in it’s entirety (in italics) and have posted my comments throughout.  I have reprinted the article in it’s entirety here with permission of indybay.org (which states that all content is free to reproduce unless otherwise specified by its author…Mr. Hart has not specified otherwise on Indybay.org.)  The original article can be found here: http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/12/1666507.php

The Racist Tapestry of Lord of the Rings !

By Lloyd Hart

I don't imagine that it was the intention of the director or the producers of the Lord of the Rings films to paint a racist stereotypical tapestry over what could be described as a basic set of principles of humanity's behavior in the natural environment and with each other. However, the fact is that the only people of skin color in the entire three part series of films are all associated with the Dark Lord Sauron, the destruction of the earth and all of its occupants. Not to mention the elephant riding mercenaries that resemble the cultures of the Arab world as well as Africa, Persia and East Asia and the fact that the Monarch of the land of Rohan, King Théoden a white guy yelled out "You great warriors of the West" in the final part of his speech to rouse the troops into battle in the third film.

In the first sentence, while I agree that it wasn’t the intention of the directors and producers to paint this tapestry (even though you weave a tapestry, not paint it) over LOTR, I must point out that Mr. Hart seems to think that racism is not a part of the “basic set principles of humanity’s behavior in the natural environment and with each other.”   Yes, racism is evil.  But, unfortunately, it is a part of the basic principles in how humanity has dealt with each other throughout history.  That’s a minor point and not the one that Mr. Hart is trying to make. I understand that racism portrayed within a movie is different than a movie portrayed in a racist way.  Mr. Hart is suggesting the latter of LOTR.  While it is true the only people of “skin color” (again, I must point out that even “white people” are people of skin color.  People without skin color are called albinos.) are associated with the Dark Lord, I feel the need  to make reference to  Faramir’s speech just after he has captured Frodo and Sam (see LOTR: The Two Towers).  As he looks at one of the dead “Arab” looking soldiers Faramir says, “Who knows what lies or threats took him from his home, one wonders if he would have just rather stayed there.  Be at peace.  War will make corpses of us all.”  From within the story a character is pointing out that even his enemies might have wished not to march to Mordor’s aid.  Perhaps he was just a solider following orders, not something sub-human that was evil because of the color of his skin.  Faraimir muses that perhaps his enemy was lied to, or that he was forced into war.  Additionally, I think Mr. Hart has missed one of the most prominent themes of the story (there are many which I may write on in another article). One of those themes is that one of the great powers of Sauron is the power of his lies.  Sauroman (the wizard aligned with Sauron) persuades a group of “wild men” that Rohan is their enemy who forced them into the wilderness, and that they are justified in pillaging and burning in return.  Again we see the power of lies at work persuading men to fight for the Dark Lord, not a race of people fighting for evil because of their skin color.  As for this “white guy’s” (King Theoden) remark on the “great warriors of the west.”, Mr. Hart seems to be confusing reality with fantasy when interpreting this line.  In the world and time of the Middle-Earth in which the hobbits live, Mordor was located in the east.  The men of Rohan were located west of there.  He called them “warriors of the west” because that is what they were…warriors who lived in the west.  In that world the west was the source of true civilization, the east was a land of dead marshes, ash, poisonous fume and the Dark Lord. I get the feeling Mr. Hart is suggesting that Theoden is actually saying “You great warriors of western Europe and America!”  You must interpret moments and lines such as these from within the story itself…not reinterpreting it as if Theoden were standing in the present day shouting to modern soldiers.

In these times when a homicidal maniac from Texas (the Texas capital punishment policy under Bush) has stolen the American throne and called for a "crusade" against the "evil doers" in nations that white people have been invading, terrorizing, raping and pillaging in for 5000 years with zero provocation, I think we could manage some cultural sensitivity in our popular culture which one must acknowledge has a powerful propaganda affect on the general population that participates in it.

The venomous reference to Bush as being a “homicidal maniac” is a tangent, and one that I do not wish to spend much time on.  His labeling of Bush as a homicidal maniac is a poor attempt to gain support of his opinion by name calling rather than addressing specific issues in detail.  Whether you agree with the war in Iraq or not isn’t the issue.  The last 5000 years of Middle Eastern history has little to do with the specific reasons we’re over there at present in my opinion.  The reasons we have for going to war with Iraq may be right or wrong (like I said, I don’t want to spend much time on this tangent) but they are specific to our time alone.  I highly doubt the leaders of our country are thinking, “Well, our ancestors have pillaged and burned the Middle-East all these centuries, we can’t drop the ball.”  Such an accusation is a huge leap in logic. It is an accusation against the motives in the hearts of men, and neither I nor Mr. Hart has access to that kind of knowledge. I also agree that popular culture has a powerful influence and we must self-edit ourselves to make sure we are using this power for the common good.  This extends to opinion pieces published online as well. 

Can you imagine how people of skin color, of Persian, Arab and East Asian ethnic background feel when they come out of these films where all the heroes are white and all the "evil doers" are of dark skin. Being married to an Asian American I watch people disregard my wife everyday while regarding me, simply because of her skin color. Being part of a European family that has lived on the North American continent for 400 years I've been lucky enough to gain perspective that when you create an evil character (Uruk-hai) that resembles native Americans as they have done in the Lord of the Rings films a great deal of cultural and racial alienation will occur.

Saying that Persian, Arab, and other people “of skin color” will be offended at this film is like me as a “white guy” being offended that there are no white people in native African stories.  This insults the intelligence of these viewers.  I would like to interject a small illustration here as well.  If someone comes up to my wife and says, “Hey! You look just like my sister!”  To which my wife replies, “Really?  Do you have a picture?” and is presented with a picture of the most horribly disfigured person she has ever seen, you can imagine how she might feel.  This is exactly what Mr. Hart has done with his Uruk-Hai / Native American comparison.  The Uruk are horribly disfigured and terribly ugly…obviously more monster than human.  Where exactly does this comparison come from?  Native Americans did not use swords or have metal armor, therefore their clothing cannot even be taken as a comparison.  I can only imagine that it’s the primitive nature of the Uruks that make Mr. Hart think of Native Americans.  Yet, when looked at from within the story, the Uruks would have to be primitive and they are primitive in a way unique to the story.  They were an army thrown together quickly, bred for destruction alone.  They are completely uncivilized in the truest sense.  If I were a Native American, I would see Mr. Hart’s statement itself as the only thing presented here as inflammatory.  I would also ask Mr. Hart how his family’s 400 year stay on the North American continent has given him more insight into understanding story-telling than the rest of us.  Is he saying that North Americans are smarter than the rest of the world?  I do not assume he thinks that, but only say it to point out how easy it is to twist things out of proportion, as I think Mr. Hart done in his article.

I am sure that once the filmmakers read this article there will be claims that they had to stay true to the story that J. R. R. Tolkien wrote, but the fact is, African and Asian cultures have always been a part of the European fabric whose ancient legends and fairy tales gave birth to J. R. R. Tolkien's epic portrayal of the battle between good and evil. And what about the Ancient Picts, a tattooed darker skinned cultured that once dominant in the UK. As someone who has grown up in one of the nation's of the Commonwealth of the British Empire, I know for a fact that J. R. R. Tolkien's generation were deeply influenced and thus deeply moved by all those people of skin color that fought alongside white members of the British forces in World War One and World War Two forming lifelong friendships and deep emotional ties.

I believe the tales of Beowolf and the like are what actually inspired Tolkien to write his own story.  By his own account Tolkien was fond of the Norse and Icelandic myths and those are what inspired him.  It would seem that Mr. Hart has done a poor job of researching Tolkien.  I will offer that being upset that the heroes of this story are white is just as much an affront to whites as the enemies being dark skinned are to Mr. Hart.  Again, is he demanding that we add people of “lesser color” to African myths to make them culturally sensitive?  I think he is not, which makes his argument biased against whites.

In fact all Europe's mathematics, reading and writing and technological advancements in transportation and warfare are all based on African and Asian concepts. The reason that Western medicine has not advanced to the enlightened technological level as Chinese herbal medicine and why most Western technology is diametrically opposed to all life on this planet, poisoning our air and water and causing widespread disease and death is for the simple fact that the Freemasons and the Church have not yet let go of the death grip they have on each other's throats. In other words, the enlightened knowledge that the church has attempted to destroy that the Freemasons attempted to save and capitalize on with Western patents has turned into a death struggle that has created destructive technological paradigms here in the West that are now being forced on the populations of the entire earth destabilizing life and bringing with them the pollution of the air and water that once existed only in Christendom.

At this paragraph Mr. Hart’s arguments seem to be following another tangent instead of stating more evidence of the crimes he is accusing the makers of LOTR of committing.  He has failed to logically connect this alleged struggle between the “Church” and the Freemasons with his argument against the LOTR films and instead he has merely succeeded in offending Christians and Freemasons.

Of course there are redeeming images and ideas portrayed in the films such as the Ents protecting the forests by destroying the industrial military complex as well as the fact that white people can be turned to evil to join forces with all the evil dark skinned man flesh eating Orcs and Uruk-hai.

While I do find these elements to be positive, I also find it interesting that Mr. Hart points out these as the redeeming characteristics of the films.  For example, He says nothing of the hobbits sacrifice nor men’s courage in the face of certain death.  Instead he dwells on environmental, political, and racial themes.  Certainly these are important, yet he seems to be judging the film by bring into it current issues instead of pulling out of the film timeless ones.

It is important to understand that young people are impressionable and influenced by the symbols foisted on them by the popular culture. It would not have been that difficult to make a contemporary version of the Lord of the Rings that included the heroic symbols of people of skin color. I think J.R.R. Tolkien wouldn't have minded including people of skin color as heros in these films if he were alive today. Especially after witnessing the rise of the civil rights movements in both the U.S. and the U.K.. I'm so glad that the Dwarfs, Elves and Hobits finally got their due but unfortunately this was washed away by the lack of heroic images of people of skin color. After watching the Lord of the Rings films I thank the universe and Mother Earth for the Rap/hip-hop culture and the counterbalancing influence the Rap/hip-hop culture has on the youth here in America and around the world.

Here Mr. Hart sums up his feelings by stating that young people are at risk of being influenced by negative images in pop culture.  True enough.  His blind praise of the Rap/hip-hop culture, however, baffles me.  Though I do not listen to that style of music, nor am I an expert on its culture, I do know it is not above reproach.  Ultimately, Mr. Hart has neglected to see that there is a positive lesson of race relations to be learned from LOTR.  Hobbits, men, elves, and dwarves are all different races.  No, more than that, they are different creatures as they themselves often refer to each other.  Mr. Hart says that he is glad "dwarves, elves, and hobbits finally got their due" but that people of skin color have not.  He doesn't make the connection that the relationship between these races within the story is itself the example for the different races in the real world.  He is either unwilling or incapable of making this connection it seems. These different "creatures" in Middle-Earth are in a far more extreme circumstance than people different simply due to the color of their skin, and yet they band together becoming close allies and friends (e.g. Gimli and Legolas).  How Mr. Hart manages to ignore this I cannot say, but I can say that I would urge him to first try and enjoy the story for what it is in and of itself, without demanding that it must conform to his ideas of racial diversity.

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