Posted: January 12, 2000 at 22:29:04: by Michael Martinez
: Anyway, I think it is an important question. I understand all
: of your arguments about how the professor isn't a racist. And
: mostly I agree.: But the fact is that without the fullness of treatment given to
: the subject by Tolkien, some of the superficial stuff in LotR
: can *seem* racist. I believe it would be very easy for someone
: who is less sensitive and thoughtful than Tolkien to bastardize
: his work, treat it superficially, and come off as very racist
: (and indicating Tolkien was as well). I don't know about you,
: but that would ruin the film entirely for me. I would be out
: there protesting the thing as well! I agree that a less intensive examination of race in the movies than occurs in the book could easily lead some people to conclude there is racism involved. But, you know, I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest that the movie "Zulu" was racist. It portrayed white Europeans struggling to survive against overwhelming odds and their enemies were black Africans. The movie is not racist because it depicts a historical event, and the Zulus are portrayed as ruthless but not evil. In THE LORD OF THE RINGS Tolkien shows us that evil is a matter of personal choice, but for political reasons men might have followed Sauron whereas normally they would not. Jackson need only drop a comment or two from a character to make that point. I think this racism thingee is going to turn out to be a whole lot of hype, just like the Y2K bug turned out to be a lot of hype (and I'm not saying there weren't serious problems in computer systems around the world -- only that the arrival of the year 2000 was anticipated with a lot of nonsense).
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