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Is the film "Lord Of The Rings" racist?

Is the film "Lord Of The Rings" racist?

  • Yes

    Votes: 3 4.8%

  • No

    Votes: 51 81.0%

  • It's prophetic

    Votes: 2 3.2%

  • Idk

    Votes: 7 11.1%
  • Total voters
    63
Canell

Canell

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So, people, what do you think? :)
What's your feeling about that? :peace
 
Don't think it's particularly intentional that LOTR featured almost no people of colour.

They filmed in New Zealand, what were they going to do?

Ship 100's of black people over for the sake of racial representation?
 
I've read that that it seems to bring across an upper class view of how the world should be organized. And since it was supposed to be the prehistory of Europe there should not be very many blacks involved. But I voted IDK since I cannot be sure of the author's intent.
 
Um. It's based on a novel, set in a fantasy world called middle earth, in which there were no black people? Having read the books quite a few years ago, maybe my memory is rusty...but I can't recall mention of a single black person.
 
Tyler Perry has a whole string of racist movies.
 
Santa Claus is sexist.
 
Gandalf became a much better person when he was a "white" wizard.

Sounds about right.
 
Canell said:
So, people, what do you think? :)
What's your feeling about that? :peace
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No, it's not racist. It's based off the books, which were not racist either.
 
It's a bit "racial" in terms of allegory (the Dwarves are supposed to be roughly analogous to Medieval Jews, for instance, from what I've heard), but it's not "racist." People are generally defined by what they do, not who they are.
 
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No, the book was a swipe at uncontrolled industrialism and the upper ruling classes. If anything, conservatives should be crapping their pants over how communist it is.
 
If you're looking for racism then you will find racism. Whether there really is true racism there or not.
 
Cardinal said:
No, the book was a swipe at uncontrolled industrialism and the upper ruling classes. If anything, conservatives should be crapping their pants over how communist it is.
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"Communism" wouldn't be the right word for it in any eventuality. Tolkien was a staunch Roman Catholic, and a rabid traditionalist. Distributism would be more akin to something he would support.
 
I just find it funny that when they die, they come back whiter.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
I just find it funny that when they die, they come back whiter.
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Well, to be fair, before he became Gandalf the White he was Gandalf the Gray, not Gandalf the Negro.
 
Higgins86 said:
It's anti English!!!! All the orcs have really cockney London accents:2razz:
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Lol, true, true.

Gipper said:
Gandalf became a much better person when he was a "white" wizard.

Sounds about right.
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Actually I liked Gangalf better when he was grey. Gandalf the White is kinda swaggering. :peace
 
Canell said:
Lol, true, true.



Actually I liked Gangalf better when he was grey. Gandalf the White is kinda swaggering. :peace
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He was a lot more violent as a non-white wizard, and more prone to anger. As a white, he was sagely.

He also road-jacked someone and told them they couldn't pass as a non-white.
 
sangha said:
TBF very few of the characters are actual people (ie humans)
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There's actually one theory bouncing around that the dwarves represent Jews.

In any case, the ratio of white to black people in Lord of the Rings is more or less the same as you'd find in any other "white people" movie. Sleepless in Seattle was the whitest movie you'll ever see and nobody accused that of being racist.
 
Gipper said:
He was a lot more violent as a non-white wizard, and more prone to anger. As a white, he was sagely.

He also road-jacked someone and told them they couldn't pass as a non-white.
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Gray or White, he was the most non-magic-using wizard ever. I count twice: once in the duel with Saruman (which he lost), and the second against those flying dragon things, and that was only to cast a ray of light that scared them off for some reason.
 
The book mentions that there are black people in the southern part of the continent if I remember right.
 
Cardinal said:
Gray or White, he was the most non-magic-using wizard ever. I count twice: once in the duel with Saruman (which he lost), and the second against those flying dragon things, and that was only to cast a ray of light that scared them off for some reason.
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Well, I suppose that you could argue that there was magic involved with breaking up the rock ledge that cast the fiery demon with the whip (and himself) into the sweet by-and-by. Either that, or he's a geologist who knows right where to hit a stone that causes an avalanche.
 
Cardinal said:
Gray or White, he was the most non-magic-using wizard ever.
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Well, you know what they say - a good driver hardly uses the brakes. ;)

But there is also: the water horses, butterflys, the torch inside Moria, disarming Aragorn, Gimly and Legolas in the Fangorn forest, etc.
 
Canell said:
Well, you know what they say - a good driver hardly uses the brakes. ;)

But there is also: the water horses, butterflys, the torch inside Moria, disarming Aragorn, Gimly and Legolas in the Fangorn forest, etc.
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Yeah, and there was also that time he cast a bolt of lightning in the book, but whatever. I still use more magic than that guy. Think about it: the sum total of The Hobbit and LOTR is about 1800 pages, and we can count the instances of him using magic on the fingers of nearly two hands.
 
Cardinal said:
Yeah, and there was also that time he cast a bolt of lightning in the book, but whatever. I still use more magic than that guy.
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He never casted magic missile or hadoken :(
 
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