Tolkien, a racist?

I went to see The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and it was rather amazing. One thing bugged me about the whole thing though, was Tolkien a racist? I surpressed this thought for a while but the images of the ‘bad’ men with dark skin, wearing turbans and riding on elephants just wouldn’t go away. I was at one point ashamed of thinking it. Maybe all the racial tension in my town lately has made me extra sensitive to these issues?
Then I read Anil’s post, did a bit of research and found that I’m not the only one who has thought like this. Now I don’t feel so terrible. There are also some opposing views which are worth a read.
I’ve never actually read the books so my real question is, why did the Orcs have cockney accents? A touch of snobbery from Tolkien or a parody of Eastenders from Peter Jackson?

40 comments

  1. Don’t be offended by the “british guy” remark… it’s just that, between being Indian *and* being American, I’ve got two reasons to make fun of the U.K. as much as I can. 😉

  2. I’m not particularly strong on either side of the issue (although I couldn’t help noticing), but I don’t believe Tolkien described the Orcs in his books the way they are portrayed in the movies (turbans, dark skin, etc.). I think it’s more of a Hollywood interpretation…

  3. Actually, the ones with turbans and elephants were the southron people from warmer climates, so turbans and suchlike would fit. What I find interesting is the relative nature of the armies/areas – ie Sauron’s one is comprised of all the ‘ugly’ people shunned by the rest of society, whereas the side of ‘good’ are all traditional western warriors, manipulated by the elves and wizards. Poor orcs – did you see what mordor was like? No wonder they wanted to skip in the fields, but were they ever allowed out without arrows being shot at them? Nope 🙁 I’m hungry.. Burgers.. Mm..
    ‘lo Sai

  4. What’s a Nubian?
    This is apparently (thanks to CountessArabica, heh). Overanalysis of movies always intrigues me. Spurred on by the whole black/white racial divide in Lord of The Rings (some of which are highlighted here by Saima and further in my last post),…

  5. He was not a racist, he never said what skin color the orcs were of, or that the southerners wore turbans. SO HA!

  7. I was eating Ahmed halal jelly as i wrote the last two replies. Just f.y.i., a bit of an interesting behind-the-scene factoid.

  8. Y Anil lo hace de nuevo / And Anil does it again
    Hablemos de raza Hacen meses que no escribo en este blog porque me cuestionado para que lo quiero. Ya estoy manteniendo no uno, ni dos, pero 3 blogs. Mi tiempo es limitado y para qué escribir en español si ya lo hago tan bien en inglés. Bueno, Anil,…

  9. I don’t know, who did say olephants were bad?
    And thank you for telling me what you were eating, I’m collecting data on my visitsors, the most important being their eating habits.

  10. I dont really mean that anyway, i was bored, and doing a random web search. I was eating the jelly, and did a google search on it. I stumbled upon this site, and I am glad to be here.

  12. I was thinking.. What’s up with Malfoy’s accent in Harry Potter? Shouldn’t he be posh like me? Huh?
    Also I went back and looked at the Trade Federations accents from phantom menace/attack of the clones – notice how it becomes distinctly less oriental from one to the next? ^_^
    If I can recall Andrew.. He did say they were slanty eyed did he not?

  14. Most of the southerners joined sides with Mordor. By the way, some hobbits were on Saruman’s side too, if you didn’t know. Like Ted Sandyman. Therefore, there is no racism. Seeing that Orcs used to be Elves too once, and the Nazguls were Men, that proves my point.

  22. I was very disturbed as well by the fact that the clearly “Muslim-looking” people were associated with evil in the movie (haven’t read the books). It’s another image people are being fed of the “scary, evil Muslims”. I thought it was unneccessary and racist to single out groups of non-white people and equate them to horrific monsters. On a side note I thought their outfits looked the coolest…I happen to love that look. Anyhow, it may be possible Tolkien feared the “rest of the (non-white) world” ? Maybe one day they’ll be another version where the turban guys take over! 🙂

  25. Are you referring to the costumes? I am inclined to agree that in the movies, the Easterling costumes looked Japanese-y and the Harad costumes looked Middle Eastern-y. I think the director’s creativity was trying to spawn new exotic and never-before-seen looks without going overboard – After all, the people of the East and the people of Gondor had no contact so their aesthetics were supposed to be entirely different – but unfortunately the creative staff got lazy or rushed, I don’t know. time constraints maybe? as far as the oliphaunts, you must understand that the people/creatures in LOTR are mostly metaphors and metaphors often require large-scale fantastic imagery. consider the use of colors in LOTR, most notably the use of the color black and the color white. it’s just art and imagery for a fictional *tale*. the colors have nothing to do with humans –those that disagree need a lesson in melanin and climate. dark skinned people are dark because of melanin, not because of evil. elephants just so happen to be found in asia and africa, but elephants are not oliphaunts.

  26. Just to clarify something – Earlier I stated that metaphors often require large-scale fantastic imagery – This is especially true where written fiction is concerned for everything must be visualized. What land animal is larger than an elephant? There is none larger, therefore Tolkien choosing ‘elephant’ as model for ‘oliphaunt’ is almost natural, for the benefit of the reader of course. My point is, it’s all art and imagery. The fact that elephants are African and Asian has nothing to do with gigantic oliphaunts which don’t exist anyway

  27. Dark skinned people are dark because of melanin, we know that. What does that have to do with what we’re discussing? What I want to know is why is black evil and white good?

  28. Someone correct me if I am incorrect: In science white is not a color, nor is black. Black is the absence of spectrum, white is the full spectrum in equal amounts (red, violet, etc) They are both illusions but nonetheless associated in many cultures with truth, clarity (white) and danger, vulnerability (black, for the difficulty to see what, if anything, exists within black when black is encountered – example: nighttime)
    The fact that LOTR aheres to these connotations to a high degree (don’t forget Saruman) is simply the writer’s choice for his written fantasy tale. Emphasis on written. descriptions within are extreme with adjectives, colors, etc so that the written word jumps off the page and becomes available to the imagination. So with white and black, they are just Tolkien’s literary tools. If you were to imagine the color krobu (no such color) you would immediately want to know if it is in the red family, or perhaps a type of green, if not, then is it like a blue, what?? if I said it’s not related to any color that your eyes can currently see, nowhere near beige, definitely not gray, certainly not yellow, this would be tough to put into words then! So you see there has to be some type of tangible link that can can be used to visualize

  29. the people werent supposed to be Indian they were supposed to be Black, anyways thats what he put in the book. as bonbon said its a light and dark thing, but Peter Jackson, film director, didn’t use Black people because people would get offended (which still doesn’t make sense, but desis don’t speak out, i don’t i happen to be desi!).

  31. Memotypes
    So the release of The Return of the King revived the debate over allegedly racist themes in Tolkien’s work, with critics and supporters rushing to respectively press and deny the charges against him. And it wasn’t just the usual suspects…

  32. Amateur memetics #1: Is The Lord of the Rings racist?
    So the release of The Return of the King revived the debate over allegedly racist themes in Tolkien’s work, with critics and supporters rushing to respectively press and deny the charges against him. And it wasn’t just the usual suspects…

  33. was tolkien racist? To answer this its pretty vital to know what he was trying to do with his book. It wasn’t just a story for tolkien but an attempt as he saw it to provide England with it’s own mythology. Tolkien was anti industrialisation (we see in the film Saurumans acceptance of the industrial age, the fall of the forests and the dawn of a new industrial power with its power base in mordor.)
    Tolkien equated this ‘progress’in the real world with destructiveness
    and not something to be welcomed.
    Tolkien is making a clear parallel. Its also the case that many of the volkish or nazi ideas were anti industrialisation, they saw it as destroying the German Volk (the national stock based on ‘germanic’ blood) and Tolkiens use of blood equaling character is also very nazi.
    Tolkien however could also be seen as advocating some of the ideas of Rousseau who was not a nazi but also anti industrialisation.
    Tolkiens attempt to create an English (not a Scottish) mythology based on preindustrial values however is by definition racist, a simple ‘English life’ (ie middle earth) is threatened by an evil industrial immoral power whicvh wishes to destroy thios beatiful simplicity and embrace the ‘dark arts.’ Tolkiens book equates different as threatening, as evil.

  34. I think you are all reading too much into this. Tolkien was just a great storyteller. Nothing more. It’s Fantasy in the true sense of the word.

  35. OK, I don’t think that Tolkien was racist. As someone else said, Tolkien wanted to create his on mythology fo engladn. he was also deeply influenced by Beowulf, which depicts the moors or black people as evil descendents of Cain. I don’t think tolkien was racist, compared to that. I think that he actually liberated more than prejudiced.

  36. Human beings are diurnal creatures. We usually walk around in the day. We are primarily visual creatures. When we can see something and identify it we are less frightened of it. Can we see in the dark? Nope. What color is the night? Black (well, dark bluish, but you know what I mean).
    Just a thought. I have never read the book, but I plan to.

  38. Hooray. LOTR:ROTK wins Best Picture, Best Director, best everything. So ha-ha on all the “Star Wars is better” dummies. Your film won squat and will continue to be snubbed over and over

  39. maybe tolkien was not a racist deliberatelly, maybe he just wrote a story that fits his time, but it IS a racist story.
    when aragorn shouts “…I bid you stand, Men of the West!”, and they make a final charge to the black gate on the east, it reminded me so much of chuchills hatred towards bolsheviks of russia whom he called “swarms typhus bearing vermin”.
    and oh my god, those scenes when a blonde warrior comes home, greeted by his red haired arian wife and arian children, sun in their hair. that looks to me like goebel’s propaganda.
    peter jackson really did a good job to emphasise those aspects of the book.

  40. Tolkien is not Racial. It is the most stupid idea ever. The Lord of the Rings is a part of a mytoligi maked by tolkien to be like “the lost mythologi of old England”. Maybe you guys dosen’t know (anyone here has read the book?) but in the time the LotR Mythologi was gonna cover, they didn’t actually know anything about the east (not in Tolkiens time but in the “Lord of the Rings-time”). Maybe someone of you know about the vikings or other very old “dead” mythologies they are much the same.
    PS. I am NOT a racist and actually I think the easterlings are the coolest people in the whole LotR triology. (I love eastern clothing and armor) And besides, which film have more races than LotR? Like the last alliance or the fellowship of the ring. In the last it actually is 5 different races (an elf, four hobbits, two men, a wizard and a dwarf) all helping each other. So my conclusion is that LotR are not Racial, and of course Tolkien(let his name be honored) isn’t either.
    END OF THE DISCUSION!!!

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