Critical Miss: Lord of the Wrongs

[Something Amyss]

"Female Nazgul" cracked me up.

I think one of the funniest things about the "minority hobbits" thing is that many of the same people who complained about the person who auditioned (on the Escapist, at least) then turned around and defended a black Norse God.

Anyway, if we allow gay wizards in Lord of the rings, it's only a matter of time before they infiltrate Harry Pott...Oh, right.

 

[The Wooster]

Edit: Have to say love the last panel goes to show how short sighted you really are. Gandalf wasn't gay in the films the actor was. His sexual orientation had no effect on him being a white old man and playing Gandalf just as he is in the books. Legolas's problem is merely a continuity error that was over looked the rest of Bloom was ok in relation to the books (apart from his acting)

Blooms eyebrows are not a continuity error, they are a casting error (One present in a whole slew of the Elves cast in the film). If you're going to insist that all hobbits are white because they're white in the book (except those that... you know... aren't) even though race has absolutely zero relevance to their character then you can sure as shit insist they hire some actors that are actually blonde.

 

[Drakey]

'Wait...' Isnt Legolas Metrosexual?

 

[The Wooster]

We out digga'

That's so gonna be my new catchphrase!

 

[XShrike]

Is this comic based on a random thought or is it triggered by the apparent outrage of a black Norse god in the Thor movie? The latter doesn't really bother me. If they are gods or advanced enough aliens they can look like whatever they want. If they want to get really specific Thor should be a red head and not blonde.

Any way, Middle Earth is based on at least Western Europe. Except for humans it didn't sound like much, if any, of the other races traveled far from their native lands. Any isolated population is going to have pretty uniform features. This would make most of the races "white". Although at the relative time they probably made distinctions among that. At the start of the 1900s people were still making distinctions among what would just be considered "white" today.

 

[Rorschach II]

Its not really Peter Jackson's fault. The whole world has become so politically correct that not having different ethnicities is considered 'rascist' rather than 'accurate'.

I mean I heard of a black guy being cast as Frank Sinatra at some point. FRANK SINATRA.

Whole world needs to learn to just loosen its belt.

 

[The Wooster]

Is this comic based on a random thought or is it triggered by the apparent outrage of a black Norse god in the Thor movie? The latter doesn't really bother me. If they are gods or advanced enough aliens they can look like whatever they want. If they want to get really specific Thor should be a red head and not blonde.

Any way, Middle Earth is based on at least Western Europe. Except for humans it didn't sound like much, if any, of the other races traveled far from their native lands. Any isolated population is going to have pretty uniform features. This would make most of the races "white". Although at the relative time they probably made distinctions among that. At the start of the 1900s people were still making distinctions among what would just be considered "white" today.

I think you (and everybody else who's going really into depth about the conditions and environment of middle earth) are kind of missing the point. Pretty much every central character in the Hobbit (and LOTR) is white. No one is disputing that (though some will argue Tolkien was very vague when it came to describing race) we're disputing that it's even remotely relevent when it comes to casting. Race is simply not central to these characters, it's unimportant, a vague background detail at best. Why not have a black hobbit? Would it effect any real changes on the character? If it breaks people's immersion then those people need to go watch more theatre.
The main gist of the strip is pointing out the hypcrisy in criticising black hobbits while the film openly casts dark haired actors as blonde characters. It's hypocritical and irritating.

For a good laugh. Find anyone arguing about multi-ethnic hobbits, go into their post history and do a search for the prince of Persia movie. See how many of them thought race was entirely unimportant when it came to casting the movie. Funny how that changes.

 

[Therumancer]

Critical Miss: Lord of the Wrongs

It only matters because you think it matters.

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Great characters played by actors who weren't the right race/gender. (Off of the top of my head)

Dame Judi Dench as M in recent James Bond movies.

Will Smith as Robert Neville in I am Legend (film had it's issues but Will Smith was certainly not one of them. He was excellent.)

Laurence Olivier as Othello.

The various female characters present in the (Vastly superior) remake of Battlestar Galactica.

Everybody in the Takarazuka Revue adaptation of Phoenix Wright.

*cough* Passion of the Christ *cough*

John Wayne as Ghengis Goddamn Khan.

The Great Gonzo as Charles Dickens in the Muppet Christmass Carrol.

Morgan Freeman as Red in the Shawshank Redemption. (Thus all of your arguments are invalid)

(Thus all of your arguments are invalid)


Antonio Banderas as the Mariachi in Desperado.

etc etc

The list gets even longer if you start including actors that are the wrong race but the audience is too ignorant to tell.

Honestly, if you have so little imagination that a black hobbit would "break the immersion" of a film then it's a wonder you got through the book in the first place.

One thing you will notice though is that in almost every example your giving there were factors that made it viable. Shakespeare's plays were not some high-brow affair whent hey were created, they were quite low-brow plays designed to appeal to the masses. They were created as things a travelling group of players could pretty much grab and adapt on the fly using anyone that was on hand.

Things like "James Bond" are ongoing franchises nowadays, and as they modernized things they simply had the original "M" step down and be replaced (so to speak). Continuity and how this all works has never been a strong point of the series.

The thing is that with "Lord Of The Rings" you have a massive world with ridiculous amounts of backstory and lore. What makes it endure is the amount of fairly consistant detail throughout the entire work. In comparison pretty much every counter-example mentioned is comparitively shallow.

When your dealing with movies that are being sold in part due to their attention to detail and physical recreations of Tolkien's middle earth, something like using actors of the wrong ethnicity becomes a big deal in cases like this. What's more the reason why it's being done, and promoted ahead of time, is intentionally to make waves.

On top of that consider that artists like "The Brothers Hildebrandt" have been doing artwork for Middle Earth for a very long time. It's not like the vision of Middle Earth is something totally based on text, like comic books there are pretty solid examples made even during Tolkien's time of what things are supposed to look like, and that artwork was drawn on as inspirations for making these movies.

I don't consider it racist to expect them to maintain the integrity of a classic franchise like this under the circumstances.

Also I will point out that in cases where you had people playing cross-race in movies efforts were in many cases made to try and disguise the fact, either by relying on primitive photography (the Italian guys playing the Indians in a Spaghetti western can pass when it's Black and White) or other tricks in many cases. Not to mention the simple reason that it was passable due to them being able to find people of the appropriate ethnicities who could act in great enough numbers. Back in earlier Hollywood if you wanted a seen with 50 Indians you actually needed 50 guys who looked like Indians, and unless you had 50 of them to show up in costumes, you had to improvise. Right now nobody is going to be able to claim that they just didn't have enough caucasian guys to fill out all the hobbit roles with a straight face. Shotting a Western in Italy in the 1960s for example was a totally differant situation than what we're dealing with here today.

See, if they happened to have a black guy play a hobbit because they thought he was good at it, but used makeup and CGI to change his skin tone for the movie, that would be something else.

Right now it's pretty much a giant political stunt, done to get attention. That's one of the reasons why I find it so tasteless and it gets me more irritated than it should. Truthfully if they were going to have a black guy playing a hobbit briefly in the movie and nobody heard about it, and it was just kind of there whent he film was released, I doubt this would ever have become as big a deal as it is now. However since the movie is still being made, and the inconsisticy is known, and the film can still be changed before release (edited if nothing else) it opens the door for people who want to maintain the integrity of the world's portrayal to sound off about it. By defending these guys, your pretty much playing in to a publicity stunt.

The bottom line is that like with "Heimdall" in "Thor" which is another movie pulling the same thing, we know what things are supposed to look like due to there being plenty of material (including visual material) for referance. The issue is about integrity rather than any kind of racism. I'd feel the same way if someone decided to Whitewash "Spawn" in a new movie or TV series, because making him and his family/friends white would "sell better". Spawn is black, the way Hobbits and Heimdall are white, it's just how the characters are. In today's CURRENT world, there is no reason why you can't be accurate, and honestly the more minor the part is the less excuse you have for doing it wrong, because you can't say that you couldn't find the right kind of person who had the nessicary acting abillity (which is one of the few excuses that still makes sense, and when used efforts are usually made to get the actor in question the "pass" as the character).

 

[Therumancer]

You know what? I really do give up.

If you cant see why Asian/black Hobbits make no sense geographically never mind the fact that middle earth is based on Nordic/ Anglo-Saxon mythology then fine you continue on with your PC positive racist outlook on life.

Now I perhaps I may should of stated this at the start but I dont care if there is a Asian casted as an extra as no one really pays attention to extras, my fear is when they start changing main characters just to avoid seeming racist.

I know there is more to a character than their skin colour but their skin colour is still a part of their character, the comic book character Steel is black and he should never be casted by a white man because its a part of his character just as being white is a part of Batmans and spiderman.

If I was born black my personality would be different, just in the same way if I was born a woman. Our skin colour partly defines who we are, its not a big factor but still a factor none the less

Now Superman? yeah sure make him black cause he's a alien he can be what ever colour we want him to be but he's one of the few characters we can do that to as he's one of the few cases in which colour is not a factor

Now I'm going to ignore this thread as I fear the amount of ignorance coming from the posts might start to effect me.

Well the thing is that Superman has a visual prescence, and pretty much always has given that he's from comic books. We know what the character is supposed to look like. If your doing a movie based on an established character, you should be trying to recreate the artwork as closely as possible. The same incidently also applies to non-white characters as well.

This is part of the problem with people's "Horfoot" arguements about them being brown as opposed to ruddy or a more tan/olive color. We know what they look like because of the color artwork produced FOR Lord Of The Rings/The Hobbit by guys like "The Brothers Hildebrandt" and other sources. What's more this artwork was what was tapped for getting the "look" right for the movies so far.

As far as personality varying with race, that's not true in the least. Actually that bit strikes me as being a bit racist. These kinds of traits are the result of culture rather than any kind of inborn genetics. With countries being divided into sub-cultures based on race, you DO see people of various ethnicities behaving the same way, but that's because of how they are taught and raised. As guys like Bill Cosby have pointed out, the biggest problem facing Black America today, isn't any kind of racism, but Black America itself where the dominant culture is opposed to things like education, and hard work, and where being a criminal to get ahead is presented as a positive thing. The whole "get rich or die trying" attitude. Black guys who get educated, and move on to have relatively normal jobs are oftentimes accused of selling out, or not being black enough, etc... People can provide access to education, but in the end it doesn't matter if nobody decides to take it, or people decide to constantly loot the schools and destroy the property as a form of "rebellion". It's complicated, but the bottom line is that nothing intristic to the people makes them act this way, black guys CAN behave just like anyone else. This is why I frequently talk about targeting cultures (of various sorts) both domestically and internationally, NOT being a racist actually means being fairly brutal because it means I feel I can expect the same level of behavior for every group of people. If you think Blacks, Arabs, or any other group can't be any differant than they are now because of intristic traits, then that's racist.

At any rate, on the subject you can pull out a comic book or piece of vintage Lord Of The Rings Artwork, and show "this is what it's supposed to look like". That's the crux of the arguement here above and beyond anything. The issue is that there is nothing at all ambigious about Heimdall in the comics, or what Hobbits are supposed to look like.

 

[mechanixis]

The Great Gonzo as Charles Dickens in the Muppet Christmass Carrol.

Honestly I think this controversy would be much more interesting if Heimdall was being played by a muppet.

 

[Therumancer]

Is this comic based on a random thought or is it triggered by the apparent outrage of a black Norse god in the Thor movie? The latter doesn't really bother me. If they are gods or advanced enough aliens they can look like whatever they want. If they want to get really specific Thor should be a red head and not blonde.

Any way, Middle Earth is based on at least Western Europe. Except for humans it didn't sound like much, if any, of the other races traveled far from their native lands. Any isolated population is going to have pretty uniform features. This would make most of the races "white". Although at the relative time they probably made distinctions among that. At the start of the 1900s people were still making distinctions among what would just be considered "white" today.

I think you (and everybody else who's going really into depth about the conditions and environment of middle earth) are kind of missing the point. Pretty much every central character in the Hobbit (and LOTR) is white. No one is disputing that (though some will argue Tolkien was very vague when it came to describing race) we're disputing that it's even remotely relevent when it comes to casting. Race is simply not central to these characters, it's unimportant, a vague background detail at best. Why not have a black hobbit? Would it effect any real changes on the character? If it breaks people's immersion then those people need to go watch more theatre.
The main gist of the strip is pointing out the hypcrisy in criticising black hobbits while the film openly casts dark haired actors as blonde characters. It's hypocritical and irritating.

For a good laugh. Find anyone arguing about multi-ethnic hobbits, go into their post history and do a search for the prince of Persia movie. See how many of them thought race was entirely unimportant when it came to casting the movie. Funny how that changes.

The differance between this and the "Prince Of Persia" movie is again that we're dealing with a visual medium. The actor they picked for the role looks VERY close to the artwork produced for the games it's being based on, which nobody bothered to complain about until there was enough exposure to get some attention.

What's more, there are enough Arabs who can pass as white, hispanic, or other ethnicities that it's been a security concern in the US. If you bothered to pay attention to the whole issue of "Homeland Security" you'd know that one of the reasons why there has been heightened border control with Mexico isn't just because of illegal workers, but because Mexico is relatively easy to get into by ship or plane from other parts of the world, their ID checking systems and such are also a bit behind the US. Apparently terrorists caught in the US had been going into Mexico, disguising themselves as natives (or US citizens who had lost IDs) and then using the same tricks illegal workers use to get into the US to cross the border. Remember these guys are still people and just as smart as we are, unlike in Hollywood where the terrorists always sail up in some yacht/freighter, or try and come into the country on a plane, it's rarely that straightforward.

The overall point being is that the guy looked like the artwork, could probably be made to "pass" in reverse with the right kind of work, and of course there is the simple issue that I don't think there are any Arabic actors out there that had the nessicary abillity to box office draw for the movie. Off the top of my head I can't think of many Arabic actors operating in the US at all, and none that would look like the character.

For all the passionate arguements people can make about it, and in defense of political correctness, I'll be blunt in saying I've become less than open minded to this kind of thing due to a lot of attempts to racially change characters from highly visual media. I thought the guy who played "The Kingpin" seemed like he might be able to pull off the role in "Daredevil" but in the end, it just didn't work. He couldn't convince me that he was the character from the comics. Then of course we have Halle Berry as "Catwoman", she's smoking hot, can act pretty well, and even had a complete reboot to try and sell it (complete with links to the old Michael Keaton movies, through showing Michelle Pfieffer in costume in photographs)... it just didn't work at all. I saw the movie in the theaters (Daredevil too) and right now I'm just not all that inclined to agree that a good actor or actress can overcome extreme differances with the artwork in question.

 

[Urgh76]

I had to laugh at the first joke with the Harold and Kumar reference XD

Probably my favorite one!

 

[Chazfreakish]

The orcs are already English...they just sound like they're from the rougher parts of London.

 

[Mr Companion]

I think there already are English orcs. They're called football fans.

Well spotted

 

[Disaster Button]

Love this and loved the Lily Allen reference. Finally! One I have noticed!

 

[Grahav]

And latino giant spiders. ARRIBA ARANA!

 

[Chazfreakish]

Samwise was originally black... read the book... seriously people...

I did read the book and I don't remember this, but I doubt it came up that often.

I request a quote for proof.

Yep part of the reason why I didn't like it as it wasn't true to the history it was trying to tell which further proves my point on this whole "Staying true" to the source.

Samwise wasn't black in the book but it did state his skin was darker than the average hobbit then again he was a gardener so he probably got a tan.

Not Sam specifically, but the Harfoots as a race (of which sam is one) are described as darker skinned. Not just "darker than the average hobbit".

The Lord of the Rings, completed in 1948 (15 years pre-civil rights act, and started 10 years before that), had the darker skinned Hobbit Samwise Gamgee (Gamgee translated: Cotton-wool), who did all the hard labour, walks around calling Frodo Master Frodo, who marries Rose Cotton, in a world he sets, if I'm not mistaken 300 years earlier. There's a HELL of a lot of other stuff you can draw parallels to.

But seriously, is there any description of how MUCH darker they were exactly? No.
Therefore, could you have made Samwise black? 100% yes, and if anything many more things click into place when you do. Seriously, reread lord of the rings now. Does it make more sense or less sense?

Is it likely Tolkien had this in mind?
Does Tolkien often expand and develop stereotypes to get his characters?

This isn't a criticism of Tolkien, it's a description of a world that existed here in the same timeframe.

This annoyed me to a great extent - Sam worked outside, so he got a tan. He's a gardener. This does not mean he is a naturally dark skinned person. Also, Gamgee was a local word for cotton in Birmingham which Tolkien used coincidentally, he actually gave it an orgin of Elvish words meaning 'game' and 'wick.'

As much as America may seem like the centre of the world, there was no equivalent of the civil rights movement in the UK where Tolkien lived. Unlike the USA, in 1948, there were very few dark skinned people in the UK. Tolkien did not encounter dark skinned people in his daily life, from this perspective there's no reason for him to even think of including them in his epic.

While I'll admit that I haven't had time to 'reread lord of the rings,' I'm almost certain that I would gain nothing by turning Sam into a character of a different 'race.' Tolkien was mainly concerned with imitating great nordic myths and poems, not creating an allegory of anything. Tolkien had no black stereotypes to expand on.
Sorry for the random rant but I just had to put that right.

 

[The Wooster]

For all the passionate arguements people can make about it, and in defense of political correctness, I'll be blunt in saying I've become less than open minded to this kind of thing due to a lot of attempts to racially change characters from highly visual media. I thought the guy who played "The Kingpin" seemed like he might be able to pull off the role in "Daredevil" but in the end, it just didn't work. He couldn't convince me that he was the character from the comics. Then of course we have Halle Berry as "Catwoman", she's smoking hot, can act pretty well, and even had a complete reboot to try and sell it (complete with links to the old Michael Keaton movies, through showing Michelle Pfieffer in costume in photographs)... it just didn't work at all. I saw the movie in the theaters (Daredevil too) and right now I'm just not all that inclined to agree that a good actor or actress can overcome extreme differances with the artwork in question.

With comics the objection to multi-ethnic characters is even more ridiculous. How many different versions of Catwoman have their been? In how many different continuities? Several of those depict her as being very dark skinned. There's no objection to a run that depicts Superman as growing up in the Soviet Union but a movie that possibly depicts Spiderman as black is too big a change? Absurd.
Comics are, by their nature, mutable and ever changing. With Tolkien I can understand the argument that his books represent a singular vision and that some people considering following that vision precisely is the whole point of an adaption (I disagree but it's a fair enough position) but with Comic books, the product of many different people with different visions, the objections seem shallow and racially motivated.

 

[Therumancer]

Here's another great idea! lets take a race that lives in a country with a similar climate to England and throw the occasional black person in! Oh wait that makes no sense as that race wouldn't of evolved the skin pigment because the sun isn't that strong in the setting they're in.

I'm not very familiar with LotR mythology, so perhaps you could explain a few things to me. First, is the Shire the only place where Hobbits are found? If so, is the Shire located on an isolated island or otherwise completely different from the rest of Middle Earth? If the answer to either of those questions is "no", and evolution as we understand it truly takes place on middle earth as you seem to be saying, then I don't see why there wouldn't be non-white Hobbits. If Hobbits aren't exclusive to the Shire, then you likely would see the occasional non-white, just as you saw the occasional Moorish merchant/travelling scholar/physician in Medieval England. If they are supposedly exclusive to the Shire, and the Shire isn't geographically isolated and/or unique in some way, then it's likely that other Hobbit-like peoples would have evolved to fill the same evolutionary niche that Hobbits filled in the Shire, similar to Neanderthals in our world. That is, of course, assuming that evolution in LotR works in the same way as on our world, if at all, but if it doesn't, then it somewhat damages your "evolved the skin pigment" argument.

Understand something, Middle Earth is our world. The whole thing is that the world moves in ages, and changes greatly with time. It's the end of the third age, man is taking everything over, and the magic and wonder is beginning to leave (elves going over the sea, etc...). This is one of the reasons why Sauron who is making one final bid for conquest, there just aren't the kind of forces around anymore like those that laid the smackdown on him a long time ago. As you know from some of the stories they tell, Sauron was defeated by some great heroes joining forces against him, like Gil Galad. It wasn't quite the "dumb luck" thing that you saw at the beginning of the movie version, though I guess that captured the essence of it.

While the some of the things Tolkien's son "finished" after the fact changed stuff around, a key point which seemed to be downplayed a bit in the movies (though it was mentioned) is that Narsil was supposed to be a pretty powerful weapon in it's own right. The old heroes had stuff like that, and it didn't exist anymore. Reforging Narsil (which was able to trump the ring, at the expense of being destroyed itself) into Anduril "The Flame Of The West" was a big deal, and while Anduril was powerful it was only a shadow of what Narsil was and there wasn't a chance they were going to be able take Sauron in a straight fight. At one time characters like Galadriel and Celeborn might have been able to take down the weakened Sauron, but they talk about the "Diminishing Of The Elves" and how they are not only leaving, but their influance and power is fading. The elven lords just aren't what they used to be. Sauron pretty much picked the worst possible moment to make his return, and managed to get the biggest potential threats to him like Saruman pretty much on his side.

At any rate, it's been a while, so the details could be a bit wrong, the point here being that "Middle Earth" isn't a total alternate fantasy dimension, it's a distant and forgotten pre-history. All the incredible stuff fades away and the magic leaves. The hobbits who are a lot like man remain, but interbreed with men and disappear. The Rankin Bass animation of "Return Of The King" ends with the question "is there some hobbit in you?" for this reason.

The Hobbits are also very localized, and only from that one place. A key point of the stories is that the hobbits are such a minor race and so insignifigant that they were totally overlooked by Sauron and Mordor. The whole point of the scourging of the shire at the very end was that as a result of the war, their innocence was gone and they would no longer remain unnoticed. Sauron overlooked the possibility of something that was innocent and magic resistant enough to resist the temptation of his ring being used as a courier to dump it into the one place where it could be unmade.

The point being that hobbits DO vary in skin tones, and can have ruddy complexions or occasionally an olive coloration. There are no massive hobbit nations out there on other continents, or other settlements, there is just one "Shire" where these guys live, and while to them it seems like it's teeming with life, their numbers are ridiculously small even compared to the fading elves and dwarves.

Now to be honest, an arguement can be made that the guys riding the "Oliphants" could very well have dark skin tones. Sauron conquered a good portion of the rest of the world, and he wasn't just fighting with orcs and stuff from Mordor, but with armies from the rest of the world moving in on the last remaining bastions against him. That means that you probably had guys from Africa, India, and other places in some of those armies. The "Black Fleet" Aragorn took control of with the spirits of the dead was supposed to be crewed by humans (pirates pretty much).

If you read some of the backround information and timelines, there were huge battles taking place that weren't part of the story directly, or shown in the movies. Sauron pretty much had his armies divided into "hands" each with five fingers, each finger being a massive army. While Minas Tirith was the big stepping stone to quash the remaining meaningful resistance, you also had some huge battles taking place in the forests of the elves at the same time, in one of the timelines I remember reading they managed to hold out (barely) cutting off three fingers of one of his hands (so to speak) by the end. The elves and their king and queen being th other major force resisting him (purely defensively) along with the Men Of Gondor.

 

[Zenode]

Cory Rydell and Grey Carter think you're just evil, your just some racist who can't tie our laces, your point of view is medieval

To be fair, the Lord of the Rings IS medieval.
Assuming that the one Black Dwarf in the Hobbit is a gangsta and having him hold the drugs while the white dwarf makes the pitch,
now THAT'S racist
Plus, The wizards were gay in the book, or do you not recall Saruman's "cloak of many colors"?

You DO realise that its a play on words of the song Fuck You by Lily Allen.

I loved this comic

but Fuck You by Lily Allen.....really