Hobbit Casting Agent Fired For Dismissing Non-White Hobbits

[Sorafrosty]

I am certainly not seeing why there shouldn't be hobbits of any skin colour. I wouldn't mind that, simply because it would seem natural to my eye. Everyone, even hobbits, is different, no?

EDIT: Geographically speaking, I understand, but it doesn't bother me at all, really.

If this wear a movie about the Shire in the 6th of 7th age of middle earth where gaint highways stretch across middle-earth from the Grey Heavens to Mordor and everyone owned a car and on the weekends hopped on a plane to visit the Mordor resort and spa, then fine that is completely possible.

But Hobbits of color in the 3rd age of middle earth makes about as much sense as having white people in a movie about what Africa was like pre-European colonization.

Of course! I completely agree with you! But for some reason, I don't mind overlooking that fact if necessary

 

[The Wooster]

They had no problem casting dark haired people as Elves. I don't recall the books mentioning Legolas' black eyebrows.

I'm having loads of fun checking through people's post history and seeing who made "It doesn't matter what colour the actor who plays the Prince of Persia is" arguments during the big prince of Persia debate before going on to argue that Hobbits are white and it's totally important.

 

[ishist]

[/medication]
I wish someone would take the race card and tear it up in tiny little bits and burn it in an ashtray....on the balcony of the white house. I can count on the fingers of one foot how many times spontaneous ethnic diversity in casting has not lead to a bad case of FAIL. Mos Def as Ford Prefect really irked me. Well, the entirety of HHGG represented the Awesomosity of the Books about as well as the DOOM movie did for the game.

 

[Phototoxin]

Well next time there's a biography of Martin Luther King I, a white irish man, will apply.

 

[Sorafrosty]

Dark skinned hobbits wouldn't bother me in the slightest. They would just be travelers from other hobbit communities in differed locales.

Good to see that somebody agrees with me. I have no trouble imagining that dark/tanned skinned hobbits; do you?

 

[irani_che]

middle earth is casually racist, grow up.

 

[ElTigreSantiago]

This is ridiculous. It's like a white guy complaining that he got turned down to play Martin Luther King. It's not racism, Hobbits just don't have brown skin! For fuck sake.

Read Tolkien. According to his own words, the Harfoot Hobbits are "brown-skinned."

You've already had this argument above, partner. I highly doubt the people complaining here read that anyway.

 

[The Youth Counselor]

It is interesting that many of these arguments defending the casting director was also used to defend the casting for Prince of Persia and The Last Airbender.

Luckily I came across this gem last week. [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/privilege-denying-dude]

 

[Fiend13]

I'm downright shocked by how racist a lot of people still appear to be (most of them probably without even noticing or caring about it).

On topic:

To my knowledge Tolkien never made a single statement about the skin colour of ALL (!) hobbits in his universe. Even if so, movies always have adapted contents from other media to the historical and social background of the time the movie is placed in. Globalisation simple was not as big of an issue in the 1940's and 1950's as it is today. Furthermore, the subject is in no way revelant to any of the story.

So based on this, someone please explain to me why there should be no hobbits of all ethnic groups without fulfilling the exact defintion of racism.

 

[struwwelman]

Middle Earth is just fantasy middle England, so when I read the books I picture the hobbits as anglo-saxon. At that sort of technology level people didn't really move around much beyond their local area, and a dark-skinned person would have been a strange sight in medieval England.

The story, however, is not about race, in fact its themes touch more on industrialisation. In that sense it doesn't matter what colour the skins of the hobbits are, but if you can cast by height, then why not by race? As others have pointed out you wouldn't cast a caucasian in the role of a black person.

EDIT: With reference to the Harfoots being described as having brown skin, I always pictured these as simply tanned from living outdoors, but in general the colour of the hobbit's skins WILL NOT make any difference to the quality of the film, as some people seem to be suggesting.

 

[MikeOfThunder]

As far as I am aware. The original books of J.R. Tolkien never had any colored hobbits. I don't think this is discrimination based on prejudice, rather, keeping to the original spirit of the novel. Naz Humphreys appears to be playing the race card, and it was easily predicted that she would do so. The ironic part of it is, that in by forcing your skin color into a fictional culture whereas such a provision was never made, is racist in itself. It does not respect the cultural heritage of the native hobbit. Maybe just ethnocentric?

Tolkien's books were also written in the 30's and 40's... that doesn't make him racist, more living in an era that didn't emphasise multiculturalism.

However look at it from the womans point of view. Say she wants to play a hobbit, say she loved the books and films... and then just as she is about to audition is told that her skin tone is wrong for her to be able to play part in a fictional race. It's not like they are changing anything substantial in the story by having a non-white hobbit! If Bilbo was suddenly black, that would drastically alter the book, but a background character... come on!

 

[MikeOfThunder]

I'm downright shocked by how racist a lot of people still appear to be (most of them probably without even noticing or caring about it).

On topic:

To my knowledge Tolkien never made a single statement about the skin colour of ALL (!) hobbits in his universe. Even if so, movies always have adapted contents from other media to the historical and social background of the time the movie is placed in. Globalisation simple was not as big of an issue in the 1940's and 1950's as it is today. Furthermore, the subject is in no way revelant to any of the story.

So based on this, someone please explain to me why there should be no hobbits of all ethnic groups without fulfilling the exact defintion of racism.

I 100% agree with you on this point, having non-white hobbits in the film would not alter the story in anyway.

 

[Hiroshi Mishima]

I get the impression the agent has been fired to save PR. Hobbits are all white, simple as - its not a racist thing but a point of fact. I mean if you really wanted to start getting technical its all done to where they sit in middle earth, based on the weather conditions and so on. Its the same reason why you wouldnt see any black dwarfs or elfs either.

This, as loudly as possible. I realize in today's day and age people are bending over backwards so hard to be politically correct that they're looking up their own asses.. but some good common sense should tell them that not EVERYTHING needs to be gods-damned multiracial rainbow casts. It's kinda like the whole question of "why are black people rare in anime? They must be racist!" when it's more about "how often do you see black people in Japan?" And it annoys me that people still have yet to realize some of these issues.

...kind of like how they suddenly decided to swap gender and/or colour for characters such as Starbuck, Nick Fury, and so on. It makes little sense and just comes off as "trying to be PC". Green Lantern on the other hand works fine with this as there are many Green Lanterns and the character has changed hands repeatedly.

I've heard rumours the next Spiderman may be black and I'm still reeling from the idiocy of that one. Now if it were Anasazi or Ananzi or whatever that one black guy from Static Shock (or who was essentially Africa's Spiderman), then he'd be perfect. But not as Peter "Pasty White" Parker.

EDIT: May not have been clear enough and could cause confusion. I'm not saying the casting agent was in the right, cause he wasn't. What I AM saying is that perhaps only going for lightish-skinned extras should've been a discussed idea and advertised as such so people like that poor woman wouldn't have had to wait in line to audition only to waste her time.

On the other hand, it's entirely possible to be of non-black ethnicity and still have tannish/brownish skin. I could believe that was a hobbit that had been out in the sun a lot. What I meant originally is that I really can't see hobbits that are black or Asian as it just doesn't fit the world as Tolkien described it, which I think is the real issue.

 

[Stabby Joe]

Besides a few shots of the Haradrim, were there any non-white actors at all?

On a side note since everyone keeps bringing it up, Ultimate Nick Furry IS BLACK. He was based of Samuel Jackson who they also got to play him. It's not a PC film decision.

 

[TheRealCJ]

And that's what you get for staying true to your source material. It actually says in the intro to Fellowship that the Hobbits inhabit what is now Scandanavia, a place peopled very heavily by whites as white as they come. This is such bullshit.

Ok, so it's perfectly acceptable to have a bunch of White guys pass as middle eastern nobility in that Prince of Persia film but a non-white hobbit is somehow completey unacceptable?

Would you listen to yourselves?

Its a freakin fantasy film, SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF IS IMPLIED.

Suspension of disbelief is very hard to achieve if a film actively goes against its own world. It's not racist to say a black hobbit would take you out of the film world, it makes sense because there are no black hobbits in the literature it's based on.

"Woah, that inconsequential background character isn't white! THIS IS TOTALLY UNBELIEVABLE!"

Also, are you suggesting that having secondary characters be the wrong skin colour in a film is more jarring than having the entire main cast be the wrong nationality?

 

[KeyMaster45]

Guess how many Pakinstanis where living in Europe back in those days...

*flips through his medieval Europe census book*

Ah ha! There were four, but two of them were just Monty Python actors in drag.

OT: This casting guy kinda shot himself in the foot, albeit unintentionally it would seem. Yes yes, I agree on what color hobbits need to be. However, I find myself wondering why he found it necessary to publicly make the stipulation for only the female try-outs. I think that might be where he was caught. It's one thing to post an add saying "WANTED: Male and Female actors of fair skin who aren't afraid to have copious amounts of Sean Conory's back hair glued to their feet." and another to post an ad without that stipulation. (?)

Actually I'm quite confuzzled about this so despite my best I can't seem to find a defense for why the guy should have been fired. Seems like castng 101 to me, to save time and money you specify what you're looking for in the visual qualities of your actor/actress so that you don't waste time interviewing every schmuck in hollywood who's looking for their acting break. Anyone who doesn't meet that criteria you turn away, if it hurts their feelings...I guess...you're sorry they don't have the look you want?

 

[JDKJ]

And no matter how many times I post to the thread that the Harfoots were not white.

I wonder if there's any correlation between ability to read and willingness to make a "Hobbits are white" post. Perhaps the less the former, the greater the latter.

I disagree, why didn't he just come out and say it then? Why did he have to hid it? "Browner of Skin", in the context about a world based on Europe and in the much less multi racial time when Tolken wrote it seems like a slam dunk to me. But you don't care about the truth so I guess I shouldn't either.

Lemme see if I'm following you:

Are you saying that when Tolkien writes that the Harfoots were "browner of skin" than the other Hobbit races, he didn't really want to create the impression that they were of brown skin? What he really wanted to say was that they were as white as freshly driven snow but for some reason he didn't just come out and say that they were as white as freshly driven snow? Rather, he hid the fact they were as white as freshly driven snow underneath some bullshit about brown skin? That's what you're arguing? Am I following you correctly?

 

[8-Bit Grin]

Everything that could be said, has been said.

All that I can add is:

Get over it, America.

Get over it, Britain.

Get over it, intelligent human beings.

 

[JDKJ]

Middle Earth is just fantasy middle England, so when I read the books I picture the hobbits as anglo-saxon. At that sort of technology level people didn't really move around much beyond their local area, and a dark-skinned person would have been a strange sight in medieval England.

The story, however, is not about race, in fact its themes touch more on industrialisation. In that sense it doesn't matter what colour the skins of the hobbits are, but if you can cast by height, then why not by race? As others have pointed out you wouldn't cast a caucasian in the role of a black person.

EDIT: With reference to the Harfoots being described as having brown skin, I always pictured these as simply tanned from living outdoors, but in general the colour of the hobbit's skins WILL NOT make any difference to the quality of the film, as some people seem to be suggesting.

Let's assume that Tolkien's description of the Harfoots as "browner of skin" means that they were "tanned" from living outdoors. Doesn't casting a pale, pasty-skinned, white actor who's never seen the light of day deviate from Tolkien's vision of what a Harfoot looked like? That's not to say that casting the pale, pasty-skinned, white actor as someone other than Gollum (who I imagine would have pale, pasty-skin given that he rarely saw the light of day) affects the quality of the film. That's just to say that it fails to follow Tolkien's vision of what a Harfoot looked like. And makes it difficult to justify casting only pale, pasty-skinned, white actors to play the roles of Harfoots. It can't be well said that the reason for casting only pale, pasty-skinned, white actors to play the roles of Harfoots is because Harfoots actually had pale, pasty skin because, if we give your vision of a Harfoot's appearance full credit, they didn't have pale, pasty skin. They were tanned from living outdoors.