Hobbit Casting Agent Fired For Dismissing Non-White Hobbits

[JDKJ]

trip

 

[JDKJ]

Well to be fair, the story is set in a Northern European looking environment.

Basically everyone in Northern Europe is dark skinned. So this guy should have been fired.

Just like any asshole who demands people playing Native Americans look like Native Americans be fired.

Everyone knows Native Americans were white as the driven snow.

I'm waiting for a film that is centered around the conflicts in the Congo and has a cast entirely of Asian and Indian people because they don't want to be fired.

It's a bit different for movies isnt it, muppet? Like I said earlier. It'd make no sense to cast european whites in the roles of black africans in a movie. As there makes no sense in casting black people as vikings in a movie either. So quit being an overly political correct douché.

Inevitably the issue is that people identify with what they are instead of who they are.

As long as an individual feels the most important qualities about themselves are the ones they couldn't alter, nor are even responsible for, we will never make it beyond the most base levels of interconnectivity and civility.

What makes you think that film production is exempted from the anti-discrimination hiring laws, Mr. Snuffleupagus? If a Harfoot Hobbit is, as Tolkien described, of brown skin, then it is against the law for a casting call to exclude actors with brown skin. There's no legitimate reason to say that a brown-skinned actor can't play a brown-skinned Hobbit. And to attempt to say so suggests that you're either a racist twat or a mumbling moron.

Third Option: They didn't read the book and are unaware that this is the case.

But then you wouldn't get your confirmation bias button tickled.

They're undertaking a major multi-million dollar interpretation of The Hobbit but haven't read every word in it 1000 times over, backwards and forwards, upside down, and inside out. What's the odds on that? I'd guess about the same as me hitting all six Lotto numbers drawn this coming Friday (but don't think, long odds notwithstanding, I'm not hopeful enough to still buy a ticket -- the jackpot just rolled over to $55 million).

 

[sir.rutthed]

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?

Thing is, the Hobbits are their own race. To draw a comparison, they could be likened to some American tribe. They're their own people with their own customs from a time period where there was almost no intermarrying between the races, and they're in a closed off part of the world with almost no outside trade. Where would they have even gotten the genes to have different skin colors? Having them have different skin colors just doesn't make any sense. There aren't that many Hobbits to begin with, maybe a couple thousand from what we can read. That means little genetic diversity, so they'll share many traits between them all. When you consider this, and the fact that all the Hobbits we've seen so far have been white, it makes no sense for there to be "minority" Hobbits. Whitewashing a film is dumb, I'll give you that. But it's just as dumb to have minorities represented within a minority where those minorities don't exist. It's political correctness at its most useless, and it accomplishes nothing but making the people involved look stupid.

Hobbits may be their own race, but within that race, according to Tolkien, there are three different "breeds" (Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides) with phenotypic characteristics that range from "browner of skin" (Harfoots) to "fairer of skin and hair" (Fallohides). Don't ask me how Tolkien takes a limited gene pool and comes up with these three distinct breeds within a species, but come up with them he does.

And where have "all the[se] Hobbits we've seen so far [that] have been white" appeared? In Peter Jackson's film trilogy? So what? If Jackson had, for whatever reason and as is his artistic right to do, decided to cast Gary Coleman in the role of Bilbo Baggins, would we therefore conclude that a Took Hobbit's as Black as the Ace of Spades? Just because Jackson's Hobbits were all white doesn't mean that Tolkien's Hobbits were all white. The one doesn't necessarily follow from the other. Nor does it mean that for ever and ever thereafter all Hobbits which appear in any film must also be white. That don't make no sense, either.

You'll also recall from the reading that two of those "breeds" have either died out or been assimilated into the Hobbiton stock, leaving one gene pool and one culture. "browner of skin" could mean anything from a South American complexion to just having a good natural tan. True, he could make the artistic decision to make Bilbo or any Hobbit any race he wants, but this isn't an artistic decision. They fired this guy because some whiney minority lady got pissed off at being turned away. That's what pisses me off about this whole mess, not necessarily that the Hobbits will be a different color, but that the decision is being made for PR and this guy got fired for following his source material.

I dunno about all that other blah, blah, blah, but I do know that if "browner of skin" means anything, it means that there's no legitimate reason that an actor of brown skin can't play a brown-skinned Hobbit.

And I'm not saying there isn't. It's just that in this case it isn't a legitimate reason, therefore I call bullshit.

 

[MasterChief892039]

Edit: I'm retracting my statement because I believe it's a silly issue anyway.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

So, what? Does this mean that in the interest of equal opportunity employment they aren't gonna cast some Jewish guy as Gollum? That's ridiculous! Everyone knows that Gollum's Jewish.

Ahem, that's Golem you're thinking of. Golem is Jewish, Gollum is named after his own vocal sounds.

Ahem, there's a library full of scholarly research that suggests Tolkien's Gollum was inspired by the Golem of Jewish folklore.

See, for example, http://www.taylor.edu/dotAsset/57599.pdf

Haven't read the rest of your PDF, as I stopped reading right after it claimed the Judaism took the idea of the golem from the bible. Um, no, Judaism came first, otherwise Christ wouldn't have been Jewish now would he. Judaism has a rich enough heritage without having to steal from a younger religion. That pretty much destroyed any credibility that PDF had.

Edit: Just noticed that both post I replied to were yours. Coincidence, not some kind of personal grudge I assure you.

Are you aware that the first five books of the Christian Bible (the so-called Pentateuch) reappear almost word-for-word in the Torah (the Jewish equivalent of the Christian Bible)? In fact, the names of the first five books of the Torah translate from the Hebrew into English as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, which is precisely what they're called in the English Christian Bible. In fact, Leviticus (which is mostly a set of laws) is named after the Tribe of Levi who, among the so-called Twelve Tribes of Israel, are known as "the law-givers."

Bible or Torah. If you're about talking the first five books of the New Testament or the Torah, ain't no difference.

I am aware of that, but the wording in the pdf implies that Jewish folklore was influenced by the bible when it was clearly influenced by the Torah. That's like me directly copying The Lord out the Rings for the first part of my book and then claiming that Games Workshop's Orks are inspired by my book. To steal an idea and then attempt to take credit for it instead of the original source is pretty low.

In regards to your other post, absolutely, the harfoots clearly do have darker skin, I was merely playing with the wording as your original comment could have been incorrectly taken to mean that all Hobbits were dark skinned.

Again though, Torah or New Testament Bible. What's the difference? To say something was influenced by the one is probably to just as well say it was influenced by the other. Doesn't a rose, regardless of what you call it, still smell just the same?

That makes no sense at all. The Torah came first, it's historical fact. It doesn't matter that they're the same, the new testament is a copy of the Torah, not the other way around. There's this crazy little thing called chronology that is often a good indication of what came first. There is no way that the Torah is influenced by the New Testament, and to claim that Jewish folklore is influenced by the bible is high preposterous and entirely based on Christian arrogance or delusion (by all means have your faith, just don't try to take credit for an idea that clearly came from elsewhere). The golem as a concept would have existed long before the bible did.

Takes a pretty sharp knife to split a thin hair, don't it?

What utter nonsense. Your pdf gave one religion credit for a concept that is known to be from an older source. The fact that the two books are practically the same just shows that the latter ripped the former off. Pull that shit nowadays and there's not a court that wouldn't call it plagiarism. That's not splitting hairs, that's pointing out that your pdf got it substantially wrong. If you can't see that then I'm not going to argue with you any further. You are wrong here, it's not a matter of opinion.

 

[RedDeadFred]

they were white in LOTR movies. It would just be weird if their skin colors were different in the Hobbit.

Which is kinda like saying that if I made a mistake yesterday, I should make the same mistake today because to do anything to correct yesterday's mistake would be "weird."

It would be confusing for some people if some main characters were a different color. That would be weird. Eg. Bilbo was white in LOTR, it would be pretty weird if they made him black in the Hobbit.

they were white in LOTR movies. It would just be weird if their skin colors were different in the Hobbit.

It would be weird if bilbo was suddenly black,yes, but other hobbits no. I would imagine that the movie will be spending a bit more time in the shire then LotR, so if would be safe to assume that a large simply of hobbits would be seen.

Also the main hobbit characters were white in the movie because they were white in the book the Tooks are descendants of the Fallohide breed of hobbits which are noted as having fair skin and hair. Bilbo was related to the Tooks. Pippin was a Took and Frobo was Bilbo's cousin and therefor part Took. Merry was a Brandybuck who were also descendants of the Fallohidish breed.

That doesn't many that random Joe Hobbit couldn't be of color.

Edit Frodo was also part Brandybuck

You make a good point.

 

[Flying-Emu]

She was applying to play an extra right? Is it really impossible to imagine that in whatever scene they need extras for, a Harfoot ( which do have brown skin) might not be there for some reason? While I do imagine that those crowd scenes will contain mostly Fallohide hobbits there is no reason there can't be a couple Harfoot amongst them and thus allow for more open auditions.

This was my thought... It's neve really specified HOW dark they are, but since the majority of LOTR fans are mouthbreathing fools who claim to 'read' the books, when in fact they did little but skim them...

 

[Rorschach II]

Thats silly. The worlds becoming to PC. It would be like getting fired for refusing to cast a black man as Elvis.

It reminds me of that Monty Python skit with the man with one leg auditioning for tarzan. heh.

 

[Sovvolf]

They're undertaking a major multi-million dollar interpretation of The Hobbit but haven't read every word in it 1000 times over, backwards and forwards, upside down, and inside out. What's the odds on that? I'd guess about the same as me hitting all six Lotto numbers drawn this coming Friday (but don't think, long odds notwithstanding, I'm not hopeful enough to still buy a ticket -- the jackpot just rolled over to $55 million).

Actually, I'd say the odds aren't too bad. Many of film companies have made films based on books, T.V series, Cartoons and such, clearly without reading the source material, or maybe just flipping through it at the most. A lot just seek to raise the money off of the name alone... Though this often equals a box office flop... However Film Execs don't seem to be very genre savvy.

No that I'm saying they did this with this film... However, with other films-cough- Dragon Ball evolution -cough- it does happen more often than we'd like.

As for the topic at hand... Well I feel sorry for the casting agent. She was just doing her job. The job asked for white people to be playing the Hobbits... Some one chose not to read and played the race card.

Look if a role is set for a specific appearance... Then its set for that appearance... That doesn't make the girl racist. Nor would it make her sexist if the role was set for a female and a male got turned away. That being said, this casting agent probably should have gotten permission from the studio heads first and maybe read the source material a little closer before setting the specific appearance.

With the looks of things she made an assumption that got her into a tickle, I sympathise with her as it would be an easy mistake to make. Specially if she'd only watched the movies and not paid much attention to the books. In the movies they are shown to be more Anglo-Saxon... Closely resembling people you'd find in rural British farmlands. So one would assume they were simply white and fair skinned.

However, as said... Next time I'd focus a little more on the research and ask permission first.

 

[JDKJ]

So, what? Does this mean that in the interest of equal opportunity employment they aren't gonna cast some Jewish guy as Gollum? That's ridiculous! Everyone knows that Gollum's Jewish.

Ahem, that's Golem you're thinking of. Golem is Jewish, Gollum is named after his own vocal sounds.

Ahem, there's a library full of scholarly research that suggests Tolkien's Gollum was inspired by the Golem of Jewish folklore.

See, for example, http://www.taylor.edu/dotAsset/57599.pdf

Haven't read the rest of your PDF, as I stopped reading right after it claimed the Judaism took the idea of the golem from the bible. Um, no, Judaism came first, otherwise Christ wouldn't have been Jewish now would he. Judaism has a rich enough heritage without having to steal from a younger religion. That pretty much destroyed any credibility that PDF had.

Edit: Just noticed that both post I replied to were yours. Coincidence, not some kind of personal grudge I assure you.

Are you aware that the first five books of the Christian Bible (the so-called Pentateuch) reappear almost word-for-word in the Torah (the Jewish equivalent of the Christian Bible)? In fact, the names of the first five books of the Torah translate from the Hebrew into English as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, which is precisely what they're called in the English Christian Bible. In fact, Leviticus (which is mostly a set of laws) is named after the Tribe of Levi who, among the so-called Twelve Tribes of Israel, are known as "the law-givers."

Bible or Torah. If you're about talking the first five books of the New Testament or the Torah, ain't no difference.

I am aware of that, but the wording in the pdf implies that Jewish folklore was influenced by the bible when it was clearly influenced by the Torah. That's like me directly copying The Lord out the Rings for the first part of my book and then claiming that Games Workshop's Orks are inspired by my book. To steal an idea and then attempt to take credit for it instead of the original source is pretty low.

In regards to your other post, absolutely, the harfoots clearly do have darker skin, I was merely playing with the wording as your original comment could have been incorrectly taken to mean that all Hobbits were dark skinned.

Again though, Torah or New Testament Bible. What's the difference? To say something was influenced by the one is probably to just as well say it was influenced by the other. Doesn't a rose, regardless of what you call it, still smell just the same?

That makes no sense at all. The Torah came first, it's historical fact. It doesn't matter that they're the same, the new testament is a copy of the Torah, not the other way around. There's this crazy little thing called chronology that is often a good indication of what came first. There is no way that the Torah is influenced by the New Testament, and to claim that Jewish folklore is influenced by the bible is high preposterous and entirely based on Christian arrogance or delusion (by all means have your faith, just don't try to take credit for an idea that clearly came from elsewhere). The golem as a concept would have existed long before the bible did.

Takes a pretty sharp knife to split a thin hair, don't it?

What utter nonsense. Your pdf gave one religion credit for a concept that is known to be from an older source. The fact that the two books are practically the same just shows that the latter ripped the former off. Pull that shit nowadays and there's not a court that wouldn't call it plagiarism. That's not splitting hairs, that's pointing out that your pdf got it substantially wrong. If you can't see that then I'm not going to argue with you any further. You are wrong here, it's not a matter of opinion.

"The fact that the two books are practically the same just shows that the latter ripped the former off."

"Utter nonsense." Thanks. That was the expression I was looking for but couldn't recall.

If you stopped blabbering for a second and gave some thought to the fact that the point at which Judaism and Christianity meaningfully diverge is the point at which Judaism rejects the Christian notion of Jesus Christ as Savior and further consider the fact that the Torah and the Bible are both presented in chronological fashion (which explains why the Torah, while reflecting large parts of the Bible's Old Testament, doesn't so reflect the New Testament), you may realize -- but I'm not feeling overly optimistic about the prospects -- that to claim that one temporally preceded the other and to pit rights of authorship of one against the other and to cast accusations of plagiarism by the Bible of the Torah is to do very little more than to demonstrate your lack of knowledge of Judaism, Christianity, the Torah, and the Bible.

If you're still not intellectually taking yourself where you need to go, then consider the more simple fact that the various religions of both Judaism and Christianity are often collectively referred to as "Judeo-Christian" religions (reflective of the common roots of both) -- although, truth be told, I'm still not overly optimistic of you taking yourself where you need to go.

Or, on the remote chance that third time will be the charm, if, as you claim, the Bible is plagiarized from the Torah, then go ahead and identify the rightful author of the Torah and the plagiarizing author of the Bible. You cannot reasonably claim a completed case of theft unless there's an owner of the stolen property and a thief that stole the property. Maybe your sure to be futile attempt to identify those authors will be the route that takes you where you need to go. Maybe.

 

[Xanadu84]

Okay, so, looking at this, my first instinct was that the guy got fired for no good reason. If Hobbits are white in the books, you want white Hobbits in the movie. Then, however, it's pointed out that Tolkien had browner skinned Hobbits. I'm no expert in Hobbit geneology. Okay, all of a sudden, it looks like the casting guy is a bit of a fool, but I'm not going to judge too heavily, because plenty of fantasy takes place in a setting that is analogous to historical settings that are very white. Tolkien seems to fall into this trend, especially with so much borrowed from the Norse. So he went to far, but fired seems to be a bit much. However, in everyones zeal to whine about either racism or political correctness, it seems like everyone is overlooking one VERY important piece of information here...

The additional demand for light skin tones applied only to women.'

WHY ARN'T WE TALKING ABOUT THIS SENTENCE?!?!

Women have to be white? But not males? How does this make sense? If hobbits have black fathers, they will have darker skin. Is the casting guy inventing a bit of Tolkien mythos where darker skin color is a sex linked trait on the Y Chromosome? Or is he doing it because of his aesthetic views? This is the screwed up part, not any of this silly PC stuff were talking about so far. Suddenly, the guy getting fired might make more sense, but Im still really curious what the hell happened here.

 

[Therumancer]

I think this is a situation where anti-discrimination laws are getting out of hand. We've seen similar things to this on a number of occasions, but this going so far as to have a casting director fired for doing his job is kind of ridiculous. I kind of hope he sues "The Hobbit", even if it puts the film out of business.

Simply put, Lord Of The Rings, and The Hobbit take place in areas of Middle-Earth based around european socieities, this being one of the prototypes for Sword and Sorcery and High Fantasy. It influanced things that came later to a great degree.

Middle Earth is large enough where I imagine there are people who vary greatly in skin tone, but the people in the areas where the stories take place are europeans. Some have argued that during this age blacks and darker skinned folk had already been conquered by Sauron and that the Oliphant riders, and those who planned to sail against Minas Tirith on the black fleet might have been black or Persian.

That said, Hobbits are not humans and are a minor race that live in a very localized area. It's not like a D&D setting where you have Hobbit (or Halfling) communities all over the world. This is a major theme in the books, Hobbits being so small in number, and viewed as being so insignifigant that the major powers, including Sauron, totally overlooked them. This is why its a big deal when you have the "Scourging Of The Shire", the point of which is that the idealic existance of the Hobbits was forever over, they had been noticed, and couldn't exist apart from the world in their own little pseudo-utopia any longer. Hobbits being so few in number that they are eventually erased due to interbreeding (since they an mate with humans) if I remember correctly, the Rankin Bass movies even ended with that whole "is there some Hobbit in you?" thing.

Like it or not, skin tone varies with the region of origin. You generally do not have multi-ethnic communities appearing on their own, especially not small, tight knit, fairly isolationist ones. Given the enviroment, yes Hobbits are going to be white and the artwork (Brothers Hildebrandt and others) and illustrations pretty much reinforce this.

Now in a D&D-type setting the argument is entirely differant. The are indeed demi-humans in various non-european lands whose appearance (skin tone, eye shape, etc...) varies greatly. While Middle Earth inspired those kinds of campaign settings, it has it's own definitions.

Really this kind of thing is pretty much people yelling about discrimination for the sake of yelling about discrimination to get attention, and for the power it grants. This poor casting guy basically got canned for being familiar with the material and doing his job.

I'll also say that letting incidents like this happen, means that when you see REAL discrimination issues people are going to be growing increasingly cynical in response. Right now I take any cry of "racism" and "discrimination" with a grain of salt because it's simply abused too often for political gain, or simply to get five minutes of fame.

Plus, I'll be painfully blunt. I'm wondering if this girl is a natural born American, or someone who immigrated from overseas. It's an important issue because if she immigrated here then the whole comments about discrimination and how shocking it is are darkly amusing. Racism and discrimination might be nearly dead in the US, but are a way of life overseas, being on the receiving end is never pleasant, but when your looking at how white people are treated overseas (never mind women in a lot of places), I can hardly see the very idea being found shocking. If she's a recent immigrant it's even wierder, because there is currently a war on, and so much contreversy about Middle Easterners (like a recent situation with a Disney hostess) that while discrimination is still wrong, it shouldn't get any kind of a shocked reaction (and anyone claiming that is obviously hamming it up).

That said, all the other comments I've made aside, this is blatently ridiculous given the source material.

 

[JDKJ]

They're undertaking a major multi-million dollar interpretation of The Hobbit but haven't read every word in it 1000 times over, backwards and forwards, upside down, and inside out. What's the odds on that? I'd guess about the same as me hitting all six Lotto numbers drawn this coming Friday (but don't think, long odds notwithstanding, I'm not hopeful enough to still buy a ticket -- the jackpot just rolled over to $55 million).

Actually, I'd say the odds aren't too bad. Many of film companies have made films based on books, T.V series, Cartoons and such, clearly without reading the source material, or maybe just flipping through it at the most. A lot just seek to raise the money off of the name alone... Though this often equals a box office flop... However Film Execs don't seem to be very genre savvy.

No that I'm saying they did this with this film... However, with other films-cough- Dragon Ball evolution -cough- it does happen more often than we'd like.

As for the topic at hand... Well I feel sorry for the casting agent. She was just doing her job. The job asked for white people to be playing the Hobbits... Some one chose not to read and played the race card.

Look if a role is set for a specific appearance... Then its set for that appearance... That doesn't make the girl racist. Nor would it make her sexist if the role was set for a female and a male got turned away. That being said, this casting agent probably should have gotten permission from the studio heads first and maybe read the source material a little closer before setting the specific appearance.

With the looks of things she made an assumption that got her into a tickle, I sympathise with her as it would be an easy mistake to make. Specially if she'd only watched the movies and not paid much attention to the books. In the movies they are shown to be more Anglo-Saxon... Closely resembling people you'd find in rural British farmlands. So one would assume they were simply white and fair skinned.

However, as said... Next time I'd focus a little more on the research and ask permission first.

Yeah, I wouldn't rush to conclude that Peter Jackson and his production company, in production of what now counts as the fourth film based on Tolkien's trilogy, isn't well-familiar with Tolkien's written word.

 

[JDKJ]

Okay, so, looking at this, my first instinct was that the guy got fired for no good reason. If Hobbits are white in the books, you want white Hobbits in the movie. Then, however, it's pointed out that Tolkien had browner skinned Hobbits. I'm no expert in Hobbit geneology. Okay, all of a sudden, it looks like the casting guy is a bit of a fool, but I'm not going to judge too heavily, because plenty of fantasy takes place in a setting that is analogous to historical settings that are very white. Tolkien seems to fall into this trend, especially with so much borrowed from the Norse. So he went to far, but fired seems to be a bit much. However, in everyones zeal to whine about either racism or political correctness, it seems like everyone is overlooking one VERY important piece of information here...

The additional demand for light skin tones applied only to women.'

WHY ARN'T WE TALKING ABOUT THIS SENTENCE?!?!

Women have to be white? But not males? How does this make sense? If hobbits have black fathers, they will have darker skin. Is the casting guy inventing a bit of Tolkien mythos where darker skin color is a sex linked trait on the Y Chromosome? Or is he doing it because of his aesthetic views? This is the screwed up part, not any of this silly PC stuff were talking about so far. Suddenly, the guy getting fired might make more sense, but Im still really curious what the hell happened here.

Because, Silly-Billy, everyone knows that the brown-skinned Harfoots are a breed comprised solely of male Harfoots. There are no female Harfoots. You may then ask, and reasonably so, how, if there are no female Harfoots, did they procreate and perpetuate the breed and I -- in my zeal to recast what looks like racism and sexism as the benign and legitimate needs of a casting call -- will answer with some bullshit about it being a fantasy and that anything's possible in a fantasy. Then I'll go on to suggest that the "dark-shaded 'tard" who was rejected for the role just needs to shut her whiny pie-hole and take her ugly burqa-wearing ass back to Pakistan.

Besides, didn't you see all the darkies and women that were cast in Avatar as Na'vi? What? You think they're gonna get cast in equal numbers in every film that comes down the 'pike? Like my toothless Grandaddy used to say, as he stirred the mash to a boil, "give them people an inch, next thing they'll be wantin' the whole nine yards."

 

[JDKJ]

dub

 

[JDKJ]

I think this is a situation where anti-discrimination laws are getting out of hand. We've seen similar things to this on a number of occasions, but this going so far as to have a casting director fired for doing his job is kind of ridiculous. I kind of hope he sues "The Hobbit", even if it puts the film out of business.

Simply put, Lord Of The Rings, and The Hobbit take place in areas of Middle-Earth based around european socieities, this being one of the prototypes for Sword and Sorcery and High Fantasy. It influanced things that came later to a great degree.

Middle Earth is large enough where I imagine there are people who vary greatly in skin tone, but the people in the areas where the stories take place are europeans. Some have argued that during this age blacks and darker skinned folk had already been conquered by Sauron and that the Oliphant riders, and those who planned to sail against Minas Tirith on the black fleet might have been black or Persian.

That said, Hobbits are not humans and are a minor race that live in a very localized area. It's not like a D&D setting where you have Hobbit (or Halfling) communities all over the world. This is a major theme in the books, Hobbits being so small in number, and viewed as being so insignifigant that the major powers, including Sauron, totally overlooked them. This is why its a big deal when you have the "Scourging Of The Shire", the point of which is that the idealic existance of the Hobbits was forever over, they had been noticed, and couldn't exist apart from the world in their own little pseudo-utopia any longer. Hobbits being so few in number that they are eventually erased due to interbreeding (since they an mate with humans) if I remember correctly, the Rankin Bass movies even ended with that whole "is there some Hobbit in you?" thing.

Like it or not, skin tone varies with the region of origin. You generally do not have multi-ethnic communities appearing on their own, especially not small, tight knit, fairly isolationist ones. Given the enviroment, yes Hobbits are going to be white and the artwork (Brothers Hildebrandt and others) and illustrations pretty much reinforce this.

Now in a D&D-type setting the argument is entirely differant. The are indeed demi-humans in various non-european lands whose appearance (skin tone, eye shape, etc...) varies greatly. While Middle Earth inspired those kinds of campaign settings, it has it's own definitions.

Really this kind of thing is pretty much people yelling about discrimination for the sake of yelling about discrimination to get attention, and for the power it grants. This poor casting guy basically got canned for being familiar with the material and doing his job.

I'll also say that letting incidents like this happen, means that when you see REAL discrimination issues people are going to be growing increasingly cynical in response. Right now I take any cry of "racism" and "discrimination" with a grain of salt because it's simply abused too often for political gain, or simply to get five minutes of fame.

Plus, I'll be painfully blunt. I'm wondering if this girl is a natural born American, or someone who immigrated from overseas. It's an important issue because if she immigrated here then the whole comments about discrimination and how shocking it is are darkly amusing. Racism and discrimination might be nearly dead in the US, but are a way of life overseas, being on the receiving end is never pleasant, but when your looking at how white people are treated overseas (never mind women in a lot of places), I can hardly see the very idea being found shocking. If she's a recent immigrant it's even wierder, because there is currently a war on, and so much contreversy about Middle Easterners (like a recent situation with a Disney hostess) that while discrimination is still wrong, it shouldn't get any kind of a shocked reaction (and anyone claiming that is obviously hamming it up).

That said, all the other comments I've made aside, this is blatently ridiculous given the source material.

"Racism and discrimination might be nearly dead in the US . . . ."

That's a good one. You got any more like that one? If you do, you should collect them all into a book and sell it. Maybe title it "World's Funniest Gut-Bustin' One-Liners" or something of the sort.

 

[Carlston]

Ok dark skin is gained in human evolution by being out in direct sun with little to no clouds.

Hobbits live in Hills and most come out at night.

So hobbits being pasty goths would be better casting indeed.

Should they also sport black nail polish on their fingers and wear black eyeliner? And listen to weepy albums by The Cure?

And you've got the evolutionary process reversed. Man started out with an overabundance of melanin in their skin which they lost as part of the adaptive process (i.e., the less sunlight on the skin, the less need for the protective qualities of melanin) when they migrated out of the African continent (the birthplace of Mankind) and into the less tropical climates of Europe.

But that reversal of evolutionary science is frequently made. Often in a feeble attempt to place greater value on fair skin over that of dark skin. Racists come up with dumb shit like that all the time. It don't make no sense, but that don't stop 'em.

Eh as I see all I hear is racist crying about white washing, this that and the other thing while accepting restitution from a crime no commited by any oppressor alive for 200 years, and every time they are asked to be "equal" they cry and forget every place was a slave culture, or slave taking culture at one time that had any population worth not and waged war.

In the Power rangers day, Sabban made it's cash by buying the suit wearing fighting scene selling them to SEVERAL different countries, and a set of suits so each country could make their own racial perfered group fighting the evil pig head or the infamous book monster (don't trust books kids) And why the idiots who casted in the US didn't notice the yellow ranger thought popular asian girls make young boys interest...when she put on the suit her chest vanished and she got a package. Saber tooth tiger...well you got a fang going at least.


The racist argument is racist in itself since NO side wants equality they want special treatment, and to just win a argument with someone of opposite color you whine racist first...making the caller of course a racist for generalizing a entire race over one person and normal only to protect their OWN racist agenda.

Sad really. Then again I think humans learning to build houses, getting out of the sun rays and thus reducing melanin for energy to other system is a step in the right direction... if the other option is heat exposure, cancer, ect... but hey anything can be turned into this little troll game. Cooking food, farming, making hunting tools...



Oh and Africa last I checked has always been contested with China for birthplace of man kind...but that is also racial bias for who suckers in the scientists and the tourist trades.


In the end, if JRR said they are light skinned, fine... grey...make it grey... don't add in a wise cracking street wise Jar Jar thing just to even it out.

Make it to style or don't make it at all...

And since there is a frack ton of Hobbit clans...they could get midgets from all over the world to fill in who is a Furfoot and Mooseknuckle clan. But racist? Sorry, if the books says they are X they are X to demand they aren't with the excuse of racism the never ending fall back is racist in it's own way...

 

[Nihilism_Is_Bliss]

Hobbits are white...what's the big deal?
They're Hobbits not humans.

 

[Kair]

Was it racist to cast Indians in Slum Dog Millionaire? Why did they not put an African or European in the main role? Forcing ethnicities into roles that were created for another ethnicity is racist, it is called positive discrimination.

See my "apples and oranges" post above your post.

I saw your post before I posted. Writing of a northern race does not demand one to define them as fair-skinned. Why are we arguing the ethnic diversity of a fictional race?