The Hobbit Cast Swaps Genders in All-Female Photoshoot

[Diddy_Mao]

Not bad really. While the conventional attractiveness and lack of beards might be a valid criticism I think it's worth noting that most of these are not entirely dissimilar from the designs used in the films.

When you look at the designs for the younger Dwarves in the movies, most of them don't fit the "Squat Viking" design that most of us fall back on when we visualize fantasy Dwarves and a lot of them are more conventionally attractive and not quite a grizzled or dirty as their older counterparts.

I'll openly admit the designer dropped the ball on Gandalf though.


Still, I will say this. I've always enjoyed these kinds of redesigns. It's a fun exercise to take an established character and redesign them to fit into a different setting or role. I'll give credit here that the designer managed to avoid a common pitfall of male to female gender swapping in that they didn't feel the need to make the female counterparts "sexy" for not apparent reason.

 

[Ishigami]

I think this is an improbably female cast [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImprobablyFemaleCast] and that it is a little bit sexist.
So yea I?m not impressed? at all. Nurbs example is far better.

 

[Gorrath]

Bilbo looks waaaaaaaaaaay too competent, I mean shit, it looks like her second breakfast would be your ass for that weak ass sh*t you're bringing in her house!

I must admit you gave me a good chuckle with that one!

OT: I don't mind the lack of beards or the "conventionally attractive" bit, but I do think the effort could have been a bit higher. The lack of age variation stands out to me. Love the Thorin though, her facial structure is impressively close.

 

[JaymesFogarty]

People complaining about the lack of female characters in Tolkien's work seem to have missed the point that he was writing his own version of a North European epic. Women weren't exactly main protagonists in that genre...

If I wanted historical accuracy, I'd read a historical novel. To me, the greatest strength of science fiction and fantasy is that this nonsense can go die in a fire.

Hey?

Any stories about wizards and dwarfs that ride giant eagles and fight dragons has to be all male, because otherwise it's unrealistic. It's a rule.

Or you could look at the historical significance behind the penning of the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien, (allegory hater or not) drew deeply upon the traumatic experiences of the First World War, in which several of his closest friends died, as he was forced to witness wartime atrocities first hand. The entire novel is supposed to embody both the camaraderie that the men so close to death all shared (something that historically, women have never and still cannot experience) and also the futility of war, a point which couldn't be made with a cast of women that wouldn't have understood it. It would be akin to a male writer in the 50's writing a novel in the way of The Bell Jar, embodying struggles and standards in society that he would never have encountered.

I would love for women to have enough freedom in modern society to be able to become soldiers, and fight for the country they love and support. (This and other freedoms should always been available - it is abhorrent to think otherwise.) However, if you spend even a fraction of a second thinking about the context behind the novel, it shouldn't be confusing at all as to why the novel doesn't feature many women that fight. It doesn't feature any explicit homosexuals, (Sam and Frodo not counting, despite the fictions of many fan-girls) black people, disabled people or people with an obvious misunderstood mental illness. He didn't have any agenda to push. He wanted a tale of war, and fighting for freedom and redemption. All of the friends who fought and died alongside him would, presumably, have been average English citizens, who unlike the diverse America are overwhelmingly white.

Sorry, I don't think I'm making myself clear. All I'm trying to say is that the reason behind Tolkien not having as many women in fighting roles in the novel, isn't because he is a white, middle class sexist bigot.

 

[JaymesFogarty]

People complaining about the lack of female characters in Tolkien's work seem to have missed the point that he was writing his own version of a North European epic. Women weren't exactly main protagonists in that genre...

If I wanted historical accuracy, I'd read a historical novel. To me, the greatest strength of science fiction and fantasy is that this nonsense can go die in a fire.

Hey?

Any stories about wizards and dwarfs that ride giant eagles and fight dragons has to be all male, because otherwise it's unrealistic. It's a rule.

Sorry, posted twice.

 

[DementedSheep]

The costumes are good and a lot of work clearly went into this but they're all to young. Young Gandalf and Balin is just weird.

I'd say the point they seem to be trying to make is somewhat undermined by the simple fact that all models used are rather conventionally attractive.

It's not so much a gender swap as a hot girl swap.

Well at least they're actually in similar costumes and not underwear inspiresd by the costumes so its better than 90% of "gender swaps"

 

[Robert Marrs]

People complaining about the lack of female characters in Tolkien's work seem to have missed the point that he was writing his own version of a North European epic. Women weren't exactly main protagonists in that genre...

If I wanted historical accuracy, I'd read a historical novel. To me, the greatest strength of science fiction and fantasy is that this nonsense can go die in a fire.

Hey?

Any stories about wizards and dwarfs that ride giant eagles and fight dragons has to be all male, because otherwise it's unrealistic. It's a rule.

Or you could look at the historical significance behind the penning of the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien, (allegory hater or not) drew deeply upon the traumatic experiences of the First World War, in which several of his closest friends died, as he was forced to witness wartime atrocities first hand. The entire novel is supposed to embody both the camaraderie that the men so close to death all shared (something that historically, women have never and still cannot experience) and also the futility of war, a point which couldn't be made with a cast of women that wouldn't have understood it. It would be akin to a male writer in the 50's writing a novel in the way of The Bell Jar, embodying struggles and standards in society that he would never have encountered.

I would love for women to have enough freedom in modern society to be able to become soldiers, and fight for the country they love and support. (This and other freedoms should always been available - it is abhorrent to think otherwise.) However, if you spend even a fraction of a second thinking about the context behind the novel, it shouldn't be confusing at all as to why the novel doesn't feature many women that fight. It doesn't feature any explicit homosexuals, (Sam and Frodo not counting, despite the fictions of many fan-girls) black people, disabled people or people with an obvious misunderstood mental illness. He didn't have any agenda to push. He wanted a tale of war, and fighting for freedom and redemption. All of the friends who fought and died alongside him would, presumably, have been average English citizens, who unlike the diverse America are overwhelmingly white.

Sorry, I don't think I'm making myself clear. All I'm trying to say is that the reason behind Tolkien not having as many women in fighting roles in the novel, isn't because he is a white, middle class sexist bigot.

Hey now! You settle down with all that logic and reasoning. We have the right to smugly imply that creators from another time period were probably sexist for not including female heroes in a time where there really were none! The poor representation of women in our different forms of media has nothing to do with men historically being the "heroes" of real life! Its just apart of this terrible, discriminatory world we live in that spends every waking moment pondering how to best subjugate women and minorities.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Sorry, I don't think I'm making myself clear. All I'm trying to say is that the reason behind Tolkien not having as many women in fighting roles in the novel, isn't because he is a white, middle class sexist bigot.

Certainly it wasn't just that.

However, that argument is constantly trotted out over and over again with any number of fantasy stories, poor depictions of women in the universe of LotR is just one example.

 

[templar1138a]

I'm always curious to see gender swaps. Still, this one could have been better. The apparent youth of the models made it hard to tell whom some of them were supposed to be, and even disregarding the lack of beards, those women don't really strike me as being dwarven.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Man, that sure looks like a boring photoshoot. None of them has any real expression on her face, the poses look incredibly artificial, and they're all basically the same build. On top of that, the dwarves have no beards and Gandalf isn't even old. I bet they didn't even give Bilbo hairy feet. I've seen some great rule 63 art of The Hobbit, and this doesn't even come close. I'm honestly shocked anyone thought it was worth a news story over some of the other efforts people have made.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Edit: My post seems to have appeared twice for some reason.

 

[Robert Marrs]

Sorry, I don't think I'm making myself clear. All I'm trying to say is that the reason behind Tolkien not having as many women in fighting roles in the novel, isn't because he is a white, middle class sexist bigot.

Certainly it wasn't just that.

However, that argument is constantly trotted out over and over again with any number of fantasy stories, poor depictions of women in the universe of LotR is just one example.

"Certainly it wasn't just that." That makes it sound like you really are implying that he was in fact a "white, middle class sexist bigot" but that is not the only reason for having few important women in his book. I think we can all agree on white and middle class because that is an actual fact but why exactly is he a sexist bigot? Is it because of his writing or simply because he was white and middle class? Or is it his writing with his race and class just being bonus points that make the accusation more believable. Is it really that hard to believe that he just wanted to write a story the way he wanted to write it and it actually had nothing to do with sexism or keeping women down? Maybe he just wanted to write a story and didn't give a care about pushing a politically correct or inclusive agenda?

If you were not implying that my mistake but that is exactly what it felt like you were saying.

 

[JaymesFogarty]

People complaining about the lack of female characters in Tolkien's work seem to have missed the point that he was writing his own version of a North European epic. Women weren't exactly main protagonists in that genre...

If I wanted historical accuracy, I'd read a historical novel. To me, the greatest strength of science fiction and fantasy is that this nonsense can go die in a fire.

Hey?

Any stories about wizards and dwarfs that ride giant eagles and fight dragons has to be all male, because otherwise it's unrealistic. It's a rule.

Or you could look at the historical significance behind the penning of the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien, (allegory hater or not) drew deeply upon the traumatic experiences of the First World War, in which several of his closest friends died, as he was forced to witness wartime atrocities first hand. The entire novel is supposed to embody both the camaraderie that the men so close to death all shared (something that historically, women have never and still cannot experience) and also the futility of war, a point which couldn't be made with a cast of women that wouldn't have understood it. It would be akin to a male writer in the 50's writing a novel in the way of The Bell Jar, embodying struggles and standards in society that he would never have encountered.

I would love for women to have enough freedom in modern society to be able to become soldiers, and fight for the country they love and support. (This and other freedoms should always been available - it is abhorrent to think otherwise.) However, if you spend even a fraction of a second thinking about the context behind the novel, it shouldn't be confusing at all as to why the novel doesn't feature many women that fight. It doesn't feature any explicit homosexuals, (Sam and Frodo not counting, despite the fictions of many fan-girls) black people, disabled people or people with an obvious misunderstood mental illness. He didn't have any agenda to push. He wanted a tale of war, and fighting for freedom and redemption. All of the friends who fought and died alongside him would, presumably, have been average English citizens, who unlike the diverse America are overwhelmingly white.

Sorry, I don't think I'm making myself clear. All I'm trying to say is that the reason behind Tolkien not having as many women in fighting roles in the novel, isn't because he is a white, middle class sexist bigot.

Hey now! You settle down with all that logic and reasoning. We have the right to smugly imply that creators from another time period were probably sexist for not including female heroes in a time where there really were none! The poor representation of women in our different forms of media has nothing to do with men historically being the "heroes" of real life! Its just apart of this terrible, discriminatory world we live in that spends every waking moment pondering how to best subjugate women and minorities.

Dreadfully sorry. (I get ahead of myself sometimes.) Ahem. Stupid patriarchal this and patriarchal that! That should do it.

 

[Thaluikhain]

"Certainly it wasn't just that." That makes it sound like you really are implying that he was in fact a "white, middle class sexist bigot" but that is not the only reason for having few important women in his book. I think we can all agree on white and middle class because that is an actual fact but why exactly is he a sexist bigot? Is it because of his writing or simply because he was white and middle class?

Short answer, white, middle class, born in the 19th century. A longer answer would involve going over various female characters and comparing them to the men, how the women are consistently described as "beautiful", while the men get to be strong, brave, clever, whatever, and so on.

Is it really that hard to believe that he just wanted to write a story the way he wanted to write it and it actually had nothing to do with sexism or keeping women down? Maybe he just wanted to write a story and didn't give a care about pushing a politically correct or inclusive agenda?

Certainly...only that's got nothing at all to do with him not being a bigot. I'm not saying that he sat down, twirled his moustache, and deliberately went out of his way to portray women (and others) in a bad light. Quite possibly it simply never occurred to him that they could be written another way.

 

[Alssadar]

Not even the cutest Bilbo-chan!

Spoiler: Cutest little Hobbit of them All

And with an added bonus

Spoiler: Hot Dwarven Women! Warning: Adult!

 

[JaymesFogarty]

Sorry, I don't think I'm making myself clear. All I'm trying to say is that the reason behind Tolkien not having as many women in fighting roles in the novel, isn't because he is a white, middle class sexist bigot.

Certainly it wasn't just that.

However, that argument is constantly trotted out over and over again with any number of fantasy stories, poor depictions of women in the universe of LotR is just one example.

It's unfortunate that what you're saying is, even today, very true. I can find little motivation to vilify older generations for presenting war and dying for your family/country as a predominantly male thing, (as once again, it was, and unfortunately to this day still is) but fiction is supposed to go beyond any societal boundaries regarding age, sex, class, race, or even any semblance of sense, as Terry Pratchett so remarkably did.

I think it really is less of a case of sexism, and more of a case of there being more male writers and screenwriters that are interested in writing about this particular genre. Speaking as a writer myself, (although god, don't quote me on that) the overwhelming majority of my characters are male, white, asexual atheists. This is not out of any sexist, racist, class-ist or religious spite, but merely because it is by far the easiest to write, and just the default for the way I think.

That's not to mention how criticised the depictions of any women in any medium are. Really, it is absurd. If men write male characters, and women write male characters, no one blinks twice about how accurate a depiction that is. With female characters, even in the case of female writers penning them, (in the case of the Tomb Raider writer) there are so many considerations, such as whether they are a good representation of a woman, whether they are too weak or strong, or a cliche, and often whether they are too perfect, without being too flawed either. I'd love to see more women in all realms of fiction, but I want to see lascivious fat women, and kleptomaniacal anorexic ones. Greedy ones, lazy ones, adventurous ones, brave ones, even old and boring ones. I think we even need a few psychopathic monsters - the world of horror is ridiculously dominated by men.

 

[Robert Marrs]

"Certainly it wasn't just that." That makes it sound like you really are implying that he was in fact a "white, middle class sexist bigot" but that is not the only reason for having few important women in his book. I think we can all agree on white and middle class because that is an actual fact but why exactly is he a sexist bigot? Is it because of his writing or simply because he was white and middle class?

Short answer, white, middle class, born in the 19th century. A longer answer would involve going over various female characters and comparing them to the men, how the women are consistently described as "beautiful", while the men get to be strong, brave, clever, whatever, and so on.

Is it really that hard to believe that he just wanted to write a story the way he wanted to write it and it actually had nothing to do with sexism or keeping women down? Maybe he just wanted to write a story and didn't give a care about pushing a politically correct or inclusive agenda?

Certainly...only that's got nothing at all to do with him not being a bigot. I'm not saying that he sat down, twirled his moustache, and deliberately went out of his way to portray women (and others) in a bad light. Quite possibly it simply never occurred to him that they could be written another way.

The women were not described as just being beautiful. Some of them held positions of great power and were considered to be wise, intelligent etc.. The women in his books, while they may not have been very diverse, were not all just dainty flowers. Is it not fair to say that the men and women were described as they were because those were the traits that were considered most desirable in his time period? I'm just saying even if you might see that as being sexist if he chooses to assign certain traits to certain genders it really should not be an issue if those traits are not just the most commonly sought after for both genders but are also common in real life? I really don't want to live in a world that calls something sexist or racist simply because it is not 100% inclusive or because it uses some stereotypes an individual might find offensive.

Is it sexist to not include a female soldier when they are extremely uncommon in real life? Sure its fantasy and I suppose you could make it however you want but most writers take in from real life regardless of the genre they are writing for. Is it sexist to follow stereotypes to an extent when those stereotypes are almost universally true?

But I just realized you never really answered my question. You said you don't think he was intentionally writing a sexist story but do you think he was a sexist, white, middle class bigot and if so why? I hope you have a better answer other than him actually being white and middle class if that is the case.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I think it really is less of a case of sexism, and more of a case of there being more male writers and screenwriters that are interested in writing about this particular genre. Speaking as a writer myself, (although god, don't quote me on that) the overwhelming majority of my characters are male, white, asexual atheists. This is not out of any sexist, racist, class-ist or religious spite, but merely because it is by far the easiest to write, and just the default for the way I think.

Well...I would argue that there is a certain amount of sexism, racism etc in that. Not in an overt, deliberate way or anything, but in that we see certain groups as the default (and that is shared amongst many members of our society, though usually straight rather than asexual). We are just brought up to look at certain groups in certain ways. I'm hardly immune, I've had some vague dabbles with writing, and...the default straight white male seemed easier, it's what the hero "ought" to be. Had to consciously stop and think to avoid doing that.

There's also problems when the audience shares that mindset.

I mean, it's taken for granted that Bilbo and the dwarfs are straight white guys. It's easy to relate to an embittered dwarf would-be monarch, off to reclaim his inheritance and homeland from a terrible dragon, and getting dangerously obsessed, that's something everyone can understand, but if that dwarf was gay, black or a woman, people would freak out.

That's not to mention how criticised the depictions of any women in any medium are. Really, it is absurd. If men write male characters, and women write male characters, no one blinks twice about how accurate a depiction that is. With female characters, even in the case of female writers penning them, (in the case of the Tomb Raider writer) there are so many considerations, such as whether they are a good representation of a woman, whether they are too weak or strong, or a cliche, and often whether they are too perfect, without being too flawed either. I'd love to see more women in all realms of fiction, but I want to see lascivious fat women, and kleptomaniacal anorexic ones. Greedy ones, lazy ones, adventurous ones, brave ones, even old and boring ones. I think we even need a few psychopathic monsters - the world of horror is ridiculously dominated by men.

Very much an issue, why the Bechdel test is still relevant today.

 

[JaymesFogarty]

"Certainly it wasn't just that." That makes it sound like you really are implying that he was in fact a "white, middle class sexist bigot" but that is not the only reason for having few important women in his book. I think we can all agree on white and middle class because that is an actual fact but why exactly is he a sexist bigot? Is it because of his writing or simply because he was white and middle class?

Short answer, white, middle class, born in the 19th century. A longer answer would involve going over various female characters and comparing them to the men, how the women are consistently described as "beautiful", while the men get to be strong, brave, clever, whatever, and so on.

Actually, as a fan of Tolkien that's not the best line to go down. Not that your point isn't astute in a general sense, but every single enemy in the Lord of the Rings is male barring Shelob. That's every orc, goblin, monster, wizard and general nutter encountered in the novel. Women are only good characters, which if limiting, absolutely doesn't portray them in a negative light. (Imagine the inverse, a novel where ever single evil character in a fantasy war novel was female without any explanation as to why. It would feel a little out of place, precisely because many of the attributes of evil in the novel, (foul smelling and being foul mouthed, little hygiene, sadism and stupidity) are all attributes unfortunately associated socially with men over women, however true that might be. On top of this, the elves, which are by far the wisest and most powerful race, are all given features associated with femininity, such as an extreme beauty and grace, patience, understanding, and above all loving. Galadriel is easily a bigger and more important character than her husband, with her power in the novel being comparable to that of Gandalf. Arwen doesn't get to show of much narrative agency in the novel at all, which is a huge shame and definitely a weak point of the relationship between her and Aragorn. However, her actions, which include ignoring her father, going against her culture and sacrificing literally her eternal soul for him, is possibly the most touching, beautiful action in the entire plot. All done by a woman. Not bad for a 60 year old book.

Eowyn is a very effective character, representing the desire of women to be able to be allowed to do what her father, and culture forbids. She isn't allowed to fight for who she loves, which is seen empathetically as being an incredibly unfair. This isn't counting what she actually does, which is to completely ignore her father's wishes, (remember of course that he is a king) fight just as well if not better than the men if I remember correctly, and defeat the Witch King. How does she defeat him? She defeats him precisely because she is a woman, something no man (as far as I know) can attest to being. And then of course, at the end she promises to never fight and marries one of the male characters for no bloody reason. A very unfortunate end for a compelling, interesting character.

The Lord of the Rings doesn't feature many female characters at all. However, I wouldn't say that the characters featured are bad at all, only that they, (along with the entire world for that matter) should have been developed far more. Once again, please remember that every single soldier who fought on behalf of their country in World War 1 was a man. They died in the droves to protect their loved ones back at home, in one of the most painful and bloodiest conflicts of the past hundred years. It's not a case of Tolkien deciding consciously or otherwise that women are too weak, or not intelligent or interesting enough to feature as characters in the novel. Men died by the millions to protect their wives, girlfriends, sisters and mothers at home. Why on earth would he write in his fiction that women were suddenly dying in their droves as well? It says more about the disposability of his male characters than it does about his supposedly deliberate lack of female characters.

 

[JaymesFogarty]

I think it really is less of a case of sexism, and more of a case of there being more male writers and screenwriters that are interested in writing about this particular genre. Speaking as a writer myself, (although god, don't quote me on that) the overwhelming majority of my characters are male, white, asexual atheists. This is not out of any sexist, racist, class-ist or religious spite, but merely because it is by far the easiest to write, and just the default for the way I think.

Well...I would argue that there is a certain amount of sexism, racism etc in that. Not in an overt, deliberate way or anything, but in that we see certain groups as the default (and that is shared amongst many members of our society, though usually straight rather than asexual). We are just brought up to look at certain groups in certain ways. I'm hardly immune, I've had some vague dabbles with writing, and...the default straight white male seemed easier, it's what the hero "ought" to be. Had to consciously stop and think to avoid doing that.

That's where I'd have to disagree. I don't see any group in society as the default group for the heroic protagonist, or their love interest, or the villain, or any other typical role in a story. You said that a default straight white male is what the hero "ought" to be to us. Again, I strongly disagree. The only reason I find myself writing white, male characters is because that is what I am. In a story where race, gender, orientation and religion literally do not matter at all, (such as those in fantasy, or perhaps pure thrillers) I write the characters as white, asexual, atheist and male, only because that is the life I have led for decades, easier to understand that write about for myself (being myself) than any other demographic. In a story where none of these attributes matter, I don't see why any author of any background should change the protagonist from the default position (ie. who they are as a writer).

The only reason this default position matters at all in today's world is because an overwhelming number of popular books and films are written by men. As a result, the default position in the minds of the writers' (which again, is entirely harmless on its own) is only noticeable because the majority of them are white, male and straight. With an influx of black, gay, bisexual, female and transgender writers, this 'default' writing style for books and films would entirely cease to be any kind of problem.

If you look up the best films directed by women (the 2013 articles online are some of the most interesting) you will see that every single one of them features female protagonists, and has a majority of the cast being female as well. I would never dream of citing this lack of male protagonists from female writers as being lazy or unrepresentative - this is how writers write. All we need are more popular female writers, which luckily seems to be the rise (with J.K. Rowling setting one hell of a trend - the first self-made billionaire being a female writer shows that the sky's the limit).

Thank you for this entire discussion by the way. There is so much vitriol online that these are the first posts I've made on Escapist Magazine for several years. It's nice to discuss interesting and controversial issues with people that aren't going to automatically descend into frothing-at-the-mouth hatred and ignorance, but instead genuinely debate and discuss.