Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Is LOTR Racist?

While watching all 201 minutes of the final Lord of the Rings Trilogy movie, I realized something. There was no single Asian or African American or any other ethnicity to be seen. All of the main characters and supporting characters that were on the side of "man" were all white. Where was the diversity? And I'm not talking about elves and dwarfs and those crazy hobbits. Just my observation. I guess Middle Earth consisted of only white people? Weird.
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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 2, 2011 at 7:08 PM

    I noticed that in Lord of the Rings as well. But I started to feel as though they were trying to keep a standard. If you noticed, most of the people were almost peasant like, and spoke in a British accent. Maybe they were to be the predecessors of the actual British. Sure there could be the occasional Black or Asian; but it would have probably stood out more than the fact that there were none in the movie. And it is possible that the elves and hobbits of that time were considered the other races. You have to remember that this was a fantasy world, and our present day situations may not apply to those of certain books we read.

    --Ashley Plover

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  2. SarahApril 5, 2011 at 6:02 PM

    I don't think the fact that LOTR didn't include any African Americans or Asians was intentional. Like Ashley pointed out the author and producers wanted to keep with the standard. If I wrote a book and race wasn't a theme in it, I would probably stick to my own race. I'm sure its the same in other ethnicities as well.

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  3. Kimberly:)April 25, 2011 at 2:04 PM

    On the other hand, the people who directed LOTR could be totally and completely racist and hate everyone of any other race. BUT, I highly doubt it. They probably didn't give it a second thought. They just hired whoever they could get to play the parts. If I was a director and whatnot, I would hire the best of the best for the position available, it wouldn't matter their race.

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  4. KikiApril 29, 2011 at 4:18 PM

    Oh wow. If you didn't point that out, I wouldn't have noticed. But, maybe some of the characters such as the spider may be a different race...just covered in a costume or the voice actor maybe a different race? haha.

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  5. achambers43April 30, 2011 at 10:45 AM

    Ok Ok, I must object to all of this Gimli if none of you could tell was the blackest guy in that whole movie and if you consider stereotypes it was quite obvious that Orlando Blooms character, Legolas, was Asian [I mean who else could pull off those super crazy ninja, also known as nija, moves and take down the elophant (think thats how its spelled in the book) all by himself]

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