Random Instances Of Weird Racism And Bigotry Throughout 'Lord Of Rings' (And In JRR Tolkien's Life) (11 items)

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  (#2) Tolkien's Literal Representations Of Light And Dark Are Super Problematic

  Occasionally, characters in The Lord of the Rings break the light = good, dark = bad stereotype (Saruman comes to mind), but the prevailing trend is extremely troubling. The struggle of light versus dark is a concept that dates back to the early days of humanity, but in practice the model presents an uncomfortable binary that isn't useful for understanding contemporary conflicts (which are often morally gray all around). 

  Things get even worse when creators decide to demonstrate the concept by making evil characters' features appear darker. This is exactly what transpires in Tolkien's world; the heroes are beautiful and light-skinned, whereas orcs, Uruk-Hai, Easterlings, and Haradrim all feature considerably darker complexions. They're not evil because they're not white, but these associations tend to bleed into viewers' perceptions of real life, and can potentially cause them to be more critical of dark-skinned people. 
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  (#4) Tolkien's Evil Race Is Based On Racial Stereotypes

  In a letter from 1958, Tolkien wrote that orcs were "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact, degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types." Even without this concrete evidence of Tolkien's bigotry, orcs' features are clearly racialized within the text, and the films do no better.

  In addition to their black skin, many orcs also have dreadlocks. This combination of traits is clearly inspired by people of color, and the whole thing is utterly disgusting. Even if Tolkien's association was made subconsciously, these types of parallels condition audiences to associate blackness with evil, and help archaic stereotypes continue on into present day. 
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  (#3) An Actor Says She Was Turned Away For Not Being White Enough

  While this isn't directly Tolkien's fault, perhaps if he'd included a few more characters of color who weren't evil in his works, it wouldn't have happened. British-Pakistani actor Naz Humphries told Stuff, an online publication in New Zealand, that she was turned away from an audition to be an extra in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey because she wasn't white enough.

  "We are looking for light-skinned people," a film company representative said. "I'm not trying to be - whatever. It's just the brief. You've got to look like a hobbit."

  According to Stuff, Robert Foster's The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth notes that the most common hobbits, Harfoots, are "browner" than other hobbits, but it seems the casting director (who was later fired) had a different, purely white vision for the Shire. Whiteness is equated with goodness so frequently in the franchise that perhaps it seemed consistent to call for only light-skinned actors, but doing so contradicted the source material. 
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  (#6) Tolkien Was A Total Misogynist

  Tolkien's unflattering views of women are all too apparent in his work. It's this attitude that produced the lackluster characterizations of the story's women, and his misogyny is equally apparent in his personal letters. 

  In what's come to be known as Letter 43, Tolkien explained to his son some "truths" he believed about women.

  "How quickly an intelligent woman can be taught, grasp [a male's] ideas, see his point - and how (with rare exceptions) they can go no further, when they leave his hand, or when they cease to take a personal interest in him," he wrote. Tolkien added that for women, love "means that she wants to become the mother of the young man’s children."

  While he never outright said women are inferior, there's certainly an air of derision in the letter, which suggests Tolkien lacked a basic understanding of femininity. This bleeds back into the characterizations of women in The Lord of the Rings: Eowyn's unfeminine goals are corrected by the tale's end, Galadriel's lust for power is nothing more than the work of an evil ring, and Arwen remains pure, beautiful, and good in a way that's painfully simplistic. 
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  (#10) 'The Lord Of The Rings' Has Been Hijacked By Racist, Nationalist Groups

  Tolkien was openly anti-war and frequently spoke out against Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, but that hasn't stopped nationalist and racist groups from commandeering his work for their own bigoted purposes. By creating a mythology in which the majority of heroes are white and the majority of enemies are not, Tolkien unwittingly crafted a tale that represents the views of groups like the neo-Nazi British National Party, who've used his fiction to preach their white-supremacist vision of the world.
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  (#11) Positive Stereotypes Are Still Stereotypes

  One of the biggest obstacles critics of Tolkien's work run into is the claim that, because many of his characters adhere to positive stereotypes, there's no reason to be upset. Sure, the few women who appear in The Lord of the Rings tend to be good, and Tolkien himself described Jewish people as "gifted," but that doesn't erase the fact that his views are still informed by stereotypes. Positive or benign stereotypes naturalize more hateful biases, and fail to recognize the spectrum of personality traits that exist in all people. There is no "inherent woman" or "inherent Jewish person," and to suggest otherwise is a recipe for bigotry. 

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