"Privilege"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yet another fool making a ridiculous comparison between Roof and black victims of police violence.

There may be a day when insulting other people in order to express your own opinion is acceptable here, but this not that day, and as long as I have a role here, it will not be. Kindly refrain from this in the future.

[Faramond]

I think this warning it a little bit over the top. "This is not that day"?

But I shouldn't have phrased it that way or characterized people who would make that comparison as fools. I am sorry.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Fair enough. Thank you.

[tinwë]

This is pertinent to this discussion:

I, Racist

[yovargas]

I don't want to pick out one line out that interesting article but given that this board is this board, I thought this was worth highlighting:

Racism is our acceptance of an all white Lord of the Rings cast because
of “historical accuracy,” ignoring the fact that this is a world with an
entirely fictionalized history.

People who have these kinds of discussions, on the broad spectrum of "identity politics" issues, often damage their otherwise thoughtful and worthwhile arguments by making these kinds of points, points that are fallacious and, frankly, pretty stupid. And it often makes these movements look pretty stupid to those disinclined to agree with the speaker's positions.

But I do think overall that it is a very well written article.

[tinwë]

I agree, the comment clearly betrays a lack of the sort of depth of knowledge concerning Tolkien that we have. The guy is presumably not a big Tolkien fan. But the point is still valid, that in a world where one of the most popular and profitable film franchises in history has an essentially all white cast (I honestly don't recall if there were any actors of African American persuasion in the films?), a black person looking at it from a black perspective could feel as if they have no place in that world (either our world or Tolkien's).

[Beutlin]

I honestly don't recall if there were any actors of African American persuasion in the films?

In “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug“, there was at least one woman with clearly “black”/”Sub-Saharan” features.

But the point is still valid, that in a world where one of the most popular and profitable film franchises in history has an essentially all white cast [...], a black person looking at it from a black perspective could feel as if they have no place in that world (either our world or Tolkien's).

Sure he could. Just as I could feel the same because no one speaks German in an Austrian dialect in these movies, etc. (that said, I never grow tired of pointing out that Thranduil inexplicably talks in a thick Viennese accent in the 1977 animated version ). Everyone can find himself underrepresented in a movie, and "race" is not the only "factor for identification". After all, I very much enjoy watching good "East Asian" movies, from Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong alike. The cameo rate of white people in these movies is, well to say the least, rather slim. While watching it, I did not hope that a white dude would suddenly appear in the middle of Zatōichi (spoiler: he doesn't).

Now to be fair, I think there are some very legitimate points of criticism when it comes to race in Hollywood films; and it is indeed true that virtually all major blockbusters feature a white, male, straight hero. But, as always, I think one as has to study each film on its own. The 2011 comic-book film “Thor” featured Idris Elba as the Nordic god Heimdallr. Some (not just Storm Front forum members) criticized said casting decision. And I would actually agree with them, if “Thor” were an earnest artistic adaption of the Poetic Edda. But guess what, it is a comic-book adaption and thus it should matter little whether a “super-human Asgardian” is black, white, or blue. The same can be said for other films, such as the upcoming “Fantastic Four” or “Star Wars VII” (black storm trooper). What matters are what the filmmakers want to achieve and what kind of world the movie tries to create. Stating that “The Lord of the Rings” is “a world with an entirely fictionalized history”, and that therefore anything could (and implicitly should) be possible, reveals a severe lack of knowledge on the author’s behalf when it comes to Tolkien’s world (and, alas, he is not the only one). As we all know, Tolkien did not just create some “fictional history” out of thin air, but had indeed very clear historical, poetic, and philosophical influences (but I do not want to derail this thread into another Tolkien/racism/etc. discussion).

I would also like to say that the (and I hate to use this word) problem is not that there are certain films with a virtually all-white cast but that most Hollywood films feature the same “racial distribution” (as in white, male protagonist, maybe black deuteragonist, white love-interest, etc.).

Of course, all of what I just wrote could be dismissed as whitesplaining.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The crowd scenes in Laketown are multi-racial (which in and of itself caused some controversy with some Tolkien purists, though I actually think it can be justified even within the legendarium). Other than that, and some Maori actors who played Orcs, I believe the cast of both trilogies were lilly white.

That having been said, I think there are a lot bigger racist fish to fry than that. Moreover, to respond to a similar comment in the article, I think Benedict Cumberbatch was hired to play Khan for no other reason but that he was the best person for the job, which I think he amply demonstrated. No one could supplant Ricardo Montalban, but Cumberbatch was certainly equal to the task.

Cross-posted with Beutlin.

[Beutlin]

I hate to (what to you call it?) “osgiliath” the thread but I thought they went a little bit too far (from a geographic standpoint) when it came to the inhabitants of Lake-town. Lake-town in the book (and more or less in the films) was at best a rather small and deteriorating trading hub in the North-East of Middle-earth, so for me “Sub-Saharan” extra(s) seemed implausible. In my opinion, the best "non-white" extras for Lake-town would have been Finno-Ugric/ Samoyedic people, such as members of the Khanty, Mansi, or Nenets people. Maybe a company of incompetent Central Asian/Chinese merchants could be added into the mix (because, let’s face it, only a bad merchant would visit Lake-town ante-Smaug’s death). Then again, where in New Zealand can you find extras hailing from nearly extinct Russian ethnicities?



Mansi family



Khanty family



Nenets women

On the other hand, in retrospect I would say that the men of Gondor in “The Return of the King” often looked too “British”/”North-Western European” to me.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

"Osgiliate" is the term you are looking for.

[Frelga]

If folks are interested in mapping ethnicities in the Tolkien verse to the real world, perhaps that would merit a Shibboleth thread? Although I already said my piece on the subject on TORC, where a poster got upset by the inclusion of nonwhite extras. Talk about privilege.

Or we could discuss representation in the movies in general.

ETA: I should clarify that I only said this because I think these are good discussion topics, not because I am asking for a split.

[yovargas]

This the problem with these kinds of "examples". Bad things happening to individual blacks or good things happening to individual whites is not an example of "systemic racism", even if you can confidently say it was an act of racism (which you usually can't short of Roof-esque manifestos). What we're talking about is patterns, not individual acts so bringing up the individual anecdotes is a distraction from the point. Even if you caught the director for LOTR saying "I'm so glad there are no black people in this movie!", that's not systemic racism. Instead, someone trying to make this point should be saying "Of the top 100 grossing movies this past decade, only 6 have black protagonists" (I just made that up; no idea what the numbers would be though it wouldn't surprise me if I was about right). But that's a lot harder and takes a lot more work - and is also less emotionally inflammatory - and so people just keep taking the cheap, lazy way out.


(And on the tangent - I'd thought for a long time, since probably before the movies, that if I were to make an LOTR movie, the elves look nothing like any known human "race", with unusual combinations of skin, hair, eyes, ect, such as very dark skin with very light eyes or red hair. Thus pissing off a buttload of fans but it's my movie so screw yous. )

[Beutlin]

Frelga, I looked up the thread on TORC and I would say that my opinion on this issue pretty much aligns with solicitr’s. Oh, and I do not think this topic merits another thread (for now).

Yov, admit it, your elves would look like this:



On second thought, they somewhat look like the elves from the 1977 Hobbit.

[yovargas]

Perfect!

[River]

So the black stormtrooper freak-out just confuses me. Episode VII is set decades after the fall of the Empire. Why, in the name of all that is sacred and profane, are fans insisting that the people in stormtrooper uniforms are still a bunch of clones? Especially since the spoilers heavily imply that the stormtroopers are enlisted and Finn has a "this is *not* what I signed up for moment"? Why are fans insisting that it was that way in Episodes IV-VI as well? I read some of the books back in the 90's and it was heavily implied that stormtroopers were conscripts or volunteers from all over.

[Beutlin]

What I find much more troubling than this is the fact that the Galactic Empire is now allowing British inner-city delinquents to join its elite force. This would have never happened under Darth Sidious!



Okay, I will leave this thread alone now. I have done enough osgiliating for a day.

[yovargas]

Instead, someone trying to make this point should be saying "Of the top 100 grossing movies this past decade, only 6 have black protagonists" (I just made that up; no idea what the numbers would be though it wouldn't surprise me if I was about right).

So I wanted to check out what the actual numbers on this are but this particular bit of data would take a bit of time to compile so instead I decided to look at this from 3 other angles (where the data was quick to gather from the site http://www.boxofficemojo.com).

First, I decided to look at the list of Highest All Time Domestic Box Office Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation (here: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm) and look at movies from the past 20 years. This ended up not being that great. When you adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation there are only 17 movies on the list because apparently Americans are going to the movies a lot less than we used to. Those are:

Titanic
Avatar
Star Wars: Episode I - III
The Dark Knight
Jurassic World
Independence Day
The Lord of the Rings (trilogy)
Finding Nemo
The Passion of the Christ
Monsters, Inc.
Toy Story 2
Toy Story
Apollo 13

4 of those 17 are animated movies about non-humans (Monsters, Inc., Toy Story 2, Toy Story, Finding Nemo), 3 are the LOTR trilogy, and 2 were based on historic events (Passion and Apollo), which only leaves us with a sample of these 8 high grossing movies to look at for diverse racial casting which is too small a sample to say anything meaningful about.


So I tried a different approach. Instead of Highest All Time, look at the Highest Grossing each year for the last twenty years:

2015 Jurassic World
2014 American Sniper
2013 Catching Fire
2012 The Avengers
2011 Harry Potter / Deathly Hallows (P2)
2010 Toy Story 3
2009 Avatar
2008 The Dark Knight
2007 Spider-Man 3
2006 Dead Man's Chest
2005 Revenge of the Sith
2004 Shrek 2
2003 Return of the King
2002 Spider-Man
2001 Harry Potter / Sorcerer's Stone
2000 The Grinch
1999 The Phantom Menace
1998 Saving Private Ryan
1997 Titanic
1996 Independence Day
1995 Toy Story

This is a more interesting list, I think, and to my knowledge of these 20 movies (17 if we remove animated again), only Independence Day features a major non-white character (though Samuel Jackson has decent supporting roles in Star Wars and Avengers). Not great...but if we're being scientific, for all I know the #2 movie each year could've all starred non-whites so it's not that solid. (Also, only 2 arguably feature female leads - Titanic and Catching Fire - which is far more damning given half of humans are female!)


So I said screw it, I'll just look at last year. By my count, of the top 50 movies from 2014, five "starred" a non-white person:

Ride Along
The Equalizer
Annie (2014)
Let's Be Cops
Think Like a Man Too

None of these were amongst the really big movies of last year (Ride Along is highest at #21) so that reduces their visibility a lot but still, I'd say to my surprise 5 starring black roles out of 50 isn't too bad considering blacks are ~13% of the US population. (Hispanics fair far worse with, as far as I can tell, zero major roles even though we are ~9% of the population.) When you add in notable non-starring roles, such as those in Guardians of the Galaxy's racially diverse cast, it goes up to 10 out of the 50. This makes me conclude that, to my genuine surprise, Hollywood is doing a pretty job in this regard - even if the last truly BIG hit starring a non-white person was the 20 year old Independence Day (unless you count Avatar's blue people ).

[Primula Baggins]

This link is interesting. It's an Entertainment Weekly article describing (and linking to) a video project by writer and actor Dylan Marron, who took recent Hollywood films and edited them down to just the lines spoken by people who are not white.

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/07/15/ev ... lor-movies

Hint: Some of them are really, really short.

[yovargas]

Hollywood’s lack of diversity in front of the camera is well documented....

As my final conclusion in my post says, maybe it's not as well documented as we think.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Actually, your unscientific conclusion is consistent with more rigorous studies. Despite the lack of diversity in Hollywood, more diverse films tend to do better relatively.

http://www.diversityinc.com/news/study- ... rm-better/

http://www.diversityinc.com/news/lack-o ... ood-money/

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/ ... white-male

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