people are just plain wierd man. Why cant they just enjoy a good movie and quit analyzing and picking apart everything all the time? Sheesh.

Well nothing pissed JRR more than assuming that the Lord of the Rings was a social political allegory.

Some people are just looking for a reason to bitch. With the logic that says that LOTR is racist, one could say that MOST movies put out these days are racist as well... maybe they are... I totally agree with you that LOTR is the most non-racist movie, the only way it could have been more non-racist would be if it had been made staring the Sesame Street cast of monsters. ;o) Can you see Big Bird as Legolas and cookie monster as Gimli, maybe Grover as Aragorn. hehehehehe

Lord of the Rings is by no means anti-racist. At best it is neutral on the race issue. It does though perpetuate the idea that some creatures are created simply for evil purposes, and that these creatures are nothing more than walking grunting animals. Much the way that the white folk during pre-modern england perceived those from the african continent. Movies and books that portray certain sides as wholeheartedly evil and wholeheartedly good over simplify society and leads to us buying into sweeping indictments of people as being simply evil or good a la, "Bush is all good and bin ladin is nothing but evil." Books and movies like this do not help people seek truth, but rather fall back on stereotypes. Whether Tolkien intended this or not I don't know. I guess he didn't want the books to be seen as a social or political allegory, which makes the books and movies strictly for entertainment value and not for enlightenment.

These comments were deleted because I did not leave a real email address. My IP was 24.202.115.48

That is sickening how can someone call LOTR racist? It is a 20th century Fairy tale that involves the continual struggle between Good and Evil. Whoever consider LOTR racist is spreading hatred and ignorance.

I would not go as far to say spreading "hatred and ignorance" but more like reading to hard and having a persecution complex.

".....Considering the Lord of the Rings was influenced by World War one the Orcs would be more influenced by Germany and France....."

Exactly, you make some great points in defending professor Tolkien. People who criticize Tolkien for racism are the same types of people who accuse him of sexism.....The guy just wrote a ripping good yarn, no sinister allegory, just a great story.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - GANDHI

Well aspects of racism is definitely expected. The fact that he came from South Africa and he lived in an era which holds certain values (white is pure and good black,dark shades is evil) as common place. Another huge point which stands out is that middle earth consists of whites only. How close minded to conceive of a world (entire middle earth) with only whites. Sounds familiar? regardless its a good story from an era that didnt think any differently.

You do realize how stupid that sounds. Tolkien refused to do business with the Nazis before war ww2 broke out and he fought the Germans in world war one. The Lord of the Rings is about European mythology not the 20th century or racism. If you read the books you would see that.

If you take 5 of Britain's former colony's, namely New Zealand, Australia, Canada, USA and South Africa and compare the populations that the indigenious people now constitute of each country's population, South Africa's white people suddenly appear as anything but racist.

New Zealand's ethinic population today constitutes 9% of their overall population, Canada's 1.5%, Australia's 1.0% and the USA's 0.5%. Yet in South Africa the indigenous population constitutes a massive 85% of their overall population, with the white population making up only around 8%.

Any country that ethinic cleanses their indigionous people like Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the USA have commited have no right calling any white South African a racist as they have NEVER practiced any form of ethnic cleansing. Something the other former colonies can never lay claim to, as this practice was rife amongst them all. Makes you wonder who the real racists truly are?

The only comparison South African white people have to Nazi germany is when their woman and children where placed into the FIRST concentration camps by the British in the 2nd Anglo Boer war, murdering thousands of white Boer women and children in cold blood.

For interests sake Olifant (the massive elephants in LOTR) is the Afrikaaner/Boer word for elephant. Drakensburg = Dragon Mountain, a mountain range found in South Africa and (wow) in the Hobbit.

Tolkien must surely be turning in his grave knowing his book was not filmed in the country which is his birth place and the spark that ignited his imagination, South Africa.

Bloody hippocrites.

Tolkien left South Africa when he was a small child and lived the rest of his life in England. He is generally regarded as the quintessential Englishman.

The US stopped being a British colony on July 4th 1776. Look no one is blaming you for stuff that happened before you were born but South Africa is not historically known for it's racial tolerance.

The fact that middle earth is entirely white speaks for itself. Moreover, today (12/17/2003), on National Public Radio a critic from Slate gushed over how it was so great to have actors with beautiful blue eyes starring down at you from the screen. This type of commentary was said without a blink of an eye. What I think many of the posters and this critic fail to realize is that what many non-whites see when we look at this movie are people who do not look like us; we must at some level feel excluded and question why are all the eyes on the screen blue?

I think that this movie has some good points, but to pretend that exclusion of the majority of humanity from the race of man is not a major flaw is intellectually dishonest. Tolkien was no doubt a man of his time, and sadly his time was not that enlighten when it came to dealing with non-white cultures.

Terry. There are no white people in Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Does that make it racist? There are no white people in Waiting to Exhale. Except for a mistress. Does that make it racist? There are no black people in the Bicycle Thief? Does that make it racist? There are no white people in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Does that make it racist?

Terry. This is not history it is a fantasy based on PRE-MODERN EUROPEAN MYTHOLOGY! Pull your head out of your self righteous multicultural ass.

Do you hate StarWars because it is racist against Wookies?

seven samurai is based on an era from history, there WERE no whites there....

LOTR is a fantasy story with the strangest creatures but NOT one coloured person.
Let's be honest, it is kinda strange

There were no Africans or Asians in Beowulf. Well Professor Tolkien was an expert in ancient European lore and thus it is a basis for his work.

And by "colored people" (a term that will get you yell at for using in the US) I assume you mean non-Europeans.

Chris, Tolkien was not required to write an ambivalent epic in which Sauron has "legitimate grievances". There are fewer shades of grey in Middle-Earth than in the real world,but that is why it is escapist(and there actually is some grey,in that good men go bad).
The epic is all about free will and the premise that "nothing is evil from the beginning" so Tolkien was not postulating that some are naturally good and others naturally bad. Tolkien may have been an "elvish supremacist" but to my knowledge,elves don't exist.

Another thing I noticed. Although Tolkien does not describe the Dunlendings as dark skinned, commentators such as Robert Foster have described them as "swarthy",thereby unconsciously buying into the canard that all of Tolkien's bad guys are dark-skinned. The Dunlendings are dark-haired,but so are most Elves and Hobbits.