Let me come clean at the beginning – I admit it; I enjoyed every minute of Peter Jackson’s fantasy immensely. At every set-back and every battle, I was right there with our heroes; and at the end of each installment, I was ready to rewind and start again (having prepared with a rigorous programme of dehydration). As a westerner and die-hard atheist, I suspect that swords and sorcery fulfils the same function as religion does in those for whom god is the poison of choice; indeed, it seems to inspire a similar brand of fanaticism. For my own part, whilst in no way being a fantasy geek (no aspersions cast), I find an escapism here qualitatively different from that supplied by movies of a more vérité persuasion. There is something reassuring about a simplified world in which there is good and evil, and one can be clearly differentiated from the other. My mind seeks to order the inherently chaotic, and when it treads the well-worn paths of myth, there is a sense of relief in inhabiting a space without shades of grey. Furthermore, within this realm I can realize frustrated desires. Who doesn’t want to be afforded the privilege of making a sacrifice for the good? But who notices a sacrifice in our world? Where is the nobility; the honour? Such concepts don’t map squarely onto the world as I see it, messy and grey, in which there is no good and evil: only actions and consequences.
Some try to export the simplified world of fantasy into their everyday lives, searching out the black and white and, when it cannot be found, imposing it1. Things that have no connection become irrevocably intertwined: the relationships between concepts like white and good; dark and bad; ugly and bad; female and passive; and female and unimportant linger in the subconscious, and for some, in the conscious mind. By the same token, that which is intimately connected becomes separate. I find myself celebrating the houses of the aristocracy, tramping round them on a Sunday National-Trust day-out, while at the same time decrying the principles underpinning their existence. Yet, beyond my intellect, I can find no contradiction, and can keep the celebration and the decrying separate. In the same way, there is remarkable ongoing blindness in the west to the intimacy of the relationship between our high standard of living and exploitation in the developing world.
Is the desire for the regular engendered, or at least awakened, in the first place by exposure to these mythical templates? Perhaps. Or perhaps such templates adhere to conventions that exist in someway beyond the individual stories that comprise them, born of a Freudian imperative for self-protection. Whatever the case may be, the overshadowing presence of such myths is undeniable, as is the ease with which their language and symbolism is understood.
The first film in the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, opens with a mythology lesson, intoned by an English middle-class narrator. Without commenting on the clumsiness of this device, learning a new mythology of another world is not as complex as one would have thought; in fact it is just the old north European mythologies (e.g., Norse, Arthurian), albeit manipulated. Hence, right from the start we are grounded in myth, and a viewpoint is established. We are comfortable with these ideas both because they are not new, and because they are delivered to us in a voice that we perceive to be authoritative.
The language and imagery of myth reduces difficult issues to black and white: there is simply good and evil, and it is easy to tell which is which (I wonder how many fantasy movies George Bush has watched?). For example, in the world of Lord of the Rings, not only is a creature born to be either good or evil, but is recognisable as such by virtue of their race. With ethnicity comes anonymity; each race is homogenous; you’ve seen one elf, you’ve seen them all (replace ‘elf’ with ‘orc’, ‘hobbit’, ‘dwarf’, etc. at your discretion). The notable exception to this rule is that ostensibly good creatures can be corrupted by the ring – a creature born to a non-Other race, such as Saruman, or Gollum, can be ‘turned bad’ by acquiring the ring2. Social mobility! (However, if one is ‘born bad’, for example, an orc, there is no redemption.)
This is especially problematic in the current climate of western islamophobia. John Rhys Davies, who plays Gimley has said that he believes the films to be about defending western civilization against the threat of Islam, both in terms of immigration and terror3:
“I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged, and if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization. That does have a real resonance with me ... What is unconscionable is that too many of … [you] do not understand how precarious Western civilization is, and what a jewel it is.”
In this view, the films teach that, just as isolationism and appeasement was not the answer to Hitler, so isolationism and appeasement is not the answer to the advance of Islam. Rohan is clearly wrong to retreat to Helm’s Deep; the Ents learn that the best form of defence is attack. However, there is a profound inconsistency here, as much of the currency of Nazism (e.g., racism; an idealized vision of the peasant class) is celebrated by the films.
It is no coincidence that Mordor is ruled despotically; a system of government typically associated, in the west, with eastern nations. In the films, the dire consequences of this kind of regime are underscored by the ugliness of Mordor, emphasized through cinematography and music. It is always dark. There appears to be no vegetation; merely rock (what do they eat?). The darkness is punctuated only by runnels of molten larva. There are no gentle shapes – just sharp corners and jutting angles. Images of this hell are accompanied in turn by a dissonant cacophony and portentous choral music – a staple of the horror genre. Mordor, of course, is in the south and east.
This contrasts with Rivendell and the Shire, which are in the north and west. Both Rivendell and the Shire share a fertile landscape and ever-blue skies. Whilst Rivendell has waterfalls and scenic valleys, the Shire has rolling hills, meadows, and agriculture. The cinematography accentuates this verdancy; the greens are edenic; preternaturally green. In Rivendell, the architecture and jewellery is naturalistic and of a twisted Celtic style. In the Shire, everything is particularly rounded (including the inhabitants); abodes are small hollow hills (I expect the teletubbies will file suit any day now). Furthermore, the Shire is identifiably English – specifically, a kind of idealized rural southern England. It’s a haven of peace, with lush meadows, brown bread and cottages, merry artisans, plenty of hair, food, and flowers, quaint names such as ‘Hardbottle’: a picture of pastoral innocence.
The western world is a civilized idyll, in contrast to the east and south, which are full of adventure and exoticism, but also danger and malevolence. This is a eurocentric projection. Even the animals reflect this: goodies have horses (which imperialists used to terrorize indigenous peoples), whilst the orcs’ beasts are thinly-veiled variations on rhinos and elephants4.
The prevailing system of government in the kingdoms of the goodies is kind of a benevolent hereditary monarchy, divine right, and all. Furthermore, the film advocates this modus operandi, taking an anti-republican stance: Boromir is redeemed by accepting his ‘rightful’ king, Aragorn, before he dies; the guardian of Gondor is mad apparently because he has held onto a throne that is not rightfully his – order is restored at the resolution of the trilogy when Aragorn, the true king by virtue of his ancestry, is crowned. This is held up in contrast with the despotism of Mordor. In fact this reveals another internal inconsistency: in reality, these are similarly undemocratic systems of government.
Even more pernicious is the racial contrast drawn between good and Other. Good guys are caucasian, bad guys are black as well as Other5. There is a hierarchy of races, at the top of which reside the elves, who are “immortal, wisest, and fairest of all beings”: a master race. The elves have particularly long faces, and are thin with long flowing straight hair. They are especially pale, and tend to be fair; their features are unrounded. Clearly actors whose appearances could conform to this were selected, and then the ‘whiteness’ of their features further exaggerated with make-up and prosthetics. Goodies, particularly elves, are often graced with celestial light, soft-focus, and pseudo-religious western choral music.
This is reinforced by the representation of the denizens of Mordor, who conform to a very different racial stereotype. The orcs have dark skins and can often be recognized by their deformed features (which suggests a connection between moral fibre and physical appearance – deformity being indicitive of flawed character). Many orcs also sport overtly Asian or African features, such as flatter noses; the first ‘battle orc’ we see has dreadlocks. Orcs are always lit in a harsh dramatic way with only a few low light-sources. The music that accompanies them in the mines of Moria is an African tribal-sounding drumbeat. We are also shown the process of scarification inflicted on the orcs (a white Saruman handprint somewhere on their head or torso), tribalizing them; again a western vision of African practices6.
Blackness is further identified with uncivilized behaviour. Orcs are barbarous, bestial7, and philistine8; they are sub-human. They don’t talk much (they grunt when they do) and give no indication that anything is going on in their heads. They are not born in a mammalian sense, but hatched in some infernal process involving earth and fire (for this reason there appear to be no orc women – women’s use, apparently, is purely procreative). Indeed they are associated with the underground via their mining, their presence in Moria, and the birthing process. They reproduce at a startling rate – from nothing there is a giant army in no time at all – and there are many references to their superior numbers. Indeed, orcs are almost always presented en masse; as a collective; swarming9. They appear to be almost of a collective mind. This is reflective of orientalist fears.
Further points (er, haven't quite gotten around to finishing this yet!):
Gender:
- Women as child-bearers – the Shire fecund with plump fertile females; absence of orc women.
- Hobbit women – maidens or housewives; one of few female moments given over to portrayal of nagging.
- Women and sacrifice – Arwen sacrifices, both to heal Frodo, and her eternal life to bear Aragorn’s children.
- Aeowen – although a warrior, still requires romantic love. Warrior status not seemly enough to gain Aragorn.
- Lack of female roles and screen time – serious shortcoming. Modernist sensibility of thirties poets when confronted with women’s increasingly visible sexuality and role in the important spheres of life10.
- Women’s exclusion – must have nothing to do with important quest. At end Sam marries: women reserved for when real business of the world is finished.
- Another homoerotic male companionship film – frisson between Frodo and Sam palpable in final film; the class element – very Ted and Ralph.
Class:
- Orcs as working class – evil symbolized by deforestation, mining, smelting, and organized labour; post-industrialization manufacturing
- Contrast with Shire’s bumbling agricultural economy; Shire is small-scale, cooperative, not mechanized, artisans, and, most importantly, self-contained.
- The real threat – the unthinkable spread of industrialization to rural England.
- Industrial working class as invasive – Shire is comfortable vision of working class because self-contained, orcs uncomfortable vision of lower class because not self-contained. Liberal imperialist worries about slum conditions; eugenicist worries/Malthusian spawning in slums.
- Hobbits as working class – Sam, Frodo’s gardener (agricultural, pre-industrial worker) portrayed with patronizing affection. Clearly knows his place, suitably deferential to Frodo – always addresses him as “Mr. Frodo”. West-country accent counterpoint to Frodo’s middle-class one. Little credit given for his pivotal role.
- Romanticism/celebration of noble savage.
- Condescension/patronization of hobbits – wide-eyed; salt of the earth/simple folk; childlike. Regarded from a lofty height. (Whimsical music [compare fellowship’s evocative romantic/epic music]; moments of comic relief11).
- Nationalism encouraged – by exaggerated Disney England, like Celtic revivalist’s reinvention of Irish myths.
In the language of myth, that which is familiar is presented as good, just as that which is Other is bad. This language of myth made the film not only intelligible, but attractive, to a western audience, but is problematic, particularly in the current political climate, as it encourages issues to be viewed in a polarized way. Furthermore, the perspective of the film is eurocentric, and its conception of the Other is orientalist in character.
1 I acknowledge the problems associated with making generalizations, however, I am struggling to express what I believe to be a common way of thinking.
2 There is some ‘grey’, but it is an anomaly in the film overall, and services the crass religious imagery: in a lapsarian reference, the white wizard fell to the dark side, leaving the grey wizard to represent us; he is, however, soon reborn as white.
3 Rhys Davies also recently spoke on television about an (unrelated) book that gave him “an insight into ‘the oriental mind’”.
4 Ring wraiths have horses, but that is because they are “disguised as riders”4 Ring wraiths have horses, but that is because they are “disguised as riders”
5 In fact, we are told that “orcs were elves, taken by dark powers and tortured and mutilated”. Black is a corrupt and inferior version of white.
6 Compare this with the great store invested in the Elves’ Celtic trinkets and other regalia.
7 e.g., they are cannibalistic.
8 e.g., they hurl rocks at the White City – bringing down civilization.
9 e.g., in the mines of Moria.
10 See, ‘Reginal Order’, Geoffrey Grigson, 1933.
01/11/04
11 e.g., Merry and Pippin in the farmer’s field.
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