It has, at this point, become a bit obvious to point out the lack of female characters in children’s entertainment: the Pixar movies, the morning cartoon shows, even the Legos that they play with — unless, of course, the product in question was designed specifically for girls, which raises another set of issues about self-reinforcing stereotypes. But I was not prepared for the extreme skewing of the sexes in The Hobbit, which has been the No. 1 movie at the box office for the past three weeks.
The film opens in the nice domestic setting of hobbit Bilbo Baggins’ cozy home. Bilbo has a story to tell his young nephew or cousin — the relationship and intermediary relatives are unclear — named Frodo. We are introduced to the plight of the dwarf king Thorin, who is identified as “the son of Thráin, the son of Thrór.” Thorin’s precious-mineral-based kingdom was ransacked and occupied by a dragon and he wants it back. A wizard named Gandalf appoints Bilbo to help and soon a whole bunch of short men show up on his doorstep. They all set off into enemy territory, and about two-thirds in we finally meet someone without a Y chromosome, an elf princess played by Cate Blanchett who can read Gandalf’s mind. Although she’s on screen for only about five minutes, I was so grateful that it didn’t even bother me that her main character trait is that she’s intuitive. I have since found out that she doesn’t even appear in the book of The Hobbit but was added to the movie because, in the words of one screenwriter, “You start to feel the weight of 13 hairy dwarves.”
I did not read The Hobbit or the The Lord of the Rings trilogy as a child, and I have always felt a bit alienated from the fandom surrounding them. Now I think I know why: Tolkien seems to have wiped women off the face of Middle-earth. I suppose it’s understandable that a story in which the primary activity seems to be chopping off each other’s body parts for no particular reason might be a little heavy on male characters — although it’s not as though Tolkien had to hew to historical accuracy when he created his fantastical world. The problem is one of biological accuracy. Tolkien’s characters defy the basics of reproduction: dwarf fathers beget dwarf sons, hobbit uncles pass rings down to hobbit nephews. If there are any mothers or daughters, aunts or nieces, they make no appearances. Trolls and orcs especially seem to rely on asexual reproduction, breeding whole male populations, which of course come in handy when amassing an army to attack the dwarves and elves.
There are, no doubt, many who know the Tolkien oeuvre much better than I who will protest my complaint. “There are very few women, but those that there are have great power,” one such aficionado has reminded me. Others will point out that there are plenty of modern classics with hardly any female characters enjoyed by both boys and girls, from Tintin to The Muppets.
And then there is the argument that none of this should matter, that it’s not just fiction but fantasy after all. But Peter Jackson, the director of The Hobbit, has said, “To me, fantasy should be as real as possible. I don’t subscribe to the notion that because it’s fantastical it should be unrealistic. I think you have to have a sense of belief in the world that you’re going into, and the levels of detail are very important.” I should think that would include — especially in an intergenerational saga — something as important as the perpetuation of species, whether furry-footed or not.
Source
The film opens in the nice domestic setting of hobbit Bilbo Baggins’ cozy home. Bilbo has a story to tell his young nephew or cousin — the relationship and intermediary relatives are unclear — named Frodo. We are introduced to the plight of the dwarf king Thorin, who is identified as “the son of Thráin, the son of Thrór.” Thorin’s precious-mineral-based kingdom was ransacked and occupied by a dragon and he wants it back. A wizard named Gandalf appoints Bilbo to help and soon a whole bunch of short men show up on his doorstep. They all set off into enemy territory, and about two-thirds in we finally meet someone without a Y chromosome, an elf princess played by Cate Blanchett who can read Gandalf’s mind. Although she’s on screen for only about five minutes, I was so grateful that it didn’t even bother me that her main character trait is that she’s intuitive. I have since found out that she doesn’t even appear in the book of The Hobbit but was added to the movie because, in the words of one screenwriter, “You start to feel the weight of 13 hairy dwarves.”
I did not read The Hobbit or the The Lord of the Rings trilogy as a child, and I have always felt a bit alienated from the fandom surrounding them. Now I think I know why: Tolkien seems to have wiped women off the face of Middle-earth. I suppose it’s understandable that a story in which the primary activity seems to be chopping off each other’s body parts for no particular reason might be a little heavy on male characters — although it’s not as though Tolkien had to hew to historical accuracy when he created his fantastical world. The problem is one of biological accuracy. Tolkien’s characters defy the basics of reproduction: dwarf fathers beget dwarf sons, hobbit uncles pass rings down to hobbit nephews. If there are any mothers or daughters, aunts or nieces, they make no appearances. Trolls and orcs especially seem to rely on asexual reproduction, breeding whole male populations, which of course come in handy when amassing an army to attack the dwarves and elves.
There are, no doubt, many who know the Tolkien oeuvre much better than I who will protest my complaint. “There are very few women, but those that there are have great power,” one such aficionado has reminded me. Others will point out that there are plenty of modern classics with hardly any female characters enjoyed by both boys and girls, from Tintin to The Muppets.
And then there is the argument that none of this should matter, that it’s not just fiction but fantasy after all. But Peter Jackson, the director of The Hobbit, has said, “To me, fantasy should be as real as possible. I don’t subscribe to the notion that because it’s fantastical it should be unrealistic. I think you have to have a sense of belief in the world that you’re going into, and the levels of detail are very important.” I should think that would include — especially in an intergenerational saga — something as important as the perpetuation of species, whether furry-footed or not.
Source
I'm also always really creeped out by people who demand realism by erasing women. Because the point that "dwarf fathers beget dwarf sons" is so true. The only time I saw any dwarf women was during the escape, and that actually surprised me. I was like "yup that's three dwarves in a line without a single woman between them." Thraine (sp?) carved Thorin out of the mountain.
misogyny
Edited at 2012-12-31 10:38 pm (UTC)
Stories come as they come. And the author is under no obligation to be inclusive for the sake of diversity. This was not a problem in 1939. Today, you'd best be prepared for blowback.
eaux
magic the gathering is pretty awesome with its female-types methinks
I never really thought about male-female representation in Tolkien's works because it was just an adventure for me. Of course retroactively this article makes me think of Pterry's books and I can't help thinking "Maybe some of those dwarves were female but they were old-school female dwarves so no one ever noticed until they donned a feather boa?"
Edited at 2012-12-31 10:53 pm (UTC)
That balance will likely never be redressed with this property, although I'm glad Jackson is introducing a new female character in part two.
Very strange. Very unseemly.
Personally, I'll agree it's a weakness of the story as a whole. But given the era from which it came, I'll kind of give it a pass.
So, yeah, kind of sucks that there aren't more female characters, but what female characters we do have are pretty awesome and don't seem to be handled in a sexist way, so... I'm not too upset about it.
Edited at 2012-12-31 11:02 pm (UTC)
My problem is that the fantasy genre got itself stuck being mostly European (maybe Norse based? Don't know enough to expand on this) based, male-dominated. The genre has great potential and someone outside of this mold pops up now and again, but the Tolkein model of fantasy has become the standard of what fantasy is and it just hasn't grown enough from this model.
Which is more than a little annoying, and I say this as someone who's a massive Tolkien geek. While I do see the reasons why Jackson didn't make some of the dwarves women, I'd definitely have loved it if he had, and am with the Pterry fans head-canoning some of them women anyway.
What I find far more annoying is how often Tolkien's work gets used as the archetype for fantasy writing by writers who don't take the opportunity to update glaring issues like the lack of women, the white elves=good black orcs=bad, etc rather than shrugging and going, "well, that's just how High Fantasy is."
did everyone forget Eowyn? She freaking killed the Witchking of Angmar when " No Man could ". Goldberry - Radagast's wife, Luthien, Arwen, Celebrian,etc. etc. etc.
come on, people.
ETA: To make it clearer, basically my message to this writer: don't fight sexism with cissexism and trans* erasure.
Edited at 2012-12-31 11:58 pm (UTC)
While I completely get the argument about whether Tolkien and Middle Earth is or is not feminist enough (it isn't), I just don't feel the need to get upset over the books now.
What I do feel the need to get annoyed with is the current-day fantasy genre that isn't changing. Off the top of my head, let's see... I can think of two major cartoon series that I consider very feminist (My Little Pony and Adventure Time), maybe one animated movie in the past year (Brave) and maybe one large-scale game series in MtG.
That's a pretty slim list and either means that I don't do enough fantasy anymore or the Powers that Be don't really feel like changing the status-quo. Which is kind of sad because fantasy is one of the few things that you really can experiment in.
Edited at 2012-12-31 11:59 pm (UTC)
It's also a shame that everyone began to model their high fantasy on Tolkien's, thus making everything that followed pretty much without women and set in the same kind of environment. He invented his model. His model is not it. And it shouldn't be, because there are many areas to be improved upon in the telling.
I'm basically a Tolkien fan, but NOT a Tolkien purist. Personally, I find his depictions of women (and the lack thereof) to be rather quaint and old-fashioned, and this is one of my least favorite aspects of his work. I appreciate Peter Jackson's efforts to beef up the female presence a bit. But there's a limit to how far one can go without changing Tolkien's world into something he never conceived of or intended, and I for one would prefer that Jackson not go QUITE that far.
If someone else feels the need to rewrite Tolkien's work in order to create something more in line with 21st century sensibilities, fine—go write some fanfic or something. But don't expect Peter Jackson to do that in these movies. He's already trying to walk a difficult enough line between keeping things faithful enough to the source material to keep the purists at bay while still making the stories relevant enough to be captivating to modern filmgoers not all of whom are fans of the books. As far as I can see, he's done a pretty good job so far. Not a perfect one, but pretty darned good, all things considered.
P.S. All other issues aside, male hobbits at least definitely DO beget children, presumably through the traditional methods! Did this writer sleep through the end of The Return of the King, when Sam returned home to Rosie and their brood, or what?
Edited at 2013-01-01 12:19 am (UTC)