Uncomfortable topics: Let's talk about race

[P3nT4gR4m]

Ever read John Norman's Chronicles of Gor?  Gotta be the most outrageous sexist shit, a planet where he is transformed into a Hero, of the "He Man" type, and all the Women are Slaveys, and quite fulfilled and happy doing occasional sidekick duties, getting slain, fucked, or both, on top of all that oiling up, and pleasing Master. Got to read at least one chapter just to see this Utopian Big gaystrap fetish world, with oiled bimbos, noble enemies. and real men always carry whips to keep their chickslaveharems in order.

Who needs to read them, the Vallejo cover art is all you need to know. In Tolkien's defence, re: sexism, he was writing about world war 1. Not a lot of women on the frontline back then.

[BadBeast]

LOTR? A loose coalition of rustic Nordic folks, consolidated into Vassal States, with the tacit and shaky, but ancient lineage of the Kings of Gondor about to return from shamed exile, from the Old Days.

Just in the nick of time to knit them all into a War Machine, and wage War on the only truly multicultural, and industrial Nation in Middle Earth, Mordor.

Orcs, Trolls, free men of the East, Balrogs, Corsairs, Southrons, the new Uruk Hai, all pulling together to fight the oppressive Socio-Economic Feudalist alliance of the meddling Valar Gandalf, his fucking Magic keeping Mordors industrial/Tech industry unmarketable,  Gondor, Rohan, The moody fucking Elves, the greedy Dwarves, and their pet Hobbits. Oh, and the fucking Ents too.
Mordor, marginalised politically and economically by the Rohan Gondor Alliance, sanctioned by Elrond half Elven's meddling elitist
triumverate of Ringbearers.

There is the dream of the day that an Uruk Hai child can safely walk the narrow streets of Minas Tirith without getting tarred, feathered, lit up, and pushed off 'Denethor's leap' for being a half thing, not Orc, not Elf, not Man, but despised for being all three.
With their cry, "It takes a Coalition of  Feudalist Nobilty
to hold us back"

They swarm out across the Morgul Vale, all willing to give their lives for the Country that believed in them, Mordor, and the Noble Lord Sauron, hacked up and left for dead by Isildur of Gondor, barely recognisable as a man, he kept the dream alive all these years.

After all, All they want is their Day In The Sun, and a forty hour week.  And the 'Relocation' of all the Elves, back to where they come from.

Not Racist?  Much? 

[BadBeast]

Ever read John Norman's Chronicles of Gor?  Gotta be the most outrageous sexist shit, a planet where he is transformed into a Hero, of the "He Man" type, and all the Women are Slaveys, and quite fulfilled and happy doing occasional sidekick duties, getting slain, fucked, or both, on top of all that oiling up, and pleasing Master. Got to read at least one chapter just to see this Utopian Big gaystrap fetish world, with oiled bimbos, noble enemies. and real men always carry whips to keep their chickslaveharems in order.

Who needs to read them, the Vallejo cover art is all you need to know. 

Funnily enough, that's just what inspired me to first pick up "Captives of Gor" in the first place!

[P3nT4gR4m]

Ever read John Norman's Chronicles of Gor?  Gotta be the most outrageous sexist shit, a planet where he is transformed into a Hero, of the "He Man" type, and all the Women are Slaveys, and quite fulfilled and happy doing occasional sidekick duties, getting slain, fucked, or both, on top of all that oiling up, and pleasing Master. Got to read at least one chapter just to see this Utopian Big gaystrap fetish world, with oiled bimbos, noble enemies. and real men always carry whips to keep their chickslaveharems in order.

Who needs to read them, the Vallejo cover art is all you need to know. 

Funnily enough, that's just what inspired me to first pick up "Captives of Gor" in the first place!

And you thought you were getting female emancipation???

[BadBeast]

Ever read John Norman's Chronicles of Gor?  Gotta be the most outrageous sexist shit, a planet where he is transformed into a Hero, of the "He Man" type, and all the Women are Slaveys, and quite fulfilled and happy doing occasional sidekick duties, getting slain, fucked, or both, on top of all that oiling up, and pleasing Master. Got to read at least one chapter just to see this Utopian Big gaystrap fetish world, with oiled bimbos, noble enemies. and real men always carry whips to keep their chickslaveharems in order.

Who needs to read them, the Vallejo cover art is all you need to know. 

Funnily enough, that's just what inspired me to first pick up "Captives of Gor" in the first place!

And you thought you were getting female emancipation???

To my credit, I never thought that!

[Cain]

Ever read John Norman's Chronicles of Gor?  Gotta be the most outrageous sexist shit, a planet where he is transformed into a Hero, of the "He Man" type, and all the Women are Slaveys, and quite fulfilled and happy doing occasional sidekick duties, getting slain, fucked, or both, on top of all that oiling up, and pleasing Master. Got to read at least one chapter just to see this Utopian Big gaystrap fetish world, with oiled bimbos, noble enemies. and where real men always carry whips to keep their chickslaveharems in order.
Almost forgot, there's every racial stereotype in there too, from Arab ish slave Traders,  Persian ish houris, and Mongolian ish stinky barbarian hordes. Always always everyone sells you their Women, noble savages from far off lands, "Blah blah blah, wanna buy an oily chick from far away"?

I don't want to give too much away, and spoil what would otherwise be a fascinating discovery of how real women want to be owned by emotionally stunted bulked up WWR rejects with whips and quests, and big golden/magic/broken swords.

I had heard of them, but only really about the sexist angle, and not so much the racist one.

Then again, I suppose the sexism is so horrific that the racism almost seems like an afterthought.

[BadBeast]

Many's the 48 year old virgin who learned all about women from John Norman's progressive gender alignment program. Thinly disguised as fantasy for the easily pleased. 

[East Coast Hustle]

Sorry Nigel I'm really not sure how to take that 'really'.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that it was meant as "Really? How did you get your head up your own ass that quickly?"

[Placid Dingo]

Sorry Nigel I'm really not sure how to take that 'really'.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that it was meant as "Really? How did you get your head up your own ass that quickly?"

I was assuming those lines.

Really I was just being horribly pedantic. The short version is I dont feel like LOTR is racist or meant to be.

ETA: And really considering some of the other ideas, I don't know how much I really agree with myself, thinking about it. It's late though, and I'll think more later.

[AFK]

I tend to agree.  I've always understood that LOTR was Tolkien's attempt to sort of create a mythology for England and wasn't meant to be taken as allegory for the, at the time, modern day.  I'm not sure the lack of strong female characters means anything compared to any other literary works of the time which also had a lack of strong female characters.  I tend to think of it as more of a "sign of the times" than anything else.  I imagine if Tolkien was alive today and was starting to write LOTR in the context of modern day as it exists today, it would look a bit different. 

[Placid Dingo]

I'm also going to do a quick flip and say that recognising an offensive portrayal and saying it's not racist is kinda dumb. And I came out pretty dickish, so I apologise.

[East Coast Hustle]

I've noticed a fairly consistent theme, which is that there are a fair amount of people who are under the mistaken impression that "it's only racist if it's intentional".

[East Coast Hustle]

I tend to agree.  I've always understood that LOTR was Tolkien's attempt to sort of create a mythology for England and wasn't meant to be taken as allegory for the, at the time, modern day.  I'm not sure the lack of strong female characters means anything compared to any other literary works of the time which also had a lack of strong female characters.  I tend to think of it as more of a "sign of the times" than anything else.  I imagine if Tolkien was alive today and was starting to write LOTR in the context of modern day as it exists today, it would look a bit different. 

Those times were racist and sexist.

[Scribbly]

Lord of the Rings has quite a few strong female characters. In fact the majority of women characters I can think of have awesome moments of strength and courage. They aren't as numerous or as central to the plot as the members of the Fellowship, but they exist and they have crowning moments of awesome. They are definitely not portrayed as simpering, subservient weaklings or 'happy slaves' ala Gor.

I could go into more detail if people really want, but it seems tangential to the main point of the thread. I don't think anyone really cares.

So yeah. It might be racist, but it is definitely not a sexist work.

[AFK]

I tend to agree.  I've always understood that LOTR was Tolkien's attempt to sort of create a mythology for England and wasn't meant to be taken as allegory for the, at the time, modern day.  I'm not sure the lack of strong female characters means anything compared to any other literary works of the time which also had a lack of strong female characters.  I tend to think of it as more of a "sign of the times" than anything else.  I imagine if Tolkien was alive today and was starting to write LOTR in the context of modern day as it exists today, it would look a bit different. 

Those times were racist and sexist.

Sure, but I still don't think there was any racism or sexism built into LOTR.  There are strong, powerful female characters in the story.  Galadriel anyone?  And I don't really see any racist commentary in the book either.  Indeed, we see races coming together for a common cause to defeat evil.  We see initial distrust between an elf and a dwarf melt away as they learn more about each other through their journey.  Just not seeing the racism or sexism.