Lords of their Dingalings: Men’s Rightsers outraged at Time writer for noting the lack of female characters in The Hobbit
Can you find the woman in this picture?
Uh oh! It seems that some woman is offering some opinions about Tolkien!
Over on Time.com, Ruth Davis Konigsberg has a brief personal essay reflecting on the almost complete lack of female characters in the new Hobbit film, and in Tolkien’s ouvre generally. As she notes, it’s not until about two hours in to the nearly three-hour movie that “we finally meet someone without a Y chromosome,” namely Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel — and she was added into the originally all-male story by the screenwriters. Blanchette’s is the only female name out of 37 named in the cast list – though there are a couple of unnamed female characters who make brief appearances.
“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,” Konigsberg observes.
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.
Yes, yes, as she admits, Tolkien’s few female characters tend to be powerful. But that hardly changes the basic fact that the Hobbit, and Tolkien generally, is overloaded with dudes.
These fairly commonplace observations have, naturally, sent the orcs and the elf princesses of the Men’s Rights subreddit into an uproar. Naturally, none of them seem to have bothered to read any of Konigsberg’s brief piece before setting forth their opinions, which sometimes accuse her of ignoring things she specifically acknowledged (like that whole powerful-female-character thing), and completely miss that the bit about reproduction is, you know, a joke on Konigsberg’s part.
Here are some of my favorite idiotic comments from the “discussion.” (Click on the yellow comments to see the originals on Reddit.)
Uh, Jane Austen’s books are filled with dudes. Especially Pride and Prejudice 2: Mr. Darcy’s Revenge, which was later adapted into a buddy cop movie starring Robin Williams and Danny Glover.
EDITED TO ADD: Somehow forgot to include two of my favorite comments:
Oh, and if you were unable to find a woman in the picture above, try this one instead:
Like this:
Posted on December 31, 2012, in all about the menz, antifeminism, dozens of upvotes, I am making a joke, misogyny, MRA, no girls allowed, patriarchy, reddit, straw feminists and tagged gender, lord of the rings, men's rights, misogyny, MRA, reddit, the hobbit. Bookmark the permalink. 437 Comments.
Abnoy: Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that MOST of the main characters are male?
Ah, so the bible was aimed at men, and the Bagavad Gita’s target audience was gods.
The Edda’s weren’t aimed at all those who spoke norse, but just at dudes.
What reductionist twaddle. Want to know what Tolkien’s audience was… read his correspondence.
And this should concern me how, exactly?
Well you seem awfully cranky that women are paying attention to the lack of men. They seem to think they are in the target audience, and you have your knickers in a twist. It seems to be affecting you.
Hah, as I noticed the regulars around here sure do get bored when one of their enemy actually makes such sense that not even they can ignore it.
Could you point to some examples. Explication of the irrefutablity of the arguments is in order.
Wow, just because female and “people-of-color” characters don’t appear for the most part in a single fantasy trilogy (albeit the original one of it’s genre)
Right, the seminal work, which shapes the genre, leaves women out, and we are supposed to say, “that’s cool, it’s not like women matter”.
Compare that to this…Of course, if the work is inciting it’s target audience to do something that would affect you negatively, then of course, you have the right to get involved, but I fail to see how the LOTR negatively affects females at all.
Erasing them isn’t a harm, so they ought to shut up and make you a sammich, right? (mind you, saying that to some women of my acquaintance might be unpleasant, they have large knives, and can bake).
Clearly you aren’t familiar with Mr. Al’s work. You two could have a race to the bottom to see who’s more pathetic.
Oh for fuck’s sake, no one here is saying you can’t have stories that don’t include women, successful stories at that. That’s part of the point though, that there do tend to be a lot more (very successful) male-centric stories and yet the world isn’t just all men. And even in the case of a lot of the stories a lot of commenters have offered up as good examples of very good fantasy with female leads or more female-centric storylines most of those still include a lot of men, often in very key roles. Which I don’t necessarily see as a bad thing, more that it seems more feminist leaning storylines tend to tell a story of male and female characters interacting as equal partners in the storyline, rather than as one main set of movers of the storyline and another set of people who are there primarily for taking care of the home front. Which, you know, would be cool to see more of.
It’s not necessarily the creation of female-less stories that’s problematic (though that’s part of it) it’s also very much that these male-centric stories are seen in our culture as normal, expected, mandatory even, and female-centric stories are generally given much less acclaim, attention or respect. Female-centric stories are seen as outliers.
Or did you miss the part where people have already listed a lot of fantasy by and about women that doesn’t receive as much acclaim? We already are creating our own media and we have already shown that there is a demand (see also, Bridesmaids, Hunger Games). The problem is (well again, part of the problem), Hollywood movie makers continue to try to ignore it in lieu of targeting the all important 18-35 white male demographic that according to them can’t be arsed to watch more than one token hot lady kick ass (and of course, not nearly as much ass as the doods). And a lot of publishers (though I think it’s less of a problem in the publishing industry) still try to push more male-centric stories, or at least Which really says a lot about how negatively a lot of producers and publishers view men and boys.
Yeah, you obviously missed that part. But I mean, I suppose we should be expected to change the current media climate WITHOUT criticizing it. Don’t kid yourself. There’s a name for people who are the only ones who think they’re making any sense and it ain’t rational.
Also, this
proves you are a complete tool fighting without a clue to stand on. “Quit your bitching ladies that writer lady gave you a super smart girl sidekick to the boy wizard wunderkind and his other boy sidekick! Jesus, what more do you want?”
Yeah, neither you or Steele are getting any homeruns, champ. You’re both pretty good at striking out tremendously though.
Anyway, on to much more fun topics, @Big Momma, I’m thirding (fourthing? I’ve lost track) the recommendation for Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series. It’s fun and fast paced and surprisingly poignant for a series that on the outset you’d think isn’t necessarily too deep. I’d also recommend his steampunk/alternate WWI history series, Leviathan. Aside from being very fun, imaginative reads, Deryn Sharp is a very likeable, funny character to read, she’s become one of my new favorites. Plus, I admit, I have a huge heart for Mr. Westerfeld as a YA author in general, particularly after his “Think of the Parents” rebuttal/mockery of the pearl clutching “ZOMG THE KIDS R ALL READING DARK HORRIBLE VAMPIRE STUFF WHATEVER SHALL WE DOOOO?!?!” article that was in the WSJ last year. I’d also recommend Legend, by Marie Lu (which conveniently has another book in the series coming out this month) and Divergent, by Veronica Roth. She also might like some Gail Carson Levine, Ella Enchanted, The Two Princesses of Bamarre, and Fairest are ones I enjoyed. Oh, also some Lloyd Alexander, Chronicles of Prydain. Those might be a bit easier for her, but they’re very well written, very fun reads if she hasn’t read them yet.
@Abnoy: I always felt that if you can’t write diverse characters then you shouldn’t be a writer. When I write with a male protagonist I never think to myself “Hmm…what would a guy think in this situation?”, I just fucking portray the character as a human being for heaven’s sake.
@Big Momma
Someone here recommended (brought up?) Martha Wells’ Books of the Raksura and they are really fun. The sex parts of it are (I think) good for being mostly matter-of-fact and offscreen, if you will. Lots of fun stuff about gender and bodies in those. It has a male protagonist, but in a very traditionally female role, almost so much so that I forget he is a he. Plenty of very strong women in the books as well. If the person who recommended them sees this, am I forgetting something that would make them non-9 y.o. appropriate? (Also, thanks for turning me on to the series!)
Here is the website if you want to test the kid-friendliness. There are stories available for free. http://www.marthawells.com/compendium/
I have to say I think Judy Blume is great, all around. Not a series, but a lot of books.
Oh, absolutely! I just didn’t mention any because most of the children’s classics are rather short; something like The Princess and the Goblin would be little more than an appetizer to a kid who usually devours 300+ page books.
The Water Babies. I loved that book, and Peter Pan too. It’s hard to recall what I read as a kid… Oh! The Wind in the Willows.
If the kid liked The Hobbit, make sure to get Tolkien’s other novellas, Farmer Giles of Ham and Smith of Wooton Major.
Hell yes to Judy Blume! I also loved Lois Duncan at around 10, but I loved (and still love) horror. Great strong teenage girls in those books who all have psychic powers and awesome, but dead, grandmas. But, again, horror is so dependent on kid. My little (25+) sister still can’t handle it, but I’ve never had a problem.
@Abnoy
Well, you’re not the target audience for that review, and that hasn’t stopped you from grumbling on about it.
I return with more recommendations! All of these are books I read at around your daughters age or a little older:
The Books of Pellinor by Alison Croggan (a fantasy quartet)
The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O’Shea
The Wind on Fire Trilogy by William Nicholson (features one of my absolute favorite female lead characters)
The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis (this is a really great book, it’s about an 11 year old girl in Afghanistan under the Taliban (pre-invasion) whose father is arrested. There are no other men or boys in the family who aren’t infants so she has to go out to work to support her family disguised as a boy).
Coram Boy by Jamila Gavin (I adored this book, it’s set in the 18th century but features POC characters)
Hope these help!
I was lucky enough to have David Copperfield read to me, at around that age. Ok, sexual implications around Little Emily were omitted (I wouldn’t have understood anyway) but I just loved it.
I second Wind in the Willows and the Anne books. I also liked the Gerald Durrell books - I don’t know how well they’ve aged.
Had forgotten The Silver Brumby - I’m going to have to explore the top bookshelves & see if I’ve still got it. If your daughter likes horses, what about Misty of Chincoteague, King of the Wind etc?
The movie Osama has the same premise. Was it based on this?
Abnoy: so few men in the MRM, not so few men in the world. Learn to read for context, halfwit.
Kids’ book recs: Big Momma, has your daughter read the Percy Jackson books, or anything else by Rick Riordan? He’s good about including girls and PoC in his worlds (no queer characters yet, but some subtext here and there), and he’s funny as well. There are 2.5 series so far: the Greek mythology one (starting with The Lightning Thief), the Egyptian mythology one (The Red Pyramid), and the Roman mythology one that continues where the Greek one left off (The Lost Hero).