It's become a billion-dollar franchise, but, for realists, the "Ring" is hollow (PC barf)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch | 12/13/2003 | Joe Williams

[Joe Republc]

Surprise, surprise... a liberal journalist doesn't like LOTR!

I'll leave to my fellow freepers to shoot holes in this 'hollow' cricism.

At the heart of it is: anyone buying into a worldview of black-and-white good vs. evil is at best indulging their 'inner child'. The sophisticates, of course, acknowlege the 'real-world evidence to the contrary.' And probably prefer more, ahem, realistic drama like American Beauty. (With my naive view, I thought that was a twisted movie not only from a moral perspective, but from the whitewash they put on the PC characters.)

This kind of LOTR-bashing is going to become more prevalent until Oscar time. In the meantime, naive worldviewers like George Bush will muster our naive troops into capturing orcs like Saddam Hussein. And millions of Americans will love watching Lord of the Rings.

-- Joe

[ecurbh]

Ring Ping!!

There and Back Again: The Journeys of Flat Frodo

Anyone wishing to be added to or removed from the Ring-Ping list, please don't hesitate to let me know.

[JenB]

Evil of Mordor Ping.

[JenB]

Oh, you found it already. Yuck! What a nasty human being the author is. Probably running for President as a Democrat.

[HairOfTheDog]

Yet millions of people are indeed enchanted by these stories.

The only sentence in the whole review that was worth the price of admission!

[Pyro7480]

Looks like there's an orc Scrooge in St. Louis!

[Alouette]

I'll bet this guy[sic!] just swooned over THE HOURS

[Texan5]

I actually remember that National Lampoon satire, "Bored of the Rings"-I thought it was hilarious, but it didn't ruin the "real" one for me-Dildo, Frito, et al were funny, damnit!

[billbears]

For all the blood, sweat and tears, the "LOTR" books and movies are cloaked in an antiquarian fustiness that diminishes their impact. How deeply can contemporary audiences (particularly Americans) respond to a story in which the women are marginalized, a dimwitted servant hikes across mountain ranges to help his master dispose of some jewelry and free men are so besotted with monarchial malarkey that they would die to restore a king to his throne?

I can't say anything to that except what an absolute idiot. I first read LOTR around 8 years old and, for me at least, the Christian symbolism and the underlying meaning were clearer than Lewis' Chronicles series. It was only later that I got a lot of the other meanings behind it, but I do know one thing. This person doesn't need to review any other movies. I bet he loved the Crying Game though

[Snuffington]

Yet millions of people are indeed enchanted by these stories. Partly that's a credit to the craft of the books and the movies. But it's also a measure of how digestibly simple the worldview is.

Well if you're going to be an elitist, might as well go all the way. Kind of refreshing to see a little honest contempt for the masses, instead of the usual attempts to conceal it.

[Rocko]

The influential literary critic Edmund Wilson called the trilogy "a children's book which has somehow gotten out of hand" and derided it for "a poverty of invention which is almost pathetic."

He was wrong, of course. How many of his books are still in print?

[Arkinsaw]

Something tells me that this guy had a hard childhood of some sort.

People who are unable to escape reality for a few minutes DO NOT need to be hired to do movie reviews.

[LadyDoc]

he doesn't get it.

Women are marginalized? Well, Arwen is marginalized. But Galadriel is a major power player, and Eowyn is administrator during helm's deep (i.e. arranging food and clothing for the refugees, something that is a major deal, as her uncle points out) and of course Eowyn kicks B*tt by killing the Nazgul.

As for the simple minded servent, in the book, Sam is not well educated (as in the British caste system, he has little schooling versus educated Frodo) but one of the themes is that he can quote poetry, is faithful, and like the other hobbits and Barliman, has a strong grasp of commonsense...Tolkien based Sam on the Lanchester coalminers and factory workers who were his men when he was a young lieutenant in WWI...he often said they all became equal in battle, and many of them were much better men than the officers who often snubbed them...

We Americans are often descended from these same types, and at least on my part, I identify with Sam as much as Eowyn...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/978031/posts

".....Modesty, forbearance, and renunciation are the virtues that Tolkien sets against Wagner's existential act of despair. The high culture of the West is gone. The world that remains after the Elves board their gray ships and sail into the West is devoid of beauty and wonder. The kingdom of Men that emerges from The Lord of the Rings is a humdrum affair, in which the best men can do is to get on with their lives. Even the anti-heroes of this anti-epic, the Hobbits who bear the evil Ring to its ultimate destruction, cannot remain in Middle-earth; they sail off along with the Elves.

"Those who hold America in contempt for its lack of refinement (this writer always has held the term "American culture" to be an oxymoron) should think carefully about this conclusion. From their founding on Christmas Day 800 AD, when Charlemagne accepted the crown of the revived Roman Empire, the institutions of the West have been formed in response to external threat. The Holy Roman Empire of the High Middle Ages, Tolkien's conscious model for the Kingdom of Gondor, arose in response to the incursions of Arabs in the south, Vikings in the north, and Magyars in the West. Boorish and gruff as the new American Empire might seem, it is an anti-empire populated by reluctant heroes who want nothing more than to till their fields and mind their homes, much like Tolkien's Hobbits. Under pressure, though, it will respond with a fierceness and cohesion that will surprise its adversaries.

"Orcs of the world: Take note and beware. "

[BradyLS]

Definitely a boo-hooer. A stalwart boo-hooer! Still, a refreshing change from the multitude of boo-hooers the first time around that have developed into the legion of me-tooers this time around!

[Samwise]

“If someone dislikes it,” poet and literary critic W. H. Auden once declared of Tolkien’s epic saga, “I shall never trust their literary judgment about anything again.”

[Lil'freeper]

As a critic, I try to view each film through the eyes of its intended audiences and not impose my own preferences on the marketplace.

Is that what critics do? I never knew that. While he may not impose his own preferences on the marketplace, the author has no problem passing judgement on the so-called intended audiences. Elitist snob.

[LinnieBeth]

Well, Arwen is marginalized.

I have come to see Arwen as an Intercessor. In the books she isn't physically present very often, yet you sense her essence.

In the movies she shows up more often, I didn't like it at first, but then how could Jackson demonstrate her intercessory role/oversight??

I never did feel that Arwen was a passive little pansy, but had great strength, and lent that strength to Aragorn, and gave her "Grace" to Frodo. Color me silly, but I didn't find the Tolkien's women ineffectual at all.

[Joe Republc]

bump

[Restorer]

Women are marginalized?

I've got news for the author. As long as human physiology is what it is, women will be inherently marginalized in any society stuck at the hand to hand combat level. With very few exceptions, females who attempt to engage in such combat with males have very short lives. Roughly equivalent to putting a women's team into the NFL in the interest of being inclusive.

Doesn't mean some of such cultures may not respect their womenfolk for what they can accomplish. But it does mean that the women are utterly ineffective at the most important task of such cultures, defense against attack.

[redhead]

What a snooty, condescending, contemptuous piece of tripe. I won't judge the author similarly since I don't know him personally. There's something just a little arrogant about someone who would dismiss J.R.R. Tolkein as a hack.

Sigh...soreheads who just can't stand to see anybody have fun (Isn't that one of Rush's definitions of a liberal?) and take themselves entirely too seriously seem to be DRIVEN to write dismissive garbage like this.

As for the movie, I can hardly wait. My daughter-in-law, son, and I have devised a plan whereby we can each see it two times (at least) together, and still have someone to stay with the babies every time.