[Lil'freeper]

Yes, but film-Gimli does not actually *say* she-dwarfs grow beards, only that they are indistinguishable from he-dwarfs. This is right from the text. The beard reference was a joke between film-Aragorn and film-Eowyn. I thought it was quite funny and contributed to the depth of the film-Aragorn character. As I said previously, a King of Men should have a sense of humor.

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

I was not saying that the film versions says this either; only that the ambiguous reference to Dwarf women (in either book or film) is taken by some to mean a "canonical" confirmation that Dwarf women grow beards. Believe it or not, this is a serious debating issue amongst some Tolkien purists, right up there with "do Balrogs have wings?"

[My back yard]

Right, Gimli doesn't say in the movie that dwarf women grow beards, and neither does Aragorn. He merely suggests it is the beard that disguises them from dwarf men, and doesn't elaborate whether they are real or fake.

It was an important scene, and necessary to condense the development of a relationship between Aragorn and Arwen. After all, a man who can make a woman smile at such a desperate and dreary time as that has made it half-way to her heart already, right? Works for me. ;^)

Peter Jackson knows what he is doing, I think.