The first Hobbit movie

[steuard]

I saw The Hobbit a few days ago, and I enjoyed it. I started to write up some brief comments on the movie to post here, but they got a bit out of hand, so I've posted them on my Tolkien website instead. For those who are interested, have a look at my full review; comments are welcome!

Comments

[steuard]

Responding in reverse order, I very much sympathize with your frustration about Tolkien's neglect of female presence in his stories. (And not just because I'm the parent of an 18 month old girl! Boys need to learn that girls can be heroes, too.) I recommend hooking your daughter up with The Blue Sword and probably a bunch of other McKinley books as soon as she's ready for them, if not before. :) But maybe she'll find a way to make Tolkien work for her anyway: I went through my entire first read of The Lord of the Rings thinking that Merry was a girl.

As for the whole concept of "canon", it's an interesting question. I perpetually feel torn about it, in various ways. For example, I've gotten the impression that most Tolkien scholars who are more respected than I am don't share my fondness for the idea of (and search for) a "canonical" Middle-earth in Tolkien's writings. (I sometimes wonder if I am in fact the most respected Tolkien person who still appreciates the concept.) But the question of adherence to canon in other peoples' adaptations of Tolkien's stories is a very different one. As I indicated in my review here, I'm not a stickler for carbon copy translation from the book to the screen: some things absolutely need to change! But on the other hand, the whole point of basing movies on Tolkien's stories is that he was awfully good at storytelling (and perhaps even better at world-building), so there's something to be said for staying true to his vision unless there's a good reason not to. (And for me personally as a viewer, I tend to be more comfortable when the movies match the books just because I know Tolkien's Middle-earth so very well: I can imagine that a history professor watching a historical drama might feel much the same way. Peter Jackson's The Hobbit isn't quite "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" territory, but parts of it push in that direction.)

But enough of my chattering. I'm glad you enjoyed my review!

[prock]

Thanks for the pointers to McKinley's books.

[ericakeithley]

I'm curious; why does Tolkien need to have more females in his stories? Is there something inherently wrong with having mostly male characters? The vibe I'm getting is that it would be nicer if Tolkien was giving women a heroine role model. Is that your main complaint? I'm a woman, and I have both sons and daughters; I don't have a problem with the lack of heroines in Tolkien, but I am interested in hearing why other people do.

[ericakeithley]

Correction: I only have one daughter. :)

[kirinn]

Not to put words in Stu and prock's mouths, but in short, yes? In a beloved work with such a large number of heroes, it would be nice to have a little more diversity both so more folks could see some who felt a little more like themselves, and so everyone is exposed more to diversity amongst exemplary people (and related species). The lack on its own doesn't make the work *bad*; it's just a more-ideal-world wish.

[steuard]

Because human brains are entirely too good at recognizing (and believing in) patterns, especially kids' brains.

I'm not an expert on this, so unfortunately I don't have a handy set of links or references to share (and much of my exposure is in the context of education, physics education in particular, which is relevant but not directly so). So I'll summarize my understanding of the issue as I see it as a parent, and I'll try to be brief, and I'll sadly have to leave you to track down formal research on the topic yourself.

Essentially, the worry with this sort of thing arises when kids (or anyone, really) are presented with a consistent message saying "people like this can do this sort of thing, people like that don't". Human beings internalize that sort of thing remarkably effectively: if practically every hero in the stories you read is male and practically every female character in those stories is merely a sidekick or an "NPC" background character (or just a sort of prize for the hero at the end!), that inevitably shapes your expectations of the possibilities available to women even in real life. That's especially true for kids, who are trying to figure out their place in the world from a more or less blank slate: stories are one of the main ways that human beings pass along the fabric of society from generation to generation. So the lack of heroines in Tolkien is a bit of a problem, but it's part of a larger issue of a lack of heroines in fantasy generally, or in all fiction, or for that matter in history as it's often been taught. It is hard, hard, hard to overcome the impression that all of the important things are done by men: it's hard for girls to convince themselves to strive for great things despite that, and it's hard for boys to take girls seriously as true peers. (I know that there is a lot of discussion of this sort of thing out there, some of it anecdotal and some of it backed by carefully conducted scientific studies. If you're really interested, I can probably ask the new developmental psychology professor we just hired for some references.)

That's getting very far afield from Tolkien, I know. Perhaps what I'd say is that Tolkien doesn't need more women in his stories (which are some of my favorite stories in the world, as you surely know). But that's why I recommended The Blue Sword to balance it out: as long as kids are presented with some decent variety, they may avoid the worst of the "girls don't have that sort of adventure" conclusions. It would be nice if there were more of a 50/50 ratio of books like that, though, or better yet if more books had a good gender balance in and of themselves.

Beyond that, though, it is a little odd that Tolkien's stories have so few women in them. Off the top of my head, I can only think of six women with speaking roles in the main body of LotR: two who aren't much more than "prizes" for the heroes (Arwen, and Rosie Cotton), one who's little more than a pretty companion (Goldberry), one who's important and powerful but very much a bit part (Galadriel), one who's an old busybody (Ioreth), and one who's legitimately awesome and does great things and is rewarded for it by getting to marry a prince and settle into a happy little domestic life at home forever after rather than continuing to play a major role in the world at large (Eowyn). Compare that to easily a dozen major male characters and countless minor ones (most of whom go on after the story to play important roles in the world and shape their communities as leaders), and it does feel a little unbalanced. (Compare that to The Blue Sword, my example of a great fantasy novel with a female main character: even there, I can only think of four relatively minor female characters of any importance in the story other than the heroine. Almost the entire supporting cast is male.)

[steuard]

As for my specialty: Physics as a field suffers a lot from related issues: women compose at least 50% of the students in high school physics classes and close to 50% in intro college physics, but the percentage of women who go on to declare a major in physics is radically lower. When you ask women who leave physics why they're leaving, the reasons they cite almost never seem to be gender based at all: their choices make perfect sense for who they are and what their goals are. And yet, women wind up making that decision at a far higher rate than men do. And it's clearly not that women are just less good at math and science: other closely related fields like math and chemistry used to have the same problem, but they're now much closer to 50/50 gender ratios. It's just physics that lags (and some fields of engineering, and to some extent computer science) that still lags so badly. There seems to be something weird about the culture in physics, or perhaps about how physics is seen in our culture, that makes women feel less comfortable. And that's very frustrating, because we're clearly missing out on any number of potentially great physicists because we're losing people that math and chemistry aren't, and what research there is seems to show that a large part of that seems to be that women just don't have the sense that physics is naturally a female career. There's also lots of related research on "stereotype threat" in physics education; people have sometimes found absolutely crazy improvements in student performance in a class merely by doing an activity or two designed to make everyone think about their personal values in the class's context early on. Our brains are really weird.

[ericakeithley]

I agree that literature is a very important influence on the way people think about the world and their roles in it. And I agree that women should be encouraged to see themselves as heroines, and that they should not be discouraged from aiming high.

I, as a person who has spent time thinking, studying, making and enjoying music as art, believe that the purpose of art and literature is to point people at important ideas and guide them to think about them, possibly in new ways. Some art has, as one goal, the purpose of encouraging women to think of themselves in a variety of roles as heroines. LotR is not that art. We could probably enjoy a long and fruitful debate about what ideas Tolkien is primarily interested in, but we would almost assuredly agree that this is not one of them. It is fine to evaluate his art on whatever criteria you want, but I'm not a fan of lingering too long on a postmodern deconstruction of why he left out what he did. I fully appreciate that you are *not* in fact hung up about this. I will say that it doesn't seem to shocking to me that there are few women that do much on the large scale in LotR. While I know this is an epic simplification, Tolkien was pretty obviously using a medieval earth society as a starting place for middle earth, and it is perfectly consonant with that time/place that women wouldn't play a big role in LotR. I'm more surprised that A. A. Milne didn't write more females into Winne the Pooh. :)

I guess another point that bugs me a little is that I smell a little attitude of "art is important in how we use i"t in the conversation. To me, art and literature are important for themselves. When people start talking about how books support or don't support a particular social agenda I start getting uncomfortable, even if it is an agenda that I agree with. Art's value is in how it points us to things that are important and makes us consider things that matter.

Finally, if I haven't already dragged the topic completely off to Jupiter, I'll add that concentrating on who is or isn't the hero of a book distracts from the point that, while each of us is the hero of his own story, some people willingly choose to serve others and be in the background or backstory. And without those people, both in literature and in real life, the heros wouldn't have a chance of changing the world. Frodo must have had a mom. Your darling little one has parents who have probably had to make decisions to limit themselves, if even only for a time, to foster her growth, to teach her, to love her. While trekking through middle earth to save the world is an awesome journey of sacrifice, so is doing the homey things that develop and prepare other people to take on the journey. Obviously the backstory has to stay in the back, but I think it's ok for people to choose to be in the backstory.

[steuard]

I guess what I would say is that art changes us, especially good art. Some of those changes will be related to the creator's conscious intent, but many will result from the subtle and unpredictable interplay of the creator's background with the reader's. In this case, Tolkien pretty clearly didn't intend to write a story to teach lessons about gender roles at all, but my underlying concern in that regard is that his story does that anyway, implicitly.

Think about it: you've said that some has the purpose is to help women think of themselves as heroes and some does not, and I agree. But why is it that only fantasy with that explicit purpose happens to have female heroes? Why aren't fantasy novels that aren't trying to make a point about gender split 50/50 in the sex of their main characters? The fact is, "male heroes" is so strongly the default in the genre (and many other genres) that we often unthinkingly view it as the "blank slate" version of the story, so much so that any change from that is inevitably viewed as carrying a deliberate message. And that's pretty much my point.

I agree that fantasy drawing inspiration from medieval society is part of the reason for that, but there are many reasons that doesn't fly as an explanation. Perhaps most compelling: whatever their inspiration, fantasy novels make countless changes to that semi-historical baseline. Authors could easily make "gender equality" one of those changes if they chose; heck, even if they want to leave human society kinda medieval looking for whatever reason, there's no reason that fantasy races like Elves or Dwarves or whatever couldn't be different.

As for "Art is important in how we use it", I guess my take on it would be this: I deeply value art as art, and how it can so clearly reveal things about what it is to be human. But when I'm raising my child, I *am* implanting some concept of society (both how it is, and how it ought to be). I clearly have some influence on what selection of art to introduce her to, and when. So if I hope to raise her to be one step less shackled to traditional gender roles than my generation is, it seems entirely reasonable to make some effort to seek out a range of art in her formative years that can help her to take that step.

And finally, I do really, really appreciate your last point, and I wish there were somehow a way to write good fantasy or sci-fi novels that centered on those "background" folks: not on the three guys attempting to bring the Eltinamere Stone to the Core of Krathmore to cure the Raven Tree, but rather on some of the folks just trying to live their lives in Grasshaven near the edge of the Krathmore Waste. (Maybe it's been done, and I just haven't happened upon it yet. It could be pretty cool.) But again, the point is not that I want to tell our sons and daughters that only a hero's life has value. The point is that I want to raise them with the deep, ingrained belief that boys and girls are equally able to pursue either course as they choose. (And in particular, I don't just want our daughters to know they can be heroes, I want our sons to know that they haven't failed if they aren't!)

[ericakeithley]

I agree that literature can teach things other than what the author specifically wanted the reader to learn. That's part of why it's good for kids to talk things over with a grown up.

I am not sufficiently well read in fantasy to be able to address your second paragraph from my personal experience, but my instinct is that the reason that most heroes in fantasy are male is because that is what the authors thought would appeal to or resonate with their audience. Although I'm sure this is an oversimplification, I think the general perception of the fantasy reading public is predominately male, yes? I also happen to read fantasy, so I know very well that women *do* read it. I'm not much read in the romance genre, but I'm willing to lay money that most heroes in those novels are women. Anyone out there have some data? It sort of makes sense. Now whether that is teaching people the "right" message or not, I can't say.

I agree that you have every right (and even a duty) to select art for your daughter's consumption. And if some literature is too sexist for you, absolutely you shouldn't use it. Or maybe it just needs some explanation.

I have to say that I find it hard to imagine how one could write an exploration of the back story of a novel without it turning into 1) a quasi-anthopological, fictional social studies text (yawn) or 2) a story with a new, lower profile hero. Stories about about people who do something. Whether it's saving the world or taking care of small matters in a village, these things are accomplished by heroes. I think that kids learn about the lives of not-Frodos by seeing them in the real world. By appreciating the people who take care of them, feed them, teach them, etc. While art is important, seeing what the real people close to them (both heroes and back story folk) do is way more important.

[ericakeithley]

I like your penultimate sentence in which you make the point that boys and girls should be equally able to choose to be heroes or back story folk. I personally am shy of your position because I feel that I am marginalized because I freely chose to be a back story person. I pursued my dreams, got a PhD, and landed a great job. When I decided that marrying and having children was the best course for me, I was told by many people (colleagues, family, etc.) that I was throwing it all away. I've been very happy with my decision, but it has been brought home to me that one consequence of making sure that girls know they can be heroes is that they might not feel comfortable *not* being heroes. I know that the idea is to make both choices equally acceptable, but when a woman opts to be in the back story, how can you determine whether she is just being "held down by the man" or if she truly desires it? Most people, in my experience, assume the former.

[steuard]

I'm not sure that I understand your point: what is it about your experience of feeling marginalized that leads you to disagree with my position? I can all but guarantee that if I as a man had chosen to stay home with the kids after getting my Ph.D., I'd be getting enormously more criticism and doubt from others than you are. Maybe it's not your intent, but reading your comments the impression I get is that you'd prefer for that choice to be even more difficult for folks like me as long as that made it easier for you in exchange. That may not be your intent, but if it's not I might need some help in understanding what you're really trying to say. (And if it is your intent, I kinda wish it weren't!) When a man opts to be in the back story, I think that most people assume that he must have tried to be a hero and failed, which is arguably even less pleasant than having people assume that you're there because you're oppressed.

[ericakeithley]

I had to think about both your and my comments for about 30 minutes to figure out what it was that I wrote that made you think I don't want men to have the opportunity to stay in the back story. I think I finally figured it out. Let me start by saying that I certainly have no desire to make it harder for you. The reason I'm cautious of heavily pressing the "girls can be heroes!" message is that it can easily become "girls should become heroes to prove that they are worthwhile" very easily. The first message is fine; the second is just as bad as saying that women are only worthwhile if they stay at home. People should be able to make a decision how to best serve their family without getting a load of garbage from everyone else. And that is equally true for men; I'm quite sure that you *would* get more negative attention for quitting your job to stay home, and that's not right.

[steuard]

Thanks for clarifying; that makes a lot of sense. When I read your previous comment, I just wasn't piecing it together right: it felt a bit like you were saying that you would be happier if the old stereotypes persisted, because it would make people more accepting when women chose to stay home with the kids. But that didn't fit with the rest of what you seemed to be saying, hence my confusion. :)

To some extent (thinking out loud here), I wonder if the "equal opportunities for different genders" issue is independent of the "social acceptance for background roles" issue. That is, increasing gender equality is clearly making it less socially comfortable for you to be a stay-at-home mom at the same time that it's making it easier for my colleague Kate's husband to be a stay-at-home dad, and that seems largely inevitable to me. It feels like it requires a different set of social adjustments to make both of your choices more accepted at once. But of course that's not really "independent" at all, because a fair bit of society's low valuation of staying home at the kids has its roots in the fact that doing so is traditionally "women's work" which is inherently viewed as lower status. In the end, greater equality between the sexes has to mean both greater equality of opportunity and of choice regardless of gender and greater equality of the perceived value of traditionally male and female activities.

That all sounded very pretentious, somehow. But thank you for this conversation: I've enjoyed thinking through this stuff and hearing your thoughts on the subject!

[nemene]

I don't want to drag this topic out, but I think it is also important to judge Tolkien in the contexts of both what he was righting about and when he was writing. As another poster mentioned his stories are very medieval esque and clearly build on such epics. But perhaps more importantly in the context of literature being written from he lead up to WWII thru shortly after the end of WWII. Given those contexts (others may disagree), I find the character of Eowyn to be RADICALLY feminist. I am in no way saying the works are to the standards we should now expect in the handling of the female/male paradigm, but that when it was written it would have even been considered to be pushing the envelope (for popular fiction).