Tolkien and race

• 1. Scholarly Debates On Race

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  In 2009, scholar Dimitra Fimi published a book titled Tolkien, Race and Cultural History that examined conflicting academic arguments about J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. Robert Stuart argued in his analysis that Tolkien was a racialist because he wrote of races with different attributes while simultaneously expressing antipathy to racism and apartheid from his mother's experience in South Africa. Stuart concluded that Tolkien's legendarium is suffused with racialist imagery and at times imbued with racist values. However, Patrick Curry and Christine Chism noted that assertions that Tolkien was a racist often omit relevant evidence from the text itself. The folklorist Fimi stated it is very problematic to pursue questions of racism in Tolkien's work since they could only be treated within the framework of modern perspectives on racism and racial discrimination. She observed that scholars including Anderson Rearick and David Perry have criticized or defended Tolkien on racial charges without reaching consensus.

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• 2. Orcs And Racial Caricatures

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  Andrew O'Hehir writing for Salon.com described Orcs as dark-skinned and slant-eyed creatures who are inherently evil despite possessing reason and speech. He called their depiction a revealing representation of the Other that is also the product of Tolkien's background and era. Jenny Turner in the London Review of Books repeated O'Hehir's statement that Orcs are by design and intention a northern European's paranoid caricature of the races he has dimly heard about. David Ibata stated that Peter Jackson's depiction of the Orcs in his film trilogy was modelled on racist wartime propaganda caricatures of the Japanese. Fimi describes Tolkien's mentions of swarthy complexions and slanted eyes as straight out of Victorian anthropology which links mental qualities and physique. A private letter shows Tolkien describing Orcs appearing on both sides of the conflict during the Second World War while serving in the Royal Air Force.

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• 3. Dwarves And Jewish Parallels

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  Tolkien stated that he thought of his Dwarves as reminiscent of Jews and that the Dwarves words were constructed to be Semitic. Zak Cramer documented evidence for Jewish influence in Tolkien's Middle-earth writings noting that words like Adunaic and Rohirrim and the structure of the Dwarvish language Khuzdul are all evidently Hebraic. Rebecca Brackmann examined whether there was an element of antisemitism however deeply buried in Tolkien's account of the Dwarves inherited from English attitudes of his time. Stuart noted Tolkien's phrase about the Jews calling them that gifted people when discussing evidence for and against his having antisemitic views. Some commentators draw parallels between the Dwarves as a diasporic people yearning for an ancestral homeland and Zionism while others question if this reflects subconscious bias.

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• 4. Moral Geography Of East And West

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  John Magoun writing in The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia said that Middle-earth has a fully expressed moral geography where peoples vary from hobbits of The Shire in the Northwest to evil Easterlings in the East. Marjorie Burns noted Tolkien's superiority of North over South and West over East in her analysis of the texts. Gandalf described Gondor as both virtuous being West and having problems being South while Mordor in the Southeast is hellish and Harad in the extreme South regresses into hot savagery. Tolkien denied a North-South bias in a 1967 letter to interviewers Charlotte and Denis Plimmer stating it developed naturally over the course of fictional history. He agreed there was a West versus East moral divide but stated that it applied only within the story world not to the modern world.

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• 5. Tolkien Anti-Nazi Stance

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  In 1938 publishers of the German translation of The Hobbit from Potsdam wrote to Tolkien asking if he was of pure Aryan descent. He asked his English publisher Stanley Unwin if he should declare such origin before responding to Rütten & Loening. The surviving draft letter demonstrated the author's opinion on the Nazi state and its misunderstanding of the word Aryan in no uncertain terms. David Brennan commented in Newsweek that the draft showed Tolkien was appalled by the Nazis while Ed Jefferson in The New Statesman agreed the letter made it plain he disapproved of their ideology. During World War II Tolkien reacted with anger to excesses of anti-German propaganda writing to his son Christopher about Hitler ruining noble northern spirit which he had ever loved.

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• 6. Modern Adaptations And Casting

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  The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series screened from September 2022 attracting fierce debate about its handling of race through casting people of color as Dwarves Harfoots and Elves. Sam Thielman reported that many hostile fans cited a statement misattributed to Tolkien claiming evil cannot create anything new but can only spoil and destroy. Neil Gaiman defended the casting noting Tolkien described Harfoots as browner of skin than other hobbits and anyone grumbling is either racist or hasn't read their Tolkien. Stuart Heritage observed in The Guardian that hobbit-like harfoots speak in Irish accents behave as friendly peasants and are accompanied by Celtic music resembling John Leech's wildly unflattering depictions of the Irish in Punch magazine. Cast members have spoken out against racism aimed at actors involved while science fiction author N. K. Jemisin wrote Orcs are fruit of the poison vine that is human fear of the Other.

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