LOTR trashing

[Craig Brozefsky <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Apparently trashing LOTR has become the new column headline for the
liberal press.  It becomes quickly obvious that most of the
commentators are unfamiliar with the story itself, not to mention
fantasy and sci-fi genres for the last few decades.  Such stupidities
as refering to Middle Earth as "Ringworld" which is actually the title
of a SciFi series, scare quoting "Lord" as if to insinuate some evil
royalist scheme, and hand-waving Norse mythology into Nazi propaganda
just by asserting Nazi's liked it.  Putting Harry Potter, Conan, D&D,
and LOTR into the same pot, ignoring the very obvious differences in
ideology between all of them reminds us of the christian-right's
campaign against rock n roll.  Capping it off by suggesting that
Hitler "discredited these sagas", in 1945, as if hundreds of years of
mythology can be erased.  Pickerton's article gave me a new
appreciation of my friend's comment that journalism writes to an eigth
grade reading level.

LOTR is white mythology, and even as a long-time fan who has read the
series and the surrounding materials several times over since my
adolescence, I won't deny that the characterization of the southerners
and easterners in The Two Towers disturbs me.  Yet, reactionary
readings of it fail to recognize the cautionary aspects of the
encounter with Galadriel, the continual temptation of the Ring to
Boromir and others, and the Fellowships refusal to use it in defense
against Sauron.  Pinkerton's reading glosses over the fact that it was
the Ents, a force of nature older than man, that defeats Sauroman, and
not an army of Rhohorim -- who are instead beseiged and nearly
defeated by Sauroman's army only to be saved by the Ent's wilder,
darker cousins.

Of course such readings leave out Frodo and Sam's journey, the pity
Frodo feels for Gollum and the lesson Gandalf gave him when they first
discover Gollum is following them -- many deserve to die and many
deserve to live, but you can't give life so do not be hasty to deal
death.

As for the movie, I obviously have not seen The Two Towers yet, so I
don't know how what they will emphasize and elide.  My biggest gripe
against the movie series so far is the utter lack of songs.  In The
Hobbit, and thru LOTR and the Silmarillion, there is a song for almost
all occasion.  I'm gonna be mighty peeved if they don't sing Boromir's
funeral song in The Two Towers.  In fact, it was the songs I loved
most in the various cartoon adaptations, "Nothing for Ugluk, Nothing
for Grishnak", "Where there's a whip, there's a way" "That's What
Bilbo Baggins Hates" and so on...

--
Sincerely,
Craig Brozefsky <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Free Scheme/Lisp Software  http://www.red-bean.com/~craig

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