On Skin Color and Casting Hobbits
While sipping a fine breakfast drink this morning at my local inn, I received news from a gossipy group of dwarves on convoy that the casting of actors for the new Hobbit movie ran into some controversy when it was discovered that a casting director was looking explicitly for white actors to play the residents of the Shire. I hear there’s been some shouts of racism.
This is silly. E.D. Kain pretty much captures my thoughts on the matter. Given that Tolkien composed his famous fantasies as a suitable mythology for his homeland (he was none too impressed with Arthurian tales), and that his mythological story established a world geography marked by racial, cultural and linguistic differences, it makes sense that filmmakers depicting this world on the screen would look for white actors to play the hobbits of the Shire. There isn’t a goblin tooth’s amount of racism in doing this.
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