CAST FOR THE HOBBIT ANNOUNCED

[Captaindemotion]

Moreover, there was absolutely nothing in the movie version of LOTR - and people are entitled to expect continuity and consistency between those movies and these - to say what colour or ethnicity the peoples of the various parts of Middle Earth are meant to have been.

Except for the fact that Elvish sounds a lot like Welsh, so it would have been kinda weird if they all looked Latino, for instance, but spoke an obviously old-fashioned British language.

And yet they looked Germanic rather than Celtic.

 

[Silvercrest]

What about Beorn? He could be any ethnicity.

the people of Lake Town will look similar to the people of Rohan who were described thusly:

"[The people of Rohan] have long been friends of the people of Gondor, though they are not akin to them. It was in forgotten years long ago that Eorl the Young brought them out of the North, and their kinship is rather with the Bardings of Dale and the Beornings of the Wood, among whom may still be seen many men tall and fair, as are the Riders of Rohan."
​

^ From The Two Towers.

Technically true, but:
1) The passage you refer to is a very minor reference from a different book. Nothing requires the movie to use it as a source for casting.
2) Even if they do, AFAIK, "Beorning" would refer to either the people that Beorn governed after the events of "The Hobbit", or to his descendants. Either might be tall and fair depending on the heritage of the other parties involved, but that doesn't say much about Beorn himself.
3) More significantly, Beorn himself is NOT fair-haired. He's specifically described as having black hair and a black beard.
4) Most importantly, Beorn is a solitary figure at the time of "The Hobbit". There are no others of his people around-- whoever they were. It's speculated that he's the last member of a race of shapeshifters from the mountains. So why couldn't his people have been of different ethnicity?

Seems like this would be the best single opportunity in the entire story to show some diversity. (Well, I guess Radagast could easily be of different ethnicity too, if he shows up.)

 

[Skywalker]

Sylvester McCoy (Doctor Who) has already been cast as Radagast the Brown, though last I heard he hadn't officially signed any contract. That was during the whole labor issue in New Zealand, though. Now that that's been sorted out, McCoy will probably sign on officially.

 

[Christopher]

The materials are external to the films, but the films are based on the materials, so they're a valid basis for any argument regarding them.

Then why didn't the movie Spider-Man have mechanical webshooters? Yes, it can be valid to take the source material into account, but it is completely invalid to say that the films can't do something that differs from what the books did.

They already went to the trouble of differentiating the racial groups in LOTR, so I see no reason why they should have to suddenly go in a different direction with The Hobbit when doing so wouldn't fit in with the world that they've established.

How did the LOTR films differentiate the racial groups if almost all the actors were white anyway? It seems to me the films didn't address the issue of human ethnicity at all, except in contrast to hobbit, dwarven, elven, or orcish (orcine?) ethnicity.

Now, if The Hobbit were being done by a completely different studio and production company with no ties whatsoever to Peter Jackson or anyone else involved with The Lord of the Rings, that would be different. Arguing for needless changes at this point is just arguing for argument's sake.

I'll say again: I'm not talking about something abstract and hypothetical. I'm talking about whether real live human beings should have the right to compete fairly for employment without being excluded because of the color of their skin. So I hardly think "needless" is a valid characterization here. Everybody needs to make a living.

Casting a black guy as, say, Thorin would have certainly gone against what's been established so far. Thorin is of the same racial group of Dwarves that Gimli is from (the Longbeards, nicknamed Durin's Folk), as are the other twelve members of his company. It wouldn't fit.

As I said already, dwarves aren't human, so why should we assume their ethnicity works the same way as human ethnicity? Cats in the same litter, brothers and sisters, can come in radically different colors from one another. There's no such thing as a "race" of cats defined by fur color. So why couldn't a nonhuman species such as dwarves or elves have their "races" defined by something other than complexion?

Jackson could suddenly decide to make Bard and the people of Lake-town black, or Asian, and technically it would be okay because their ethnicity hasn't been established in the films. But there's no real reason to do so other than to say "hey, we decided we wanted Bard and his people to be black/Asian." If a change doesn't add anything worthwhile to the movie or make a significant impact upon it, they might as well not bother changing it.

No, the reason to do it would be if the best actor for the part were black or Asian. You find the best actor for each of the major parts, then cast their family or countrymen in keeping with their ethnicity.

Again, the important thing to remember is that we're talking about hiring real human beings. It's not just about the content of the work as you're assuming. It's about the people who seek employment in the production.

Then by all means, cast the Asian guy. Just as long as he actually is the best actor for the job, and not selected just because they want to make Bard Asian, or for some other arbitrary reason.

Can we stop bringing this straw man into the discussion? Nobody has proposed anything like that. I'm arguing against arbitrary hiring, not in favor of it. I'm saying that people shouldn't be arbitrarily excluded from employment opportunities because of their race, that they should be given a fair chance to compete.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ There's an interview with him on BBC's Ceefax service, in which he confirms that he's been cast but can't actully say who he's playing. Apparently he got a slap on the wrist for saying too much already. Odds are it's Radagast, though.

Edit - oops, I was responding to Hannukah Solo and talking about Sly McCoy - Christopher posted in the interim.

 

[Skywalker]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Christmas names. I was confused there for a second.

Thanks for the info about the McCoy interview. Didn't realize he'd gotten in trouble for blabbing too much.

Anyway, I'm done debating the race issue. It's boring now. Nobody's going to change anyone else's mind, and I don't feel like going around in circles with any of you.

 

[Silvercrest]

No opinion on Beorn? I don't think we're likely to go in circles with him. Being solitary, he won't violate any existing ethnicities -- even if we assume that dwarvish, elvish or Lake-town ethnicities are an issue in the first place.

I vote for Morgan Freeman as Beorn.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Found the McCoy interview on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11820379

The mention of Sir Ian steers the conversation onto Peter Jackson's upcoming Hobbit films.
With the internet awash with casting rumours, how much can McCoy actually say? After all, his role has not been officially announced.

"I can't say anything! I don't even know if I've said too much already," he admits.
"I've already got my wrist gently tapped. I just want to tell the world about it... I know it's all bubbling away and plans are being made."
McCoy is no stranger to Peter Jackson. He was down to the last two for the role of Bilbo Baggins in Lord of the Rings.
"The other actor got it, and that was Ian Holm," says McCoy.
How does he feel about just missing out on such a major part?
"In a way you think, what a pity Ian Holm wasn't working that week," he says wistfully.
"But at the same time it was an honour to be up against Ian. He won, and he's a brilliant actor.
"As an actor this happens all the time. You never know which way things go."
That also holds true for the Hobbit's drawn-out casting process. "When they sent out the character description for the part I'm playing, it says he's between 57 and 75.
"When it started out I was 57, but it's taken so long to get to fruition I'm now 75!" (Not so - he is actually 67.)

 

[Kegg]

It seems to me the films didn't address the issue of human ethnicity at all, except in contrast to hobbit, dwarven, elven, or orcish (orcine?) ethnicity.

Orcish. This is true of a lot of fantasy and sci-fi, though, even those which make a point of being biracial. When you have a bunch of nonhuman races coloration differences between varieties of humans begin to seem less important.

I'll say again: I'm not talking about something abstract and hypothetical. I'm talking about whether real live human beings should have the right to compete fairly for employment without being excluded because of the color of their skin.

What about gender? Age? Height?

I'm all for excluding races as indicated. No white actors should have been auditioning for the role of Ged in Earthsea, much less cast in it, given Ursula Le Guin's rather reasonable objections. Are they real people? Yes. Is Earthsea a fantasy that the makers of the film can retool at whim without touching on any real racial situation? Also yes. But does that mean if an elderly white woman gives a really convincing performance she should be up for the role?

 

[Greylock Crescent]

What about Beorn? He could be any ethnicity.

the people of Lake Town will look similar to the people of Rohan who were described thusly:

"[The people of Rohan] have long been friends of the people of Gondor, though they are not akin to them. It was in forgotten years long ago that Eorl the Young brought them out of the North, and their kinship is rather with the Bardings of Dale and the Beornings of the Wood, among whom may still be seen many men tall and fair, as are the Riders of Rohan."
​

^ From The Two Towers.

Technically true, but:
1) The passage you refer to is a very minor reference from a different book. Nothing requires the movie to use it as a source for casting.
2) Even if they do, AFAIK, "Beorning" would refer to either the people that Beorn governed after the events of "The Hobbit", or to his descendants. Either might be tall and fair depending on the heritage of the other parties involved, but that doesn't say much about Beorn himself.
3) More significantly, Beorn himself is NOT fair-haired. He's specifically described as having black hair and a black beard.
4) Most importantly, Beorn is a solitary figure at the time of "The Hobbit". There are no others of his people around-- whoever they were. It's speculated that he's the last member of a race of shapeshifters from the mountains. So why couldn't his people have been of different ethnicity?

Seems like this would be the best single opportunity in the entire story to show some diversity. (Well, I guess Radagast could easily be of different ethnicity too, if he shows up.)

I mention it because, as I said above, Jackson has leaned heavily on the books to help him craft the overall cultures of his version of Middle Earth. And there's no reason for, or indication of, him veering away from that approach. There's little doubt that he will keep that passage in mind as he crafts the cultures of Lake Town, at the very least, and Beorn (who was described as having "a thick black beard and hair, and great bare arms and legs with knotted muscles" just as Bard, as I also stated above, was described as "dark-haired and grim-faced").

By the way, the only point I'm arguing is that Jackson has not only expressed a desire to remain as true to Tolkien's writings as possible, his films demonstrate that he pays particular attention to cultural. So is it possible that he'd cast Morgan Freeman as Beorn? I suppose. Is it plausible? Not bloody likely.

 

[Christopher]

But does that mean if an elderly white woman gives a really convincing performance she should be up for the role?

Well, if a woman does a really good job playing a male part, it's not unprecedented to go with her. Linda Hunt's Oscar-winning breakout role was as a male character in The Year of Living Dangerously.

Still, I don't think it's a fair comparison. In most films, there are opportunities for both male and female actors to participate. True, there are a number of stories, especially old ones, whose casts are all-male, but there's a tradition stretching back to the earliest days of cinema of writing female characters into such stories. Heck, LOTR itself substantially increased the prominence of the Arwen and Eowyn characters to counteract the books' marginalization of women.

Look... I'm not saying there has to be racial diversity in the cast of The Hobbit. I just dispute the assertion that there can't be.

 

[Silvercrest]

By the way, the only point I'm arguing is that Jackson has not only expressed a desire to remain as true to Tolkien's writings as possible, his films demonstrate that he pays particular attention to cultural. So is it possible that he'd cast Morgan Freeman as Beorn? I suppose. Is it plausible? Not bloody likely.

All true.

 

[Kegg]

Still, I don't think it's a fair comparison. In most films, there are opportunities for both male and female actors to participate.

As debateable as this is, just check the cast of the Lord of the Rings movies or, indeed, the central cast of the new Hobbit film. Arwen and Eowyn are the only female principal in Jackson's trilogy, and once again it is almost certain that the bulk of onscreen time will be taken up by male characters. Middle Earth films are made to fail the Bechdel Test.

So yeah. There's definitely an issue there. You could argue, just as people are suggesting TPTB behind the film make it more ethnically diverse, they decided to basically replace the male elf Glorfindel with the female elf Arwen for the same kind of reasoning.

...which is something I'm actually fine with. If they had actually made Glorfindel a female elf I might have been ticked.

By the same token if this film actually wants to incorporate the Haradim in some substantial way, for example, well, I don't object to it as a principle.

 

[Tulin]

Re: Casting for Middle-Earth: non-whites can totally audition!

We need more white people playing black, asian, and latino characters. Especially when the color of their skin is a major aspect of those characters. Brad Pitt needs to play Martin Luthor King Jr., I say.

Or does equal opportunity only work one way?

I am SOOOOOOOO fucking behind this!!!!

Oh but I forgot - cries of racism go only in ONE direction.

 

[RoJoHen]

I think changing a character's gender in the interest of "fairness" is just silly. Now, if you think you can truly do something interesting by making a male character a female, go for it, but don't do it just so that there are more female roles. You're telling a story. If that story doesn't have women in it, that's okay.

If you were to gather my closest friends together in a place and tell their story, you'd be telling the story of about 12 white males and maybe 2 or 3 white females. That's just the way it is. No need to change it.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Re: Casting for Middle-Earth: non-whites can totally audition!

We need more white people playing black, asian, and latino characters. Especially when the color of their skin is a major aspect of those characters. Brad Pitt needs to play Martin Luthor King Jr., I say.

Or does equal opportunity only work one way?

I am SOOOOOOOO fucking behind this!!!!

Oh but I forgot - cries of racism go only in ONE direction.

And did you also forget that there's a difference between real life historical figures and FANTASY CREATURES WHO DON'T ACTUALLY EXIST????!!!!!!!

Get a grip - ideally on an appropriate comparison. No-one is suggesting that Abraham Lincoln should be played by Denzil Washington. Where does the MLK comparison come into it?

 

[Silvercrest]

Re: Casting for Middle-Earth: non-whites can totally audition!

We need more white people playing black, asian, and latino characters. Especially when the color of their skin is a major aspect of those characters. Brad Pitt needs to play Martin Luthor King Jr., I say.

Or does equal opportunity only work one way?

I am SOOOOOOOO fucking behind this!!!!

Oh but I forgot - cries of racism go only in ONE direction.

Insert Amos 'n' Andy reference here.

 

[RoJoHen]

Re: Casting for Middle-Earth: non-whites can totally audition!

Get a grip - ideally on an appropriate comparison. No-one is suggesting that Abraham Lincoln should be played by Denzil Washington.

I dislike this idea, mostly because I dislike Denzel Washington.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ Samuel L Jackson as George Washington then?

 

[RoJoHen]

Maybe.