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What is it with Michael Bay and racial stereotypes?

The memoirs and the Hobbit novel are the same in Tolkien's Legendarium.

They can't be. They differ on what took place in the Riddle Game.

Hound of UIster said:
The latter edition of the novel is derived from subsequent editions of the fictional Middle Earth histories. Those include the corrected events and according to the real life author himself those corrections mostly involved the true events of the Riddle Game. The erroneous description of Gollum could have been kept in there while what happened in the Game would have been revised.

First, FOTR said that the revised account was entered into record as an alternative while nothing of what Bilbo wrote was apparently deleted. It also indicated that the revisions were due to Frodo and Sam, who had personal history with Gollum and thus would have no reason to keep an "erroneous" description of Gollum in the manuscript.
 
Well, I personally think that the entertainment part of media has nothing to do with it. You watch movies you like, you don't get persuaded by movies. Same way first person shooters don't turn you into mass murderers, that's nonsense. You are like that already before you play, and it also influences how you play it. Same thing goes for films, books, music, artwork.

Persuading media, that's the problem. Biased news, lying documentaries, falsified non-fiction books, propaganda.

But no Nazi went into American History X and came out hugging Jews and Blacks.
 
Well, I personally think that the entertainment part of media has nothing to do with it. You watch movies you like, you don't get persuaded by movies. Same way first person shooters don't turn you into mass murderers, that's nonsense. You are like that already before you play, and it also influences how you play it. Same thing goes for films, books, music, artwork.
I disagree. If your only interaction with another culture comes from books, film, TV or other forms of entertainment your perception of that culture will be shaped by that.
 
About how Bilbo get the One Ring. I don't how accurate this is, but according to the wikipedia...

As is told in The Hobbit, Bilbo found the Ring shortly afterward while lost in the tunnels near Gollum's lair. When The Hobbit was written, Tolkien had not yet conceived of the Ring's sinister history. Thus, in the first edition of The Hobbit, Gollum surrenders the Ring to Bilbo as a reward for winning the Riddle Game. When Tolkien revised the nature of the Ring for The Lord of the Rings, he realized that the Ring's grip on Gollum would never permit him to give it up willingly. Tolkien therefore revised the second edition of The Hobbit: after losing the Riddle Game to Bilbo, Gollum went to get his "Precious" (as he always called it) so he could kill and eat Bilbo, but flew into a rage when he found the Ring missing. Deducing from Bilbo's last question — "What have I got in my pocket?" — that Bilbo had found the Ring, Gollum chased him through the caves, not realizing that the hobbit had discovered the Ring's powers of invisibility and was following him to the cave's exit. Bilbo escaped Gollum and the goblins by remaining invisible, but when he rejoined Gandalf and the dwarves he was traveling with, he decided not to tell them that the Ring had made him invisible. In fact he told them a story that closely followed the first edition of The Hobbit: that Gollum had given him the Ring and showed him the way out. Gandalf was not convinced and later forced the real story from Bilbo; he was thus immediately suspicious of the Ring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Ring
 
Why can't Gollum just be a crazy little bastard who occasionally decides to completely smear himself with feces or other nasty black things found in a cave?
 
Better Question: What is with people being over-sensitive about race in their FICTIONAL entertainment? :rolleyes:

Uh, because they often give an inaccurate impression of the people they portray and get transferred from fiction to reality by those "entertained" by them.

Either way the problem lies with the viewer not the the movie. If they can't separate reality and fiction like normal people then they just need a psychiatrist, instead of neutering the movies and ruining it for the rest of us who can.
 
Better Question: What is with people being over-sensitive about race in their FICTIONAL entertainment? :rolleyes:

Uh, because they often give an inaccurate impression of the people they portray and get transferred from fiction to reality by those "entertained" by them.

Either way the problem lies with the viewer not the the movie.
Seems to me the folks making the film might bear some responsibility. After all they're the onse choosing to use stereotypes instead of more complex characters or ones based on reality.
 
I think you need to develop a thicker skin and not let trivial things bother you, but suit yourself.
 
I think you need to develop a thicker skin and not let trivial things bother you, but suit yourself.
Huh? I don't find racism or the use of racial sterotypes to be trivial in real life or in my fictional entertainment. No real need for them in either.
 
Well, I feel they do have value in entertainment for the absurdity factor in humor. Yeah, sometimes, stereotypes are not always true but it's presence in movies doesn't matter as it would in real life because it's fictional and has no connection to reality.
 
Well, I feel they do have value in entertainment for the absurdity factor in humor. Yeah, sometimes, stereotypes are not always true but it's presence in movies doesn't matter as it would in real life because it's fictional and has no connection to reality.
Except that they demean, degrade, offend and insult real people.
 
My question is: When did strong racial caricatures become okay? Aren't Speedy Gonzales cartoons never shown anymore due to possibly offending Hispanics? Isn't the infamous TV adaption of the "Amos and Andy" show -featuring white actors in blackface doing broad caricatures- seen as offensive due to the overwhelming caricature that they are? What about Japanese people being portrayed as squinty-eyed with horn-rim glasses and buck teeth? There's countless ways various races and ethnicities have been offensively stereotyped over the decades (and, not to say I think the Speedy Gonzales cartoon is one of them) and all have been pretty much stopped because of how offensive they were.

How are Skids and Mudlaps really that much different than Amos and Andy or the common "monkey-like" visage Africans were given in drawings and cartoons from the days where racial stereotyping was more accepted and common.
 
On TV Amos and Andy were played by black actors. The radio version featured white actors in the roles.(as did a film version)
 
Well, I feel they do have value in entertainment for the absurdity factor in humor. Yeah, sometimes, stereotypes are not always true but it's presence in movies doesn't matter as it would in real life because it's fictional and has no connection to reality.
Except that they demean, degrade, offend and insult real people.

If so, they're over-sensitive and need to get over it. It's just a movie. :rolleyes:
 
Well, I feel they do have value in entertainment for the absurdity factor in humor. Yeah, sometimes, stereotypes are not always true but it's presence in movies doesn't matter as it would in real life because it's fictional and has no connection to reality.
Except that they demean, degrade, offend and insult real people.

If so, they're over-sensitive and need to get over it. It's just a movie. :rolleyes:
Sorry, deliberate racism doesn't get the "its just a movie" pass.
 
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