What colour are hobbits, do you suppose? When I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, as a child, I gathered that they were very short, hirsute, quite swarthy and fairly stupid — so probably Portuguese, or at a pinch Galician. They didn’t seem to be, from the descriptions of their behaviour and living arrangements, quite — you know — white. Nearly white, maybe, but not quite. Proper white people, I thought, are taller than hobbits, less hysterical and tend not to live underground. But this was back in the days before I had heard of John Bercow. Also, proper white people had electricity, cars and supermarkets. One’s views change markedly over the years. Back then, I assumed that hobbits were Latins, or perhaps even Romanian, a Slavic-Latin mélange. There is something grim and Slavic about a hobbit, in my opinion, and it is easy to imagine Middle Earth as being a bit like Moldova.
This is an important issue because a British woman of Pakistani descent, one Naz Humphreys, was recently turned down for the role of a hobbit in Peter Jackson’s new film of the book, which is being shot in New Zealand right now. Naz — a ‘social researcher’, wouldn’t you guess — apparently queued for three hours for the chance to play a supporting hobbit, an also-ran hobbit, but was told to clear off because she was a darkie. Apparently the casting man said: ‘We’re looking for light-skinned people. I’m not trying to be, whatever. It’s just the brief. You’ve got to look like a hobbit.’
Ah, but whose version, whose conception, of a hobbit? They are, after all, fictional creatures. So far as I remember, J.R.R. Tolkien never suggested they should all look like members of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. Maybe he just assumed that everyone would assume that’s how they’d look, like smaller, hairier, versions of Eugene Terreblanche.
Anyway, this story, which was reported in all of our newspapers, has kept me cackling with delight throughout the deep chill of this early winter. Ms Humphreys has gone nuclear, whining about how ‘in 2010’ people who want to be hobbits can be discriminated against on account of their skin colour. It goes without saying that as a result of the furore the casting agent has been unceremoniously sacked by Sir Peter Jackson. There is no crime greater than racism, even if it is not really racism as many would understand the term. If only the casting people had been a little more diplomatic and suggested to Naz that maybe she try out as a goblin or a warg instead. But then I suppose that might have made things even worse, as the goblins and wargs are baddies. As a child, though, I always assumed the goblins were African, probably Somali. But that’s down to the racism which lurks deep inside of me, inside of all of us, in a very real sense.
Naz has said that she intends to start a Facebook site entitled ‘Hire Hobbits of All Colours — Say No to Hobbit Racism’. I think she is being satirical, partly because she hasn’t actually started up the Facebook site so far as I can see, and partly because of the knowingly dated and surely self-mocking agitprop tenor of her title. However, there are plenty of other blog sites and Facebook sites urging hobbits to keep their, uh, racial purity and telling Naz to get stuffed.
People are so quick to rouse themselves to fury these days, both on the right and on the left. The total (if temporary: watch this space) democracy of the internet allows people to get very, very angry, very, very quickly indeed. They become fabulously inflamed, they begin campaigns, they howl at the moon, they demand retribution. As regards this story I think my favourite, of all of them (and there are lots), came from the Stormfront website, which is home to Britain’s vibrant and committed community of neo-Nazi white supremacists. You ought to check it out if you have a spare moment, not least for the cut-price offer of Viking flags and patches. On Stormfront, ‘Concerned-Englander’ says: ‘I can’t imagine that fans will stand for a hobbit that isn’t 100 per cent white.’ And Naiad agrees: ‘If there are going to be Pakistani hobbits in this film I will not be going to see it.’ So, stuff that up your pipe, Sir Peter. Then Surreyman comments: ‘It’s a fantasy version of England in the dark ages, not some multicult wankfest.’ And best of all there’s a bit of gallows humour from White_Man_Marching: ‘I gather Peter Jackson is making a remake of Dambusters — I hope it stars only one nigger!’ Lol! I’m, like, LOL!
I rang the Equal Opportunities Commission to see where they stood on the vexed issue of racist hobbits and the woman who answered the phone in their press office had this tone in her voice which was sort of weary and plaintive and made me feel sorry for her; she knew it was going to be a long day. They said they’d send me a legal note about when and why you could, as a film director, demand that no black people be involved anywhere in your production, but it hasn’t arrived yet, I’m sorry to say. But I’m pretty sure that by the time you read this the corpse of Tolkien will have been disinterred and his political and racial views dissected once again (he was a sort of conservative neo-liberal, so far as I can see) and with any luck the English Defence League will be dressed up as hobbits, or maybe Gandalfs or Smaugs on their next demonstration about the regrettable existence of Islam.
And Lee Jasper or Yasmin Alibhai-Brown will have written something claiming that historically all hobbits were hobbits of colour and the wargs were clearly an expression of white colonialist oppression and it is typical of the white establishment to pervert historical accuracy by suggesting that all hobbits were crackers when, as everybody knows, they were from Middle Earth which as any fool knows was populated exclusively by black people. And it will continue to snow, too, a deep white blanket, beautiful and silent, and there will not be enough gritters.
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