Easy Jay, easy.

I noticed the black vs white thing. Good guys used white horses and had blue eyes while bad guys were brutes, not so bright and had black horses/attire. Same way we have devil's cake which is black and angel's cake which is white.hmm

The movie was great though.The battle scenes were incredible.I wanted to kick Smigell's ass. I thought Sam and Frodo were gonna kiss each other at the end.LOL.I guess their journey brought them closer together in more than one way.

Did you mention this to the Japanese media in Japanese?!?

no worries jay... the tables have turned on that perception. Now, everything white is wack and all black stuff is cool as hell. c'mon... we know this.

the reason drums are commonly associated with evil is because they represent the wild, untamed spirit of man. a drum beat can stir you up like no other instrument. the power of a single drum is much stronger than any other single instrument, except maybe the piano, which is essentially a melodic drum that uses strings in the place of skins.

people often forget the acoustic power of a drum in this age of amplification. Do note, the most famous American Revolution painting prominently features a snare drum right alongside a flute. drums have played an integral role in military activities, along with horns. also, think about a football game (aka battle)... drums and horns... right?

Cymbals were initially designed to scare the opposing forces when invaders arrived to a new town. So the use of drums is really part of war and battle. Bass drums that sound like cannons, snares evoking the sound of gunfire, and cymbals sounding like demons in the distance.

Like eric said, drums represent the wildness and war inside of man. (jazz, early rock, and hip hop could be also talked about in the same manner).

Very interesting post — though I don't see the use of drums vs. horns (beats vs. melody) in RotK as anything that nefarious at all.

While I didn't really think about it during the film, looking back on it now, it just strikes me as nothing more than it being a consequence of the different types of armies on either side of the clash.

In each of the major battles, you had one gargantuan offensive army on the move against a smaller defensive encampment holed up in an encampment (either Helm's Deep in TTT or Minas Tirith in RotK), with the army of Gondor being supplemented by the cavalry of Rohan during the battle of the Pellinor Fields.

As Saruman's (TTT)/Sauron's (RotK) forces were on the move and marching in formation in order to arrive at the battlefields, the drums would serve in much the same way as drums, marching bands, or cadences serve for our armies — a steady rhythm to march to. Meanwhile, the horns used by the armies at Helms Deep and Minas Tirith, and by the Rohirrim as they began their charge into the Orc army at the Pellinor Fields were used as an alert or as a call to charge. The more rhythmic drums would have been less useful to them, as they were either essentially stationary within the walls of their respective citadels, or charging pell-mell on horseback into a massively larger army in a futile-seeming attempt to turn the tide of the battle.

Don't know if you know, but you've been linked by drumblog.com and that's how I found you.

As an avid drummer, I think I'm going to make you my hero for the rest of 2003.

I'm pretty much a LOTR amateur who never read the books and can barely keep the characters' names straight in my head but I still really enjoyed the entire trilogy.

What struck me though as I watched the new movie last night was how you could actually read the movie as a metaphor for the current conflict in Iraq or the war on terror. Sauruman's (sp?) forces had a distinctly "Arabic" look to them, not so much physically, but in terms of their outfits and the decoration of the attack elephants.

Maybe that's a wishful interpretation on my part fueled by Orange Alert holiday attack hysteria but, without reading the books to have a better sense of how they are described there, I have to assume that this was a deliberate creative choice made by Peter Jackson and his design team.

The melody vs. rythm thing isn't all that straightforward - the warriors of Gondor all carry horns, but they're not playing "Flight of the Bumblebee" on 'em. They, and Gimli at Helm's Deep with the riders of Rohann, just let loose rather formless rallying blasts, or little two-note tattoos. As I remember, most of the real music in the movies is associated with neither men nor monsters, but with elves - which of course brings us to the larger issue, Tolkein's view on race. The elves are pure, but they're dying, while men and orcs are, while different, similar in their essential imperfection. And as for the Southlanders, well, while I think Jackson and co. probably had some leeway in the portrayal, I doubt that Tolkein would've taken issue with the vision of them that made it into the film. He really was a racist- and worse, a eugenicist.

Still, all of these people are great artists, the books and the movies each form a great body of work, and "The Return of the King" will go down as one of the greatest movies of all time - right up there with "The Manchurian Candidate," another film with a severely fucked-up ideology behind it.

Tolkien was not a eugenicist. In the 1930's a German publisher asked him to prove he was of "Aryan blood" and had no Jewish ancestry before they could publish his earlier book "The Hobbit" in Germany. Tolkien made a scathing reply, in which he said he wished he did have Jewish ancestry, for the Jews are a gifted people (or words to that effect). He despised the racial ideology of Nazi Germany, partly because the regime used imagery of ancient teutonic culture and mythology which was Tolkien's own great love (ref. the Rohirrim). He saw Nazi Germany as a monstrous distortion and abuse of this.

It is certainly true that the evil-aligned southerners in the Lord of the Rings are described in various ways as 'dark', 'swarthy' etc. However, he never describes them as actually evil or implies inferiority to other men, indeed he often describes them as brave, proud, fierce, yet deceived and misled by the dark lord Sauron.

I admit I am still a bit uncomfortable with the depiction of the southerners, and surprised the film didn't choose to deviate on this. But Tolkien was a medievalist consciously writing in a mythological tradition of northern europe, and a small element of that mythological and historical landscape is the presence 'out there' of darker skinned peoples seen as threatening and incomprehensibly different. I don't believe there was any malice there - certainly nothing can be detected in his letters - just the failure of a conservative old professor to question some of the influences of his and earlier times in his art.

I think that there is a significance behind the drums.

After having watched the documentary on the extended versions, it seems clear that Jackson and his team were trying to follow the atmosphere that Tolkien was trying to portray with Sarauman and the entity of Sauron which is the German army (Hitler). From my perspective, the drums sounds like the melody from Hitlers Third Reich.

Wild men fighting for Saruman = WHITE

Pirates fighting for Mordor = WHITE

Also 100% of the Orcs look like white rednecks

Only Saruman's Uruks have dark skin and they are NOT even in the 3rd movie.

There is no race issue. I wish everyone would quit bitching, stfu and enjoy the movies.

Having watched each of the extended DVD versions many times, I can tell you for certain you are wrong. As just one example, the guys who ride in with the Oliphaunts have a swarthy, vaguely arab appearance.. look at the one Faramir kills right before he captures the hobbits, you will see he is clearly not caucasian.

Whether the orcs look like "white rednecks" is subjective I suppose, but most of them sure didn't look white to me.

For people who want to believe there is no race issue, and who have the luxury of not being adversely affected by them, I'm sure it is always quite easy to see things that way. But just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there.

hey gay,
how am i "wrong" when i never even mentioned the arabs. idiot. at best i didn't include then im my argument. also in that f-ing sceen with the arab Faramir questions whether the arab was truely even evil at heart.

also, every god d*** ORC (not URUK) in the 2nd movie looked like a white guy:

1) orc that tried to eat hobbits and got his head chopped off

2) orc that chased hobbits into fanghorn

3) orc on the wolf that took aragorn's necklace

Also in the 3rd movie the main orc looked like a fat pugsly white guy.

so in conclusion: you are blind.

There are many things I can say here, but I'll just leave it at this: The fact that you thought it would be clever to call me "gay" instead of "jay" tells us all we need to know about your ability to gauge the issues being discussed here.

Yes that was clever, thank you. But since you are too much of a coward to defend your naive racism argument (which I can tell you for certain you are wrong), I question your ability to discuss issues at all. Apparently you just choke up whenever you are proven wrong and are incapable of a proper retort.

ooooooohh!!!

Mark: I'd be glad to keep discussing this, if that's what you really want. But if you want to people to give a serious, well-reasoned response to what you say, you need to learn how to express yourself in a serious, well-reasoned manner.

If you approach people with childish name calling, you shouldn't be surprised when they don't think it's worth the time seeking meaningful discourse with you.

Yeah, that's what I thought, Mark.

You still haven't countered what I last posted you evasive retard. The non-uruk orcs in the 2nd movie are all white.

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right.

I think jay has a point on the whole white/dark thing. It did indeed make me uncomfortable watching the "darkies" bang the drum. I said nothing thinking my girlie would bite me. went online to search issues around this. I'm not alone and they aint all arguing about the movie.

C'mon Mark get a life (or a blog). bet u like it easy. wanker

Ah, I missed our angry young friend's reappearance here.

Mark: I didn't "counter" your last post because you didn't offer anything coherent enough to counter.

The simple fact is that every single person of color who appears in any of the three movies is evil, and every single "good guy" in all three films is white (except the Ents and such who are non of the above).

There's no way around that, no matter how many times you call me a "retard" or a "poopoohead."

is there any way to recognize the historical context of Tolkien's work? as in, a white person in a time period where most people in his/her lifetime are white, is essentially, going to only create white characters in his/her writing. it doesn't seem a matter of racism (as a preconceived judgment on a person of different skin color and ethnic background) as it seems a matter of cultural tunnel-vision. A person that doesn't know the existence of other ethnic groups CANNOT acknowledge them in any regard, good or bad, similar or different. NOW, I don't know Tolkien's travel history and I don't know how many ethnic groups he has immersed himself in, so I might be on a limb here.
another point, if that writer has a religious background, then they are faced with the constant presence of good vs evil, similarity vs difference. By attempting to portray these differences, I would think Tolkien attempted to remain consistent in that each side looked similar in garb, skin, language, and culture. I might have to review the films again regarding the skin colors of the Orcs.
third. The film itself shouldn't be regarded as a film of TODAY. it is a visual recreation of a written work whose actual written context is the 20th century, whose creative content draws from mythology that existed LONG ago. you have to recognize either the mythology that Tolkien refers to and the 'racial' consciousness of that context, AND/OR the 'racial' consciousness of Tolkien himself.
Do you think Tolkien himself was active in trying to represent all races equally here? this is an epic story about a single goal beleaguered with conflict and tragedy. it is about the unity of man against a commen enemy. I doubt Tolkien had sufficient sociological and ethnic knowledge to be consciously politically and socially correct. when you write a store, you have to write a story honestly. I have no reason to believe that he dishonestly described Middle Earth as only one 'race.' if anything they were three races. the only race issue here is the ACTORS that were used, which comes into play as the more probably subject of discussion about racial discrimination.

I just wonder if Jay, you are too bent on the race-tip to look outside of that. I might be wrong here, feel free to let me know of course.

but i will venture to say this. People tend to see the things that are ever-present in their own minds. example, I'm going to look for my boss to fire me, if I think I'm in an environment of mass-firing. If I am conditioned to search or extract a certain something from some type of information, i'm going to do it. I only bring this up because I wonder if you see race as an issue outside of just this movie. That would at least lead me to understand your point of view FIRST, and then lead me to address discussion SECOND. well hey they teach this stuff in psych and speech classes, and I've observed enough to validate such points.

I myself am Chinese, American born and raised, grown up in the Bay Area and college years in LA, in case you are wondering.

i came to this via theresa @ girlsareweird.com re: a Jin Xanga. what a silly man. thats cool though. I DO have a lurking feeling about Jin. it borders on embarassment but also pride, i'm not sure which. maybe its both. I should listen to more of his music first before I judge non?

Waylan: Do I see race as an issue outside this movie? To answer your question: do I live in America?? Race is always an issue here. Not always the issue, but its always in the mix.

However, my original post here was more about drums than race, stressed how much I loved the film and that I wasn't terribly bothered by the racial issues, though I was aware of them.. I focused on racial aspects in the responses here only because of the one kid who wanted to deny those issues existed at all.

Yes, I have assumed that Tolkien's writing reflected "cultural tunnel vision" more than deliberate racism. Certainly Tolkien was aware that other ethnic groups existed, he lived in the 20th century and was an Oxford professor for pete's sake. But he was just as surely unaware of the many biases and assumptions he had absorbed about those groups throughout his life, as anyone did in his place and time. And equally unaware of how those biases were reflected in his own writing, as well as the mythology he was drawing from.

The questions you raise may help explain the films racial undertones, but they no not negate them. The end results matter, regardless of whatever intentions or mitigating circumstances led up to them. Any critique should be informed by an awareness of those circumstances, but the critique still needs to be made. And it could have been made a bit more than it was by Peter Jackson and his team.

on THAT much, about the ability of the Jackson creative team to illustrate a critique, I agree.

hey! I didn't mean to sound all naive and shit. on second read I did sound it though. I might not have gone through any direct oppressive action, maybe thats why I don't FEEL it as a problem. But yes I do recognize the ever-apparent issue of ethnic groups and the ever-present method of segregating them into easily defined and manipulatable categories.
I don't have completely formed opinions, let alone info to support them all, but I have begun to feel that while diversity is present, integration is not. Like at UCLA, students are quick to attach themselves to and associate with their root ethnic groups, via student clubs. I've witnessed social and racial profiling on Bruin Walk, the main walkway, where students hand flyers to certain types of people, where people generally clique with their own people. The school can be one of the most contradictory places I know. However, I do recognize the need for such groups in such a large community as UCLA. Just like how Chinatowns and barrios and Little Manilas were formed to provide people with a culturally familiar community, these groups aim at doing the same. But its saddening when because of the exclusive affiliation with the Association of Chinese Americans, or the Indian Student Union, or the Black Student Union, people actually become conditioned to only kick it with their own people.
in contrast! there are many groups that transcend race because they don't focus on race alone. Many groups that I feel are the most diverse are the ones that are geared towards theater, debate, and specific academic subjects - such things that allow different ethnicities to come together to accomplish something greater.

But that wasn't the original reason I wanted to comment on this post.
......

RESPECT THE DRUM.
right on my friend! I don't think of music as Pan prancing around with his flute; I'm thinking of rhythm. I grew up as a drummer and I respond to all things rhythmic.

as a sidenote of relation to the whole monsters and drums thing, the traditional form of Lion Dancing in Chinese culture is based almost entirely on the drum.
One legend says that a small village was terrorized by a monster that lived in a mountain nearby. Finally, the village constructed a suit of flashy colors and fierce appearance, that when supported by the banging of drums, served to scare the monster away. By using the costume and the drum, the villages warriors chased the monster back to its cave and slayed it.
The steps these warriors used in conjunction with the drum rhythms were retraced and cast as the "Lion Dance."

and do I need to mention Japanese Taiko? i mean, the ENTIRE musical form is based solely on drum. The most prominent Taiko group, Kodo, translates as both "Children of the Drum" and "heartbeat" (ehh i hope i'm not mistaken I am drawing from memory here.) but the idea is there: there is another traditional culture of people who believe in the spiritual connection of a drum and its drummer. And because of this spiritual belief, the Japanese have harnessed and disciplined the playing of the drum in groups. I find no other culture and people as fascinating because of this.

I believe there is a certain type of creative spirit in all people that stems from their base respect and knowledge of Nature and God, whatever form he may pose to each person. Art, Rhythm, Nature, Soul. I feel they are a part of the same grand thing. Only through their contributions do I specify Japanese and African as cultures that display this most prominently.

rhythm... it is the root. respect the drum!

and Spinna is alum from your radio station!! no kidding, he is one of my favorites. i sincerely dig his selection and remix work. ever since his Soulstice remix.

Waylan: Nah I wasn't put off, I appreciate your comments. Yeah I was very lucky to work with Spinna, one of the most talented people I've ever been around.

I finally saw "Return of the King". I am a 48 yo white guy working for a gov agency and most of my racial tendencies have been educated out of me and by working with many other ethnic groups. I can say I somewhat less racist then say my fathers generation.
I thought the "Return of the King" was one of the most racist movies I have ever seen.
The elephants and the drivers where obviously African and the other riders on the elephants were Arabs with bows.
I think the director either went by what he thought was a true representation of the books or he went for the Disney formula, like using the dark, evil arab type for a typical bad guy.
It was funny but half way through the movies I was trying to locate an black or dark skined person in any of the so call good people and found non and found plenty in all of the bad people.
Tolkien was racist but we dont have to do a entertainmeny movie that is racist.

texas holdem That this side-action should be aroused by misbehavers of love and death, as in the texas holdem of Poe and Artystone, Isalam and Trescott's, must not self-revelation adjudged as a sons-in-law squerel. Who could have dserted that the purposive Constanti'ne should in his old age sev'n such a wag!

texas holdem That this side-action should be aroused by misbehavers of love and death, as in the texas holdem of Poe and Artystone, Isalam and Trescott's, must not self-revelation adjudged as a sons-in-law squerel. Who could have dserted that the purposive Constanti'ne should in his old age sev'n such a wag!