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Family night. We rented Superman Returns and I have to say that I just wasn't crazy about it. The actor is a dead-ringer for Christopher Reeve and seemed to go out of his way to adopt Reeve's mannerisms and vocal tone which I think was a mistake because those old Superman moves are painfully dated and almost unbearable to watch. Plus, why try and out-do Reeves? Why not reinvent and do something new with the role?

I should qualify this pseudo-review by admitting that Superman has never been my favorite hero. The whole father sending the son to earth to help us poor stupid earthlings plot line is just too didactic. And as a hero Superman is lacking any real personality. With Batman you’ve got gadgets and training and commitment and the internal conflict of hero vs. vigilante. Spiderman has this too to a lesser extent. With Superman you’ve got what . . . a guy who grew up in a corn field and flies around in tights? The guy is bulletproof, heat resistant, can fly and has no sense of humor. His day job is also weak and Jimmy Olsen is annoying. I think this franchise needs to be radically reinvented or scrapped entirely. My kids were bored.

By Myron Gushlak

Posted by Myron Gushlak at 7:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I saw the movie Eragon a few weeks ago with one of my sons. Critics hated it but I have to say that I liked it. Generally speaking, I enjoy fantasy movies and am able to suspend disbelief for a few hours and enjoy watching a dragon fly around with some kids who want to save the world.

Movies like this are terrific for kids and should not be subjected to the same type of criticism as typical movie fare. Is the story a bit like Star Wars? Yes. Have there been other movies with dragons? Yes. Is this a totally revolutionary movie that takes our concept of dragons to some whole new level? No. Does my kid care? No. How many movies come out that aren't derivative of something? As Bono sang on the Rattle & Hum album,

Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief

Posted by Myron Gushlak at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, I found the definitive answer to the Tolkien question. Michael Martinez points out that Tolkien wrote lots of letters in which he expressed disapproval of his fellow Englishmen -- and apparently wrote many letters about how there are Orcs serving in the British Army (I've got to find these letters, they sound very interesting) but never wrote a disparaging word about Jews.

Also, there was an instance after Hitler came to power, but prior to World War II, when the German government sent him a letter officially requesting that he establish his racial purity so they could authorize a translation of The Hobbit (the prequel of The Lord of the Rings).

Tolkien, who was a college professor at the time struggling financially to support his family could have just instructed his publisher to say

Yes, Tolkien is a German name

Continue reading "Tolkien ... Not an Anti-Semite" »

Posted by Myron Gushlak at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the authorities on Tolkien referred to in both the Bird and OHair articles is a guy named Michael Martinez who has quite a few interesting posts about Tolkien. They can be found at www.Suite101.com.

Martinez argues that Tolkien was

a man of his time

is the product of his background and era, like most of our inescapable prejudices.

at the level of conscious intention he was not a racist or anti-Semite.

Both writers basically say the same thing: that Tolkien would have been conscious of the discussion of the shallowness of anti-Semitism and all forms of racism that occurred in intellectual circles following World War II.

I think I am going to have to agree with Bird and Martinez. The Legolas/Gimli relationship is a major theme in the books and it is entirely focused on teaching us to move past pre-conceived ideas about people based on race.

Posted by Myron Gushlak at 2:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I found another great article on Tolkien provided by The Jewish Journal:

http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=7846

The article written by Craig Bird looks at the BBC interview I wrote about before and attempts to examine what the statement made in the interview means in the context of the books themselves. Bird points out that Tolkien went out of his way to strip out any reference to any organized religion from any of his books and relied totally on his imagination and Pagan (mostly Norse) myths to come up with his plots and characters.

So we’ve established that the books are not didactic in nature (as opposed to The Chronicles of Narnia) which suggests an open-mindedness about different religions. Bird also points out that if you were to come up with a stereotype about Dwarves (or Jews) from the trilogy it would be that the pursuit of acquiring and protecting gold came at their detriment.

That being said, the relationship between Legolas the elf and Gimli the dwarf which moves from severe dislike and mistrust to one of respect and authentic friendship is clearly used to teach the reader that racial distrust and bigotry is ridiculous. We also can't forget that Tolkien said

it is the race of men who are most given to evil.

So, the jury is still out on Tolkien - but at least I can tell my friend that she is wrong about Gollum being Jewish!

Posted by Myron Gushlak at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, I dug into the question of whether or not Tolkien was an anti-Semite and it appears to be a more complicated question to answer than I thought. There is an interesting article about Tolkien in Salon by Andrew OHair which only confuses the matter.

http://dir.salon.com/topics/jrr_tolkien/index.html

On the one hand, the article points out that in an interview with BBC in 1971 BBC radio (two years before he died), Tolkien was asked if the different races in The Lord of the Rings represent specific characteristics, the elves wisdom, the dwarves craftsman-ship, men husbandry and battle, and so forth?

Tolkien's response was,

I didn't intend it, but when you've got these people on your hands you've got to make them different, haven't you? The dwarves of course are quite obviously — wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic, obviously, constructed to be Semitic. The Hobbits are just rustic English people.

If Tolkien were alive today and he made a comment like that he would be in very hot water -- seriously, he was stone cold sober on the radio at the time not sitting on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway getting picked up on a DUI.

Posted by Myron Gushlak at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had a very frustrating conversation with a friend last night who said that the character of Golum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy was an anti-Semitic representation by Tolkien. I have a hard time believing this because the books clearly promote understanding among races (i.e., elves and dwarves). Also, I have to think that the Anti-Defamation League would have come out against the film if Tolkien were an anti-Semite.

Her argument was that Golum's posture and demeanor and focus on the gold ring were a reflection of how Jewish people were portrayed during Tolkien's time. I'm going to have to go on a mission to prove her wrong because I love those movies and books almost as much as my jewish friends!

Posted by Myron Gushlak at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)