Registered: Aug 2000
Location: ObamaNation
Posts: 19084

For those LOTR fans out there (I'm not)



Is Frodo Gay?
The recent film version of Lord of the Rings increased the role of women partially to offset what the studio called the "homoerotic" tones of the book. Was Frodo gay? Debates around this sensitive topic often degenerate into heated arguments as to whether or not Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were lovers. The most commonly-cited facts on both sides of the debate include:
The friendship between Frodo and Samwise is the most intimate relationship in Tolkien's story. Frodo sleeps with his head in Sam's lap, Sam strokes Frodo's face and they sleep with their arms around each other. When Samwise fights Shelob to protect Frodo, Tolkien compares the event to a small animal fighting to protect "its fallen mate."


After the adventure Sam struggles with the choice between moving in with Frodo or marrying Rose Cotton. He is "torn in two," his heart divided between them.


The few women in LOTR tend to be admirable, but distant almost to the point of absence. And while the men sometimes say they'd prefer more women around they never actually go looking for any.


At the end of LOTR Merry and Pippin move in together, becoming a fixture in Shire society. Likewise Legolas and Gimli end up sailing off together: "The number of Dwarf-men that marry is actually less than one-third... it is strange indeed: that a Dwarf should be willing to leave Middle-earth for any love... More cannot be said of this matter."


Tolkien and Lewis were best friends for many years, until Lewis "threw Tolkien over" and became best friends with Charles Williams, following which Tolkien and Lewis barely saw each other. Williams was another member of Inklings and author of a long series of Christian Allegories, including Descent into Hell, Many Dimensions and War in Heaven.


C.S. Lewis showed little romantic interest in women until he was sixty years old, at which time he married Joy Davidman Gresham. They were friends rather than lovers, and married because Gresham was in danger of being deported unless she became a British Citizen. After Gresham was diagnosed with bone cancer and given less than a year to live, Lewis married her "for real" (though rumor has it that Gresham's condition precluded physical intimacy). She died less than two years later. After her death he wrote a famous book about reconciling the idea of a loving god with the loss of loved ones, called Suprised by Joy. He had no subsequent romantic relationships with women.


In his novel That Hideous Strength Lewis mapped out an unambiguous celestial hierarchy expressing his opinion that masculinity and divine worth are synonymous: He describes God as "so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to [him]." Next in importance are men like Lewis and his alter-ego Ransom, who show no interest in sexual relationships with women; Lewis describes these "confirmed bachelors" as more masculine than "common men," and thus more like God. Heterosexual men lie on the cusp of divinity, godlike in aspect but vulnerable to potential corruption if they fail to realize that women exist solely to be pretty, obedient and have babies. Obedient women possess a smattering of spiritual value - roughly the same as animals. The worst possible creature (short of a demon from hell) is the willful or disobedient woman.


Tolkien avidly pursued and eventually married Edith Bratt, whom he had met as a teenager. In 1916, shortly after their marriage, the pair went walking in the woods, and she danced for him in a grove of hemlock. This inspired the tale of Beren and Lúthien, one of the very first stories of Middle Earth. It was eventually published as part of the Silmarillion and echoed in the story of Aaragorn and Arwen. Tolkien came to think of himself and Edith as Beren and Lúthien; The tombstone of their joint grave in Oxfordshire reads:


Edith Mary Tolkien
Lúthien
1889 - 1971

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Beren
1892 - 1973

Conclusion: Like the modern day Xena; Warrior Princess, Lord of the Rings is full of clues that the hero might be gay, but they are never conclusive. This allows both straight and gay readers to identify closely with the hero without either feeling excluded. I believe that Tolkien was too great a master of language to have achieved such a delicate effect unintentionally.

Extra Super Bonus Theory: "Tolkien" is an anglicization of the Germanic Tollkühne: foolhardy. "Samwise" is Old English for "half-witted" or "foolhardy." I have a pet theory that Tolkien saw himself as Samwise, and encoded this into his book as an "inside joke" for other philologists. He's tricky like that.

http://www.jitterbug.com/origins/lotr.html#frodo



Also: http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/35/lordoftherings.html

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: A New England
Posts: 9196

Heterosexual men lie on the cusp of divinity, godlike in aspect but vulnerable to potential corruption if they fail to realize that women exist solely to be pretty, obedient and have babies

So I'm safe then?

Misogyny is the path to spiritual enlightenment.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Norfolk, VA
Posts: 4855

Well, it sounds like a load of bullshit to me. Hold on to your CS Lewis (if you own any) because Time-Warner (I think) has bought the rights to all of his books and is going to reissue them without any references to Christianity. Which I think is further bullshit. Oh well.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: my mother's bloody womb
Posts: 7367

uh...time-warner only bought the movie rights, and they've stated that in the movie adaptions they would refrain from making any specific religious references.

i don't think they're going to rewrite the books.

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