Misogyny in Middle Earth

Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel (Image via Collider)

I just returned home from my quest to see the latest — and last — installment of the Hobbit triptych. I was expecting to see a beautifully crafted, action-packed movie centering around an epic battle, bravery, loyalty, and friendship — and in that regard, the movie was satisfying.

But I left the cinema feeling positively livid.

In the film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel, the director, Peter Jackson (who also directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy), and screenwriter Fran Walsh added an original female character to the second and third movies, which, along with the original text, had almost all-male casts. Their creation was Tauriel — the head of the Mirkwood Elven Guard and the love interest of the prince of Mirkwood, Legolas Greenleaf. According to cast and writer interviews, Tauriel was conceived to add more dimension to the elves, as well as to insert another female character in Tolkien’s male-dominated story.

I don’t have a problem with the creation of Tauriel. I do take umbrage, however, with the development of Tauriel’s character and plot line. First of all, the actor who brought Tauriel to life, Evangeline Lilly, accepted the role on the condition that her character would not be involved in a love triangle. Pretty reasonable and doable request, right? But that’s exactly what Jackson and his team of screenwriters did: Tauriel becomes entangled in a love triangle between Legolas and the dwarf Kíli.

If that wasn’t bad enough, in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Tauriel’s character, ability, and accomplishments are completely undermined. During the titular battle, Tauriel fights off orcs, goblins, and monsters as would be expected of an Elven warrior. But when she goes to a mountaintop to save Kíli, she finds herself in mortal danger that is, for the first time in the movie, sexualized. The orc that Tauriel fights grabs her by throat, looks at her lustfully and licks his lips. This directorial choice was absolutely unnecessary and served no other purpose than to remind the audience that even though Tauriel is a competent and impressive fighter, she is still a woman, and thus, is no match for a male aggressor, and further, faces the risk of sexual violence.

No need to fear, though, because Kíli appears and saves Tauriel, sacrificing his own life in the process. After Kíli dies, Tauriel is gravely injured trying to avenge his death. When the orc tries again to slay her, Legolas jumps in and finishes off the monster. In one fell swoop, Tauriel’s character is diminished from warrior to damsel in distress. At the end of the movie, Tauriel cries over Kíli’s corpse and is comforted by King Thranduil, her boss and father of Legolas. In a total of about five hours of screen time, Tauriel goes from an independent female warrior to a woman who must be rescued by a grand total of three men.

Tauriel is not the only fighting woman in the movie. She is, however, the only one who is shown engaging in combat. Before the battle begins, the leader of the humans gathers an army among his fellow refugees whose home had been destroyed by the dragon Smaug. He rallies his troops of men and instructs the women and children to seek shelter within the mountain. During the battle, the adult women are seen suiting up and grabbing various weapons, narrated by a minor female character who says, “We will fight and die alongside our men.” Not “We will fight for our lives and for our children.” Not “We will not sit here and wait to be brutally slaughtered.” The one line of dialogue referring to the women going into battle is centered around men, not survival. And the women are never even shown fighting in the battle. We see them suiting up and going out, but we are never treated to the image of a human woman hacking an orc’s head off. I like to think that a few scenes featuring the women becoming heroes in their own right were filmed and will be included in the director’s cut or extended version, but the fact that no such scenes made it into the theatrical cut speaks volumes about the culture of misogyny in film and geekdom, as well as the very likely possibility that Jackson chose to pander to what he may have presumed to be a predominantly male audience.

Finally, I need to discuss the character of Alfrid Lickspittle, the sniveling and cowardly servant of the former Master of Lake-Town. Alfrid is shown shirking his duty to fight with his compatriots, choosing instead to hide amongst the women and children. He disguises himself with women’s clothing and reveals himself in anger when one of them urges him to fight with the rest of the women. Alfrid is then shown fleeing the scene, taking with him handfuls of gold coins. Throughout the two films that Alfrid is in, he serves as a common source of disgust for the audience, as well as comic relief from his antics and desperate attempts to regain some semblance of respect from his former subordinates. But the “comic relief” here rests in the fact that Alfrid wears women’s attire, and later stuffs gold in his corset, giving him the appearance of having huge breasts. The scene could have easily been handled differently: Alfrid could have stuffed the coins in his pockets, or, if Jackson really wanted to go the crude route, in the front of his pants. But hey, what’s funnier than seeing a man in the most demeaning costume imaginable: a dress?

None of this should imply that I didn’t enjoy the movies as a whole. I did. Even though I have my own opinions about splitting The Hobbit up into three movies (or even having a film adaptation at all), I really did love the experience of getting to watch my favorite childhood book play out. I find it curious, however, that even though there were two female screenwriters, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, so much casual sexism made its way into the final cut. Did Walsh and Boyens perhaps not have as much influence in the writers’ room as the other screenwriters, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro? Or is it possible that misogyny is so ingrained in our culture, and so internalized within everyone, that Walsh and Boyens didn’t even notice the unfair treatment of the women of Middle Earth?

Header image credit: Collider