Posted on 06/24/2005 7:13:06 AM PDT by hispanichoosier
I need help with LOTR. Two friends and I were discussing the books and movies last weekend. Friend 1 observed that the relationship between Frodo and Sam (in the movies) had homosexual overtones. Friend 2 retorted that the relationship is based on the master/servant relationship of old England and that Friend 1 was looking at it through American eyes, where rugged individualism is more prized. I--caught in the middle--had to admit that I thought that Sean Astin overplayed Sam at times but was great overall.
So, was Friend 1 right about the gay overtones, or was Friend 2's explanation correct? I'm rather at a loss over the whole debacle.
Some people will see gay overtones in nearly everything. I don’t know if they are afraid they might be closets queens, or they are just terrified of anything that may be even slightly homosexual related.
Yep. There are. When I was stationed in the UK (RAF Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire) I read quite a lot on tolkien in my weekend jaunts to Oxford ( I lived 10 miles from Oxford proper).
The examples for the imagery tolkein used in the Hobbit and LOTR is evident when strolling through Oxfordshire. Really, Really nice country side.
LOL! That pic is a HOOT!
But, the reality is that it's a culture that simply cannot understand that the bonds of male friendship can be strong without sexual overtones. Happens in the military all the time. Those bonds are deep. Men would die for their brothers. But they wouldn't sleep with them.
The accusation is centuries old. The same folks who would see Sam and Frodo as gay, would say the same thing about David and Jonathan in the Bible.
What you saw in Sam and Frodo was loyalty and love. Not lust.
Upper Heyford? Hey - you didn't work on the F-111's by chance did you? MHAFB ID vet here ;)
WHAAT?!!
Frodo is the kind master who releases his servant from his service at the end of the trilogy.
Sam is the loyal servant who faithfully tends to his, if you will, employer through all his trials.
Friend 1 has been drinking Mordor water.
Bingo. As if two guys can't hang out together - even love one another - without having sexual feelings for one another. There's more to love than sexuality, but seems like society would like us to forget that.
In the books, Sam's loyalty to Frodo begins as that of a servant to a master. Not servile, but proud to be of service. It also develops into friendship and love, in the Aristotelian or Ciceronian sense--the love of one virtuous person for another, out of admiration for their virtue. In the end, Sam ceases to be a servant, marries Rose, and sets up his own family, becoming mayor and rising above his "servant" status.
The movie is not, in my opinion, slanted toward homosexuality. But the great failure of the entire sequence of movies is to understand what it means to be a servant, a master, or a king. There is nothing demeaning about such "service." Christians serve God. Warriors serve their king.
Aragorn is a great king in disguise, but he never fully emerges in that role in the movie. Faramir is a true knightly leader, but in the movie he is virtually indistinguishable from his brother, Boromir.
In the book, Theoden has been persuaded by Grima Wormtongue that he is no longer up to the job of being a king. When Gandalf speaks to him, he reminds him of his duty, and Theoden rises out of his moral sleep into greatness again. Once more, the movie hardly understand this.
The great deficit is that the makers of the movie have some understanding of concepts like love and duty, but they can't put them in the proper aristocratic terms. Aristocracy can be snobbish and effete, but it can also be great and noble. Tolkien had a tremendous admiration for true aristocracy: kings, knights, great ladies. There is no way to translate that into modernist terms. If you can't understand that loyal service to a great leader is noble and good, then you can't understand the basics on which Tolkien builds his tales.
Tolkien was a medievalist. Much of this can be found in the idea of the medieval war band or comitatus. Understanding the nature of the comitatus, as reflected in Anglo Saxon poetry, is a good place to start.
Anytime you see people project contemporary political and cultural matters onto works of the past, you have to ask yourself what did the writer/artist really intend. Tell them that Tolkien was a staunch traditionalist Catholic and that there is zero chance of homosexual undertones. The characters are simple very good friends trying to save the world. In terms of mythological archetypes, Frodo is the hero and Sam is the helper.
Gay overtones is a load of crap - perverts have completely ruined normal human relationships where friendship and love do not have to involve sexual activity.
Now, if you look at someone/thing then you must want to copulate with them/it right then and there.
Sam worked for Frodo but they also had a friendship - a very important friendship that allowed the ring to meet it's appropriate destruction - a friendship that was more valuable then having something to rub your organs on.
We would have a better country if people could develop that kind of friendship without a misguided miniscule segment of society trying to ram sexual activity into it.
Of course, if all they think they are is an animal, then love doesn't exist anyway.
Forgot to mention that the Gay Bishop mentioned that Christ Himself "traveled with men, did not marry or date women..."
...Well draw your own conclusion.
Don't slander this guy.
He's a solid, normal family man who supports our troops.
Now that is an interesting point. Frodo was fifty, and of age. Wood was barely out of childhood! (though he went about lobbying for the role in a very grownup and determined way) PJ ignored some of the class distinctions that JRRT used as a device.
Merry and Pippin were in their unreliable "tweens" and were the kids of the book.
However, I think it worked out great, this liberty that PJ took. He wanted a "luminous" Frodo, and Wood had that transcendency. He was described by JRRT as "fairer" more "elf-like" than the average hobbit. There hasn't been a more beautiful and compelling set of eyes since Audrey Hepburn.
Yes, actually I did. As a matter of fact I wrote the ATLAS software that declassified the 4PI computer system in the EF when I was stationed at Cannon AFB. I PCS'd to SJAFB NC, worked in the F-15 Avionics Backshop until a few years ago. I am a retired E-7. I work at the RTP now as a programmer.
Your friend 1 has a small, distorted worldview. Not every friendship is sexual. Friend 2 is closer to correct - epsecially about projecting modern American culture on a story in order to judge it.
Now, I have to contest this. The movie Theoden was the most perfectly realized Tolkien character from the book, except perhaps for Galadriel and Gandalf. "We will not defeat them...but we will meet them in battle nonetheless." The Maybe you'd see this more in the extended versions. Theoden always overcomes his angst, and I thought PJ's Angst-ridden Aragorn was a little much. The book Ranger had no insecurities, just burdens and problems.
I said "I think" he's gay.
I'd not thought much about it, but I think you're right.
However, Galadriel loses because of the Halloween scene...
I'm guessing Friend 1 is a big fan of Judy Garland.
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