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Casting fail incident in The Hobbit.
This is relevant to our interests:
(Taken directly from THIS article in Entertainment Weekly)
"A casting agent working on director Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit was fired from the production after placing ads in a regional New Zealand newspaper seeking extras with “light skin tones,” according to Agence France-Presse."
The issue was brought to light when a woman of Pakistani heritage wanted to become a background extra as a Hobbit, and was told succinctly that they were only looking for (quote) "light-skinned people."
"...video footage shows the casting agent telling people at an audition, 'We are looking for light-skinned people. I’m not trying to be … whatever. It’s just the brief. You’ve got to look like a Hobbit.'" (So, the casting guy was caught directly on tape saying this. His words.)
And a more detailed article on Google news.
And on the Atlantic Wire.
This... shall be interesting. They're saying the casting agent was NOT told to discriminate by race, and he's been fired. I wonder - was he really acting on his own? Was he sacrificed for the PR? What were his instructions for casting? What does a Hobbit look like anyway? (Yes, we have the description from the books, which describes short folks with big feet and curly brown hair, but no specific racial indicators beyond that.) I wonder how fandom will react. Thoughts, anyone?
(Edited title to avoid misinterpretation.)
(Taken directly from THIS article in Entertainment Weekly)
"A casting agent working on director Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit was fired from the production after placing ads in a regional New Zealand newspaper seeking extras with “light skin tones,” according to Agence France-Presse."
The issue was brought to light when a woman of Pakistani heritage wanted to become a background extra as a Hobbit, and was told succinctly that they were only looking for (quote) "light-skinned people."
"...video footage shows the casting agent telling people at an audition, 'We are looking for light-skinned people. I’m not trying to be … whatever. It’s just the brief. You’ve got to look like a Hobbit.'" (So, the casting guy was caught directly on tape saying this. His words.)
And a more detailed article on Google news.
And on the Atlantic Wire.
This... shall be interesting. They're saying the casting agent was NOT told to discriminate by race, and he's been fired. I wonder - was he really acting on his own? Was he sacrificed for the PR? What were his instructions for casting? What does a Hobbit look like anyway? (Yes, we have the description from the books, which describes short folks with big feet and curly brown hair, but no specific racial indicators beyond that.) I wonder how fandom will react. Thoughts, anyone?
(Edited title to avoid misinterpretation.)
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Anyway, it would seem that you could have a pretty good range of possible Hobbit. That being said, given that most people's idea of what a Hobbit looks like will be limited to Wood, Astin, Monaghan and whats-his-face, it would not be hard to imagine they were all white. Was there complaint in the fandom when the Hobbits were made all white in the LOTR movies?
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I guess in my mind, I kinda see the Shire as being something tucked into the hills of the British isles in the ages before intercontinental travel was common. Isolated population of northern Europe.
*sigh*
idk.
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When I met Sean Astin at Dragon*Con, I asked him to stand up so I could compare our heights (I was dressed as Frodo at the time). He's 5'7". I felt plenty short to be a Hobbit standing next to one of the originals... and I'm 5'1". So... 5'3" doesn't seem so unreasonable.
*shrugs*
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