Editing Men in Middle-earth (section)

=== Race ===
{{further|Tolkien and race}}

The status of the friendly races has been debated by critics. David Ibata, writing in ''[[The Chicago Tribune]]'', asserts that the protagonists in ''The Lord of the Rings'' all have fair skin, and they are mainly blond-haired and blue-eyed as well. Ibata suggests that having the "good guys" white and their opponents of other races, in both book and film, is uncomfortably close to racism.<ref name="Ibata Chicago Tribune 2003"/> The [[theologian]] [[Fleming Rutledge]] states that the leader of the Drúedain, Ghân-buri-Ghân, is treated as a [[noble savage]].<ref name="Rutledge2004">{{cite book |last=Rutledge |first=Fleming |author-link=Fleming Rutledge |title=The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien's Divine Design in The Lord of the Rings |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FRiViwMylSUC&pg=PA286 |year=2004 |publisher=[[William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company|Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing]] |isbn=978-0-8028-2497-4 |page=286}}</ref><ref name="Stanton2002">{{cite book |last=Stanton |first=Michael N. |title=Hobbits, Elves, and Wizards: Exploring the Wonders and Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wo9asc1i09YC&pg=PA79 |year=2002 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-1-4039-6025-2 |page=79}}</ref> Michael N. Stanton writes in ''The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia'' that [[Hobbit]]s were "a distinctive form of human beings", and notes that their speech contains "vestigial elements" which hint that they originated in the North of Middle-earth.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Stanton |first=Michael N. |editor-last=Drout |editor-first=Michael D. C. |editor-link=Michael D. C. Drout |title=Hobbits |encyclopedia=[[The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia|The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment]] |year=2013 |orig-year=2007 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-135-88034-7 |pages=280–282}}</ref>

The scholar Margaret Sinex states that Tolkiens' construction of the Easterlings and Southrons draws on centuries of Christian tradition of creating an "imaginary Saracen".<ref name="Sinex 2010">{{cite journal |last1=Sinex |first1=Margaret |title="Monsterized Saracens," Tolkien's Haradrim, and Other Medieval "Fantasy Products" |journal=Tolkien Studies |date=January 2010 |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=175–176 |doi=10.1353/tks.0.0067 |s2cid=171072624 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236771021}}</ref> Zakarya Anwar judges that while Tolkien himself was anti-racist, his fantasy writings can certainly be taken the wrong way.<ref name="Anwar 2009">{{cite journal |last1=Anwar |first1=Zakarya |title=An evaluation of a post-colonial critique of Tolkien |journal=Diffusion |date=June 2009 |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=1–9 |url=http://bcur.org/journals/index.php/Diffusion/article/download/186/165|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191206043126/https://bcur.org/journals/index.php/Diffusion/article/download/186/165|url-status=usurped|archive-date=6 December 2019}}</ref>

With his different races of Men arranged from good in the West to evil in the East, simple in the North and sophisticated in the South, Tolkien had, in the view of John Magoun, constructed a "fully expressed [[Geography of Middle-earth#Moral geography|moral geography]]": [[Gondor]] is both virtuous, being West, and has problems, being South; [[Mordor]] in the Southeast is hellish, while [[Harad]] in the extreme South "regresses into hot savagery".<ref name="Magoun">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Magoun |first=John F. G. |editor-last=Drout |editor-first=Michael D. C. |editor-link=Michael D. C. Drout |title=South, The |encyclopedia=[[The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia|The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment]] |year=2006 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=1-135-88034-4 |pages=622–623}}</ref>

[[Peter Jackson]], in his [[The Lord of the Rings film trilogy|''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy]], clothes the Haradrim in long red robes and [[turban]]s, and has them riding their elephants, giving them the look in Ibata's opinion of "North African or Middle Eastern tribesmen".<ref name="Straubhaar 2013"/><ref name="Ibata Chicago Tribune 2003"/> Ibata notes that the film companion book, ''The Lord of the Rings: Creatures'', describes them as "exotic outlanders" inspired by "12th century [[Saracen]] warriors".<ref name="Ibata Chicago Tribune 2003"/> Jackson's Easterling soldiers are covered in armour, revealing only their "coal-black eyes" through their helmet's eye-slits.<ref name="Ibata Chicago Tribune 2003">{{cite news |last=Ibata |first=David |title='Lord' of racism? Critics view trilogy as discriminatory |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/chi-030112epringsrace-story.html |work=[[The Chicago Tribune]] |date=12 January 2003}}</ref> Ibata comments that they look Asian, their headgear recalling both [[Samurai helmet]]s and conical "Coolie" hats.<ref name="Ibata Chicago Tribune 2003"/>