one more Mythcon anecdote
Jul. 21st, 2013 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacI forgot to mention this one earlier, but I find it telling.
One of the great advantages of Mythcon as a forum for conversation is that we all eat meals in the cafeteria together, and much cross-pollination can occur depending on who happens to sit at which table.
I was seated one lunch with a party including M., a long-time Mythsoc stalwart who only occasionally gets to Mythcon these days, and a Tolkien fan but not a scholar, who asked a question relating to Peter Jackson's interpretation of Tolkien in the Hobbit movie. And M. prefaced it by apologizing to me for bringing it up; I might want to avert my ears, as a well-known Jackson-hater am I.
The thing is, the other people at the table that M. was primarily addressing the question to were a pair of Tolkien scholars as distinguished and renowned as they come. And they winced at the prospect of discussing Jackson's interpretation of Tolkien.
So I had to interject: "M.," I said, "you have to realize that I'm the moderate end of Jackson-dislike among Tolkien scholars, because I'm willing to talk about it." Many more prefer not to, they find the whole subject so distressing, and that includes most of the top names in the field.
A survey would be muddled now, first as there is now a large cadre of people sometimes counted as Tolkien scholars who, though knowledgeable enough about the books, are really more pop-culture scholars of Tolkien fandom, and most of them like the movies; and second, there are also now many major scholars whom I don't know personally, and I don't know their attitude towards the movies. But of the major Tolkien scholars I do know, only one is on public record as liking the movies with fewer reservations than appreciations, and I once toted up a list of the six most distinguished Tolkien scholars in existence (though it might need to be expanded now), all of whose views on the movies I do know, and only one of them, Tom Shippey, has a good word to say about the movies at all, and that's mostly a forlorn hope that it will lead readers to the book. The other five, including the two at that table, dislike the movies a lot more than I do.
One of the great advantages of Mythcon as a forum for conversation is that we all eat meals in the cafeteria together, and much cross-pollination can occur depending on who happens to sit at which table.
I was seated one lunch with a party including M., a long-time Mythsoc stalwart who only occasionally gets to Mythcon these days, and a Tolkien fan but not a scholar, who asked a question relating to Peter Jackson's interpretation of Tolkien in the Hobbit movie. And M. prefaced it by apologizing to me for bringing it up; I might want to avert my ears, as a well-known Jackson-hater am I.
The thing is, the other people at the table that M. was primarily addressing the question to were a pair of Tolkien scholars as distinguished and renowned as they come. And they winced at the prospect of discussing Jackson's interpretation of Tolkien.
So I had to interject: "M.," I said, "you have to realize that I'm the moderate end of Jackson-dislike among Tolkien scholars, because I'm willing to talk about it." Many more prefer not to, they find the whole subject so distressing, and that includes most of the top names in the field.
A survey would be muddled now, first as there is now a large cadre of people sometimes counted as Tolkien scholars who, though knowledgeable enough about the books, are really more pop-culture scholars of Tolkien fandom, and most of them like the movies; and second, there are also now many major scholars whom I don't know personally, and I don't know their attitude towards the movies. But of the major Tolkien scholars I do know, only one is on public record as liking the movies with fewer reservations than appreciations, and I once toted up a list of the six most distinguished Tolkien scholars in existence (though it might need to be expanded now), all of whose views on the movies I do know, and only one of them, Tom Shippey, has a good word to say about the movies at all, and that's mostly a forlorn hope that it will lead readers to the book. The other five, including the two at that table, dislike the movies a lot more than I do.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-06 02:09 am (UTC)I'm sure this comment will be screened and never posted, but so long as one "scholar" sees it and knows that people think their behavior is elitist is enough for me.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-06 02:19 am (UTC)Instead, I'll just wonder what planet you're living on, because here on Earth, scholarly discussion of the Jackson movies is going on all the time, mostly from the other two groups of scholars whom I noted. There's no need for everyone to do it; that field of learning is covered very nicely.
As for the top scholars who are the subject of this post, what do you think is elitist, their not liking the movies or their not declaring this dislike loudly in public? It would be dishonest to expect them to say they like what they dislike, and totalitarian to insist that they have to like it because everyone else does. As for the other option, it seems to me far less elitist to hold your tongue and let others enjoy Jackson in peace than to denounce them for their tastes. That would be really elitist.
For my part, I'm not out to try to convince anyone who likes Jackson to dislike him. That would be silly. My goal is to correct two misapprehensions: to say that no, the movies do not adequately or reasonably convey the spirit of the books, and to say no, it didn't have to be that way because of imagined exigencies of the movie-making business. That's all.