A vote of thanks

I would like to take this opportunity to offer a vote of thanks to the makers of Snow White and the Hunstman.  Because I have spent slightly more than two hours of my life this evening watching this film I now no longer need to watch any of the following films:

• The Lord of the Rings series
• The Harry Potter series
• The Narnia Series
• El Cid
• Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves (or possibly the other one with Russell Crowe which I haven’t seen)
• Princess Mononoke (and possible most of the rest of Studio Ghibli)
• Avatar
• Disney’s Snow White

Which, allowing an average of two hours per film makes roughly 59 hours saved (Add a further six hours for the extended editions of LOTR).  It also saved me the time and expense of taking a holiday on the lovely Pembrokeshire coast since the scene that was reminiscent of Charlton Heston’s beach cavalry attack in El Cid was filmed on Marloes Sands.

I am using the time saved to ponder the following questions:

• Why is Kristen Stewart unable to keep her mouth closed?  She made a couple of valiant attempts in this film but generally failed.
• What was the back-story on the Bridge Troll? Why did SW’s scream defeat him?  Would he go back to his old ways until the Three Billy Goats Gruff come along?  I suspect there was some more story here but it’s on the cutting room floor – should have cut the whole story-line IMHO.
• What were the likes of Bob Hoskins, Ian McShane, Ray Winstone, Eddie Marsan et al thinking, other than “Nice pay check”?
• Where was Warwick Davis and the rest of the band of short actors who have been doing good work in the past few years (mainly in the above mentioned films)?  Surely they are the go-to place for any dwarf casting?  But seriously, it’s a bit like blacking up Sir Laurence Olivier to play Othello!
• Why did the dwarves not figure out that one of them was doomed, since we started out with eight?  Have they not read Brothers Grimm?  It couldn't have been more obvious if he’d been wearing a red top!
• Wouldn’t it have been funny if, when SW awoke from her ‘death’ her eyelids popped open to reveal red vampire eyes?

On the plus side this film would pass the Bechdel Test with flying colours since the two female leads do talk about things besides men for most of the film, as do the other female characters.  The only bum note was when SW was looking for volunteers for her army, which she was planning to lead, she asked “Who will be my brother?”  Bit of a stopper for the many women who were portrayed as fighters, particularly the lake women, who had trained themselves to fight.  Especially as the army then actually did appear consist entirely of men, apart from SW herself.  Still it was nice to see a woman saving herself through her own integrity and ferocity, while men played a supporting role. 

I also had a nice night out with my daughter; her verdict, as we stood up to leave, "That was the crappest film in the world, and the woman behind me kept kicking me"

Who is the Ring Bearer in Lord of the Rings?

This might be construed as similar to the question “Who was the naturalist on the HMS Beagle”  to which everyone says “Charles Darwin”.  Of course he wasn’t the naturalist, someone else was;  he was sailing as companion to the captain. 

I started to think about this question because I was reading the blogs written in response to this blog: 

Rachel Held Evans on Masculinity in the church

One blogger discussed the meaning of the word “helper” in the phrase from Genesis “I will make a helper suitable for him” which turns out to be the woman.  The blogger said that the helper is not the subordinate sidekick the word suggests but rather someone who rides to the rescue.  Others have argued that it is the same term that is used for the Holy Spirit and therefore does not imply any sense of inferiority.

I can’t explain why but the image that came to me was Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings.  A very flat reading of the story would suggest that Frodo is the hero, the ring bearer, the main character, and Sam is the rather lumbering, loyal, servant and sidekick who follows on, doing as he’s told, cooking meals when necessary.  A bit like a wife, maybe?

However, my view has always been that Sam’s role is the pivotal one; in fact I would argue that he is the ring bearer.  Towards the end of the film Frodo is struggling to climb Mount Doom and Sam urges him to let him finish the mission and take the ring.  Frodo refuses, believing that he alone can bear the burden.  Sam’s response is to tell Frodo that he will carry him then, which Sam proceeds to do.  Finally the mission is successful and Sam carries Frodo away from the mountain.

My reading of this is that Frodo believes that only he is strong enough and capable of carrying the ring.  He also believes that he alone has been called to carry it.  He accepts Sam’s support but doesn’t really view him as part of the mission, in fact at one point he tries to leave Sam behind.  The story shows however, that not only is Frodo not the only one called to the task, he is not capable of carrying it out alone.  He is too flawed, too weak and too self-absorbed to succeed.  In the end it is Sam’s determination to carry out his calling to destroy the ring that enables it to happen; a calling that Frodo doesn’t recognise.

I would take this metaphor further and note that although it was Sam and Frodo who finally threw the ring into the fire, they wouldn’t have got that far without the rest of the Fellowship.  Each played a key role in the success of the mission, even though they were all flawed, weak and failing.  Each brought something unique to the mission, be it the warrior Boromir – lovely Sean, the king, Aragorn – lovely Viggo, axeman Gimli, the cheeky boys Merry and Pippin or whoever*. 

What a perfect image for the church; many different gifts, many flawed imperfect people, all called by God  and valued by him.  You could say I’ve made a perfect complementarian case, but actually I suggest that Frodo failed because he did the thing that the complementarians do; he dismissed the call on other people’s lives because he was too focussed on himself and his own call, rather than thinking about the best way to do the mission they were all called to.  So to answer my starting question: The ring bearers were Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn, Gandalf and Boromir.

*long blonde hair – lovely Orlando!

**It’s interesting to reflect that the women in LOTR tend to be in decorative and supporting roles.  I suggest this says more about Tolkien’s male dominated Oxford milieu than anything else.