Evangeline Lilly Defends Addition of Female Characters for The Hobbit With Fierce LotR Geekery

As a huge LOTR and Tolkien fan who never really cared for the Hobbit, I’m very excited to see what Jackson can do with the story – and adding more female characters can only help, in my opinion.

She always kind of looked like an elf to me, so it makes sense. : )

The implication seems to be that The Hobbit isn’t a fully realised story without female characters, which strikes me as incredibly sexist.  What, are we to assume that women just wouldn’t enjoy the Hobbit unless there’s a female character with whom they could empathize, since there’s clearly no way a woman could put herself in the shoes of a man?

Here’s a larf – instead of taking classic stories and updating them for “modern sensibilities,” why don’t we see adaptations of classic stories that don’t call for that kind of shallow pandering?  If you don’t like that there aren’t any female characters in The Hobbit, then there’s nothing stopping you from adapting something like Earthsea which does have strong female characters.

Sorry, things like this just really get my goat.  Plus the fact that she’s criticizing a children’s book for being “a book for children” melts my brain a little.  Then again, I’m one of those crazy mutants who (gasp) had problems with Jackson’s LotR films, so make of that what you will.

Add it to my can’t wait list, along with Game of Thrones Season 2, The Winds of Winter, Avengers, and Dark Knight Rises.

It’s less about empathizing and more about keeping the theme as far as I see it. I mean…we’ve had female badasses in the movies before so why wouldn’t there be another?

Besides, NO female characters? Unless there’s a specific reason for that then that’s completely unrealistic. IMO, if there’s a plot going on then there logically is going to be some women interested in it in story just as their would be men in story interested and involved as well.

They’ve adapted Earthsea over and over again and constantly failed to include the POC that should be in that world so I think you picked a terrible example there as far as minorities getting roles in movies.

It is sexist (and frankly, ludicrous) to assume that women can’t enjoy stories without female protagonists, especially since we have to do it ALL THE TIME. It’s equally sexist to dismiss the addition of female characters as “shallow pandering,” as if there could be no reason to include female characters other than an overdeveloped sense of political correctness.

“failed to include the POC that should be in that world”

It’s a slightly different matter here, as LeGuinn actually described the racial characteristics of the people in her book, only to see them changed in the adaptation. This is a case of a director ADDING a character that wasn’t in there to begin with. It’s the difference between disregarding something the author made an effort to specify, and adding something the author never mentioned, but didn’t rule out.

“as far as minorities getting roles in movies.”

Well, for one thing, women are a minority by what… 1%? Perhaps “disenfranchised demographic” would be a more apt term. But it still doesn’t make your point. They changed the POC in Earthsea to honkies in order to pander to white audiences. Taranaich is claiming that PJ is doing the same thing by adding women to The Hobbit, just so female audiences can say, “Hey, look, it’s one of us!” It’s different, obviously, because white people have always been the primary export of Hollywood, while females in fantasy action flicks are a relative rarity, so it’s a much less odious alteration. But I think taranaich’s speculation about the intent behind this change is accurate. I’m sure they built up Arwen’s character in LOTR for the same reason. 

Unlike taranaich, though, this doesn’t particularly bother me. They’re already adding a bunch of stuff to the Hobbit, who cares if a new female character shows up amidst all that? And I more or less enjoyed Arwen’s subplot in the films. So what if it’s a market research-driven decision? As long as it’s well executed, no harm done. It’s changes from the text that come across as unfaithful to the core themes of the book that bug me (Denethor being a shallow, raging dickhead; Gollum splitting up Sam and Frodo; Frodo fighting with Gollum, not Gollum’s own folly, being the ultimate cause of the Ring’s destruction; Faramir’s character assassination).

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I’ve always been rather offended by the idea that just putting a female character into an almost all-male story will make it appealing to women. Even they are “strong female characters”, when they are put into a story based on a book it feels like pandering to the “female audience”.

I remember the furor over all of the new Arwen scenes in LotR — particularly putting her at the Ford of Bruinen and Helm’s Deep. The word from on high was that they were put there because the studio thought women wouldn’t want to see a fantasy adventure movie series with hardly any female characters.

Because apparently women aren’t interested in, you know, story and characters (regardless of gender). The appeal of LotR to me was the interactions between characters and their relationships with one another. Sam’s devotion to Frodo, Merry and Pippin’s light-spirited camaraderie, and, my personal favorite, Legolas and Gimli’s metamorphosis from enemies to friends.

And, on a completely superficial level, what heterosexual woman doesn’t want to see a film about nine attractive men of varying flavors out in the wilderness being all manly and badass?

I don’t like the idea of the insertion of a female character into “The Hobbit” mainly on the principle that its unnecessary and because I don’t trust Hollywood to do it right. But we don’t know what her role in the story is, which is the deal breaker for me. I’m dreading some pointless, poorly thought-out romance (because that it, unfortunately, what women tend to be put into these stories for).

I think that interviews like this, with Ms. Lilly, are less about the issues everybody’s brining up and more about calming the nerves of Tolkien fans.  Women and men love _The Hobbit_, but the women and men who love _The Hobbit_ know it inside and out.  Any changes to the story are going to upset people.  From what I understand, this movie is going to be about parallel stories.  If you’re making 2 3-hour movies out of _The Hobbit_, there’s just not enough material inside that book.  If you don’t believe me, watch the 1970s Rankin animated version of _The Hobbit_ that leaves out only a few things (like the Berserker) and still captures all of _The Hobbit_.  I don’t think that there will be new characters helping Bilbo and the dwarves, but I do think that there will be other stories about Middle Earth in a movie conveniently called _The Hobbit_.

I think a good third of the female fan base of the LotR films could have cared less about making sure there were “enough” female scenes in the movie.

But the fact remains, the not-so die-hard female fans probably wouldn’t have been interested to see the first movie without something pretty and romantic to watch, and so if you have this ginormous budget for a film series, you need to make sure you can pay everyone, pay off the bills, AND come out in the positive.

I’m not saying that I approve if that was the reason they pandered up the gals a little bit more, but at least it wasn’t obvious unless you knew the books well (which I unfortunately don’t).  I don’t think they took away from the story, or the full impact of the movies, and I would like to think that after 3 successful films before, Jackson can do it again just as effectively.

I for one am going to see it the second it comes out, and if I don’t go in expecting it to be just another money-maker, I think I’ll enjoy it very much.

What the hell does it have to do with being romantic?
It’s just damn unrealistic that there’d be not a single woman around.
So just because one of them has a name now it’s going to be a problem?