'Hobbit' Casting Director Fired for Turning Away 'Dark-Skinned' Actors

In an article of the same title in The Atlantic, John Hudson asks, "In Middle Earth, Must All Hobbits be White?" Hudson raised this question after the casting director for the film "The Hobbit," was fired after turning away a woman of Pakistani descent for being too dark to play a Hobbit and openly advertising for "light-skinned" actors only.

To add insult to injury, a video of the casting director surfaced saying, "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." When Director Peter Jackson learned of the incident, the casting director was fired and he issued a statement through a spokesman, "The crew member in question took it upon themselves to do that and it’s not something we instructed or condoned,” said a spokesman from Jackson's production company. "No such instructions were given."

It seems that as a director, if you've already shot three related films with no actors of color in them, then it would suggest that you condone all-white casts. Should we assume that no people of color auditioned for any parts including that of extras over the last ten years of "Hobbit" related films? As a director, you could say, this time, let's create a location in the many travels of the Hobbit that people of color actually inhabit. It is fantasy afterall or is it?

http://www.theroot.com/buzz/hobbit-casting-director-fired-turning-away-dark-skinned-actors

This really shouldn't come as too much of a shock. I had so many friends that were about to find Peter Jackson's house and burn it to the ground after LOTR came out. They were that angry and insulted by his characterization of the ethereally blonde/white elves as representative of all things good and beautiful, while the evil, crude, orcs were (of course) dark and be damned if some of them didn't have freaking dreadlocks too.

I was angry too but this is how Tolkien (along with alot of Western writers, both then and now) characterized his characters. All of them were white, the vast majority were blond except Arwen and Elrond. The only people who were dark were either orcs or the bad men who supported Sauron. That's just the way that it was. Having said that, I'm still glad P Jackson fired the guy and is obviously making an effort to change the racial/ethnic representation of the characters making it more reflective of modern times.

We can be mad but it's important to remember that Tolkien wrote these books 70-80 years ago. I'm much more upset about stuff coming out TODAY that still characterizes all things blonde as the epitome of beauty while diminishing or flat out ignoring all other types of beauty.

nothing will come of it. 3 lily-white-casted movies have passed, so I don't think that Peter Jackson had a big problem with it. The casting director had to be offered up to the masses, because someone's head has to roll when the bad news becomes public--it won't be Peter's.

I'm not sure which is worse, that this is Hollywood SOP, or the a lot of the comments explain it away. :(