Can o' worms...

[davem]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment...er-skin-colour

At 1.5 metres (5ft), Naz Humphreys has the essential requirement to be a hobbit extra, but the British Pakistani has been told she's not white enough.

"It's 2010 and I still can't believe I'm being discriminated against because I have brown skin," Ms Humphreys said.

She travelled from Auckland to Hamilton last Tuesday to an extras audition for The Hobbit. "The casting manager basically said they weren't having anybody who wasn't pale-skinned."

So - and we all know that the Harfoots were brown skinned - which Mrs Humphreys points out herself:

The social policy researcher, here on a working holiday with her husband, said it was a Christmas ritual for the couple to watch The Lord of the Rings films. "It was the opportunity of a lifetime. I would love to be an extra. But it just seemed like a shame because obviously hobbits are not brown or black or any other colour. They all look kind of homogenised beige and all derived from the Caucasian gene pool."

Writer JRR Tolkien had not specified that all hobbits were pale-skinned. According to The Complete Guide to Middle-earth "Harfoots" are the most common hobbit and "browner" than other types. "Fallohides", who settled the Shire, which included Hobbiton, had "fairer skin".

I can think of a few problems - not least continuity wise as there were no 'Hobbits of Colour' in the LotR movies - you certainly couldn't easily introduce her into the film as 'Miss Token Proudfoot' (Southpark reference for those not down wiv the kids like me, innit) - you'd need other 'Harfoots' in the movie. And then, what about Asian actors who wanted roles?

Personally, I would have liked to see a wider racial range in the original trilogy - Tolkien compared the Gondorians to Egyptians so I would have been cool with black actors in those roles (someone mentioned James Earl Jones as Denethor & I think he would have been brilliant (& I also think the Musical had a black Boromir). I could even have seen Asian Elves working well.

Of course, you would need to take that kind of approach - I don't think you could really have a complete racial mix of Gondorians or Elves with no explanation.