I’m not shocked or surprised by the left’s constant attempts to appropriate the works of J.R.R. Tolkien for their own uses, but what I am pretty flabbergasted by is their blatant fantasizing about The Lord of the Rings having “queer leanings.”
You’ll see this phrase pop up from time to time now in relation to The Lord of the Rings. For instance, The Guardian released an article titled “Future Lord of the Rings films should acknowledge the book’s queer leanings.” Contained in the article is an effective fantasizing of Middle Earth being rife with homosexuality:
Viewed through a 21st-century prism (perhaps even a 1930s one) the entirely male-centric events of Lord of the Rings – the bonding, the emotional connections in time of peril, the torment of choosing between heterosexual romance and the company of men – have obvious queer connotations.
…
Nobody wants to see a horny Gollum or rapacious Orcs with raging hard-ons invading Gondor. But that doesn’t mean future adaptations have to remain sexless and ignorant of life’s rich rainbow of sexuality and gender.
Polygon also declared that homosexuality was a key component in Tolkien’s world in the article “Queer readings of The Lord of the Rings are not accidents,” wherein it too gives moments between Frodo and Sam a gay overtone.
When Frodo is grievously injured, it is Sam (rather than any of Frodo’s relatives present) who stays by his side night and day. Sam gazes at Frodo in Ithilien, noting his beauty, and thinks to himself, “I love him.” They hold each other on the long trek to Mordor — Tolkien said in a letter that he “was [probably] most moved […] by the scene when Frodo goes to sleep on [Sam’s] breast.” On a different night, Sam “comfort[s] Frodo with his arms and body.” And they are pretty much constantly holding hands: in the Dead Marshes, through Shelob’s lair, and while they sleep in Mordor.
Tolkien describes Sam as a “small creature defending its mate” when he protects Frodo from the monstrous Shelob. And when Sam thinks Frodo is dead, “all his life had fallen in ruin.” When Frodo is captured and imprisoned at the top of a tower, Sam finds him by improvising a song about hope and starlight that a naked, tortured Frodo weakly answers. When they wake after the quest is over, they’re lying next to each other in the same bed. They kiss at least four times; another time, it’s specified that they don’t kiss, which has interesting implications. And when they return to the Shire, Sam moves into Bag End with Frodo — no longer a servant, but an equal and a constant companion.
The article goes on and on like this for some time, attempting to square the truth with the writer’s truth, but it really boils down to “Tolkien never said he was against homosexuality, so…”
The writer even goes on to claim Tolkien himself might have been gay because he took the death of his friend in World War One so hard, and that despite his love of his wife Edith, there was always a love that could have never been in the back of his mind.
This is clearly the LGBT activist community telling itself stories and shows just how blinded they are by their 21st-century lenses. Their cushioned, first-world life hasn’t allowed them to form a bond like the kind men in war have that, while it is incredibly close and loving, doesn’t venture into the realm of sexual attraction. When you and your best friend are tasked with fending off death together and especially in the name of a greater cause, the bond that develops becomes one of the few things in the world that matter.
In our over-sexualized, unceasingly woke culture, many people can’t see that kind of closeness as anything but sexual.
But while that’s the case for many, a lot of this dreck coming from LGBT activists and media allies seems a bit too out of place. The Polygon article, for instance, reads a lot like someone who’s trying to convince themselves that this is true more than anything. They know it’s not, but they can’t allow a cultural fish as big as The Lord of the Rings to go unmolested by the current woke culture, especially with Amazon gearing up to release a Lord of the Rings television series.
Tolkien’s work is the backbone of so much fantasy writing in our culture and the fact that it’s written from the perspective of a white European, Christian perspective makes it a dangerous piece of literature to the left. Perverting the Lord of the Rings would be a massive step toward eliminating one more piece of traditional western culture so that hard-left ideologies can reign uncontested.
This is why we have to learn history and hold on to reality as it was made, not as they wish it was.
