The attack on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rgs seri ntu as cultural vandals attempt to repeat their lie ad nsm that Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggs are gay.
Contents:
- WAS FRODO BAGGS GAY AND IS SAM LOVE WH HIM?
- WHEN WERE FRODO AND SAM FIRST NCEPTUALIZED AS GAY?
- HOW FRODO AND SAM WERE “MOSTLY GAY”
WAS FRODO BAGGS GAY AND IS SAM LOVE WH HIM?
Note: This say ntas discsn of homophobia and mentn of suici. Outsi of the safe darkns of the theater, the Mordor-like wasteland of middle school, the movi were synonymo wh the favored sult of the time — “gay.
Early-2000s preteen Ameri was a time of gay jok, of “no homo, ” of mockg voic and slurs, and secret, punive vlence enacted the locker room agast anyone who had a whiff of otherns. He never would have wrten about gay people! He faced a urt-martial 1918 after one of his letters scribed “homosexual relatns wh men his pany.
WHEN WERE FRODO AND SAM FIRST NCEPTUALIZED AS GAY?
Two years before The Lord of the Rgs was published, war-wng breaker and geni mathematician Alan Turg stood trial for “homosexual acts and gross cency” — that is, beg ught his own home wh another man.
Lewis wrote a letter to Sheldon Vanken (later reprted Vanken’s tobgraphy) that Lewis had received a letter om a “p male homosexual [... The only mentn is a bland reference his bgraphy by Humphrey Carpenter: “As to homosexualy, Tolkien claimed that at neteen he did not even know the word. Tolkien wrote of the openly gay poet W.
As scribed by thor Reynolds Price, at least one member of Tolkien’s iend group, the Inklgs, “separated om his wife and lived a quietly homosexual life. She beme an in the gay male muny for wrg sympathetilly about same-sex relatnships ancient Greece. Bilbo and Frodo’s home of Bag End is scribed by other hobbs as “a queer place, and s folk are queerer” — an adjective which had a strong nnotatn of homosexualy by the late 1800s.
HOW FRODO AND SAM WERE “MOSTLY GAY”
It’s tricky to apply morn labels to people that they did not claim life — but morn labels clu “straight” and “cisgenr” jt as much as “gay” or “transgenr. One of them was Geofey Bache Smh, a poet whose work is nsired homoromantic by morn rears. “Homosexualy the First World War.
In The Lord of the Rgs: The Fellowship of the Rg's st mentary, Ian McKellen, a gay in his own right who played Gandalf the Grey, revealed that he was rponsible for the cln of a small but ccial moment between Sam (Sean Ast) and Frodo (Elijah Wood) that featured the books but might not have ma to the films whout his suggtn.
"When I suggted to Sean that he take Elijah's hand, ” McKellen explas, “ was bee I thought that [] might be missed by two rolutely heterosexual actors who might not appreciate that gay people, like myself, saw a touch somethg, perhaps, more meangful than others might. McKellen’s suggtn exemplifi how The Lord of the Rgs so succsfully rved a niche for self as a part of queer fandom, and why LGBTQ+ fans are so drawn to the Sam/Frodo relatnship the books: Though Tolkien himself likely didn’t tend to the relatnship as gay, the sheer tenrns of the language and the nstant affectn between the two speaks to a kd of timacy that queer fans are able to regnize and ronate wh. There is an obv bond between the two ma Hobb characters Lord of the Rgs books and movi, so people are wh reason wonrg, was Frodo Baggs gay, and is Sam love wh him?