Political Movie Review:
Return of the King, 3d in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy
My Precious--The Politics of Power and Selfishness
by Michael Arvey
"Frodo triumphs in the end, but only with the help and loyalty of Samwise. But Bush has no friends, only accomplices. Like Gollum, he grows more evil, selfish, stupid and venal by the day from his association with the presidential ring of power."
The latest release in The Lord of the Rings saga, The Return of the King, has just hit the theater screens.
It's a riveting sequel to the first two movie installments. I originally read J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy in 1969 when Johnson was president and Nixon's tenure was peeking around the corner. The Vietnam conflict had already consumed a few high school buddies and acquaintances. The Chicago Democratic Convention debacle was fresh in mind. Lolling around Yosemite National Park's main campground that summer, I wolfed down the saga, along with The Hobbit, on a three-finger, marathon-reading binge--nonstop except for sleep breaks. Tolkien's magical word-spell was surely as engaging as the realism of my childhood literary hero, Dickens.
Sadly enough, then, as now, the U.S. government remains at war, as always, specifying this one as a cause noble of nearly cosmic import. Our Vietnam war, the government purported, sought to stem the red tide; now, beginning with Afghanistan and Iraq, the terrorism tide. Same pair of socks, different feet.
Then, as now, I'm enkindled against the corrupting influence of power and by how government wields it, particularly considering what appears to be a complete cross fertilization between the stamens and pistils of government and the mighty winds of corporatism. Both are mesmerized by greed and its fruits, and they project an empty and tasteless theology of plunder and war over the planet.
Then, as now, I see little that distinguishes the bad guys from those who were once our representatives, or at least reasonably so.
Then, as now, I've remained enthralled with The Lord of the Rings and its rich metaphorical resonances. The tale concerns the opposing tensions between good and evil, the soul-debilitating effects of power, universal and personal responsibilities, and the chasms and choices between service to Self and community, and selfishness. Forces unleashed in our government exacerbate such issues as never before in the history of this republic. Ringwraiths and the Uruk-hai of fascism penetrate our weakened defenses. We struggle at a porte to fend the Balrogs, and we are losing.
If the value of art resides in its genius to clarify, The Lord of the Rings is a screen-wide magnifying glass, nonpareil with its timeless tale of earthly tensions. Is it mere coincidence that these films have entered the mass consciousness precisely at a moment when the U.S. is imperiled by dark forces from within?
President George Bush succors dark furies as he obeys the bidding of an oligarchic plutocracy composed of men, who like dark Sarumans, care naught for the world except as it provides a utility or romphouse through which they can enact their agendas of control. The Bush administration ralphs up all that is awful and sleazy about a technological society torn asunder from natural processes and the bounties of true fellowship, ensnaring life within a spidery Shelog's cocoon.
Corporate globalization reeks of Tolkien's orcs--ubiquitous and merciless in their onslaught against people, nations and nature. Writer Rolf Witzche in his article, "The Lord of the Rings Metaphors", points out that Tolkien might have crafted "orcs" from market "f(orces)," a name genealogy that makes perfect sense.
Witzche observes: "These orcs have destroyed countless business[es] in America and around the world, some of which have served their nation for decades upon decades...In a world of legalized stealing only the robbers will likely survive. In the real world, entire nations are being destroyed by these market-orcs that are haunting the entire world." I find the rightwing's rank-and-file supporters much like the waves and waves of orcs spilling over Tolkien's fantasy world.
Further Metaphorical Implications
Corporate frontman George Bush is reminiscent of the character Gollum (Smeagol) in that he had been infected by a lust for power prior to his having stolen the presidential ring of power, thus reflecting Gollum, who initially had stolen the one Ring of Power from his fellow river hobbit, Deogal, strangling him in the process. From the crest of Mount Doom, Bush's ill-conceived presidency, the dark forces don't seek democracy or goodness, a fact that can easily be deconstructed from the cracks (of doom) between what they say and what they do.
Rather, they seek sheer domination, an enterprise hiding under a bald rhetoric of superannuated, gossamer-thin platitudes. Bush's role in this drama isn't to perform service on behalf of fellowship with the commons, but to perform service to the reins of power. It would be a grievous error to assume the U.S. projects the forces of good into the Middle East imbroglio.
To inculcate a nation with democratic principles by killing them and destroying their homes and infrastructures is a ludicrous contention. It's the oil and the geopolitical significance that has drawn the U.S., echoing Gollum's cry, "We wants it, wants it, we wants it!" Writer Manuel Valenzuela comments in an article, "The Evisceration of Democracy", on the problem of power: "When the insatiable addiction of power and control intermingles inside a molotov cocktail of greed and love for the almighty dollar, those who rule will do anything to stay in their perched positions of hereditary and nepotistic circumstance."
In other parallels between the trilogy and present circumstances, the fiery eye of Sauron on Mount Doom finds consonance with today's encroaching Big Brother technology (TIA) and its FBI agents of an unceasing governmental surveillance that is plowing 1984 fiction into fact, in addition to which the resonance of The Lord of the Rings is clearly evident. Moreover, one of Tolkien's visions for humanity was for a real community--no Hobbit or human an island unto themselves. Yet in modern hyper-capitalism we witness a startling curtailment of community engendered by the antithetical forces of plutocratic selfishness, a globalized phenomenon. Free trade is really a guise for neo-colonialism. We glean an ancient truth from the saga, however: happiness, fulfillment and love manifest through communal sharing and service to the whole. Hinduism has long held a gesture and a term that applies to individual and communal respect--namaste, or, "I bow down to the spirit in you." Yet the Bush administration, representative of hyper-capitalism, the forces of doom for much of the world, acts in opposition to what we think of as the higher virtues of life: love, service, sharing, helping, tending. The energy that Bush showcases only bows down to brethrens of frogskins, Darwinism, greed, market forces and self-interest, tubs that runneth over. The Bushites would have us forever toiling in service to their interests under their subjugation, as they appropriate labor's fruits. I'm not a Marxist, yet even I can grok this fact. A community, by definition, agrees to limit its selfish aspirations.
The dark forces, on the other hand, refuse to acknowledge limitations regarding selfish behavior. Indeed, for them to act otherwise would be out of character. The average citizen simply gets the bum's rush.
The trilogy also serves as a metaphor for personal journeys as exhibited by Frodo's journey with the ring. His mission is to help rid the world of the terrible, soul-consuming ring of power. Correlate to that, however, is the struggle within himself to shed the desire for a power that corrupts. Frodo triumphs in the end, but only with the help and loyalty of Samwise. But Bush has no friends, only accomplices. Like Gollum, he grows more evil, selfish, stupid and venal by the day from his association with the presidential ring of power. Like Gollum, he and the others rely upon things outside themselves to bring them a fulfillment they can never achieve--it must well up from within, as the ancient laws of wisdom teach us. What Gollum coveted, "My Precious", eventually destroyed him. BushCo hobble along the same path, and as we hold the their falsehoods to be self-evident, we laugh to keep from crying.
Will there be a happy or somber ending to our present-day tale? Any wild cards like Gandalf, Aragorn, Elrond, Arwen Evenstar, Gimli, and Frodo embedded in this most gravitas of decks? I, for one, remain somewhat optimistic. Unlike the ring of corruption, the ring of truth will always enhance and support life and spiritual-evolutionary impulses through ages of contraction and expansion. Actor Ian McKellem, who played Gandalf, remarks in an interview, "Gandalf says you do what you can with the time given you. That's all. Do what you can and try to do it on behalf of the people you love."
We still have time. We may yet see an explosion of verity that will topple the eye of Sauron and his minions before this is over.
Sources
Bassham, Gregory, and Bronson, Eric, eds. The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy. Carus Publishing Co. 2003.
Witzche, Rolf. The Lord of the Rings Metaphors. Internet article. http://www.opednews.com/Http://lordoftherings.rolf-witzche.com/lord-of-the-rings/lord-of-the-rings.html
McKellem, Ian. Internet interview. http://www.opednews.com/Http://actionadventureabout.com/cs/weeklystories/a/aa121503.htm
Valenzuela, Manuel. Internet article. http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_4082.shtml
Michael Arvey spiritmed@rocketmail.com is a free lance writer and author in Colorado.
