The Hobbit is racist!

Well Peter Jackson must be anyway. And I'm probly going to come off as a racist by the time I'm done with this. A British actress of Pakistani descent was turned down for a role as a Hobbit based on her skin colour.

She tells the Waikato Times, "It's 2010 and I still can't believe I'm being discriminated against because I have brown skin. The casting manager basically said they weren't having anybody who wasn't pale-skinned. 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. 

Apparently, there are no brown-skinned Hobbits. I never read about any in the books. I never saw anything but short, pale Hobbits in the previous Lord of the Rings movies and in the old animated Hobbit movie. It would make sense for the sake of storyline continuity that they only have pale skinned Hobbits. Isn't that how they are described in the books? I don't think this constitutes racism, though I guess they could have had a make-up artist paint her white. Doubt that would have been acceptable.

Humphreys has now created a campaign group on Facebook.com titled "Hire Hobbits of all colours! Say no to Hobbit racism!"

I haven't found it yet, if anyone does, please drop me a link.

I'm finding this to be ridiculous. Seriously, I've never seen nor read about a Hobbit that was anything other than short and white. While we are playing the race card here, why don't cast Shaquille O'Neal and Yao Ming as Hobbits as well? And, in the name of equality, have Gandalf played by a fat black woman. I got it! Tyler Perry's Madea as Gandalf! That's got some serious comedy potential and will keep blacks, fat people and transvestites from complaining. Also, they need to add some flamboyantly gay Asian Hobbits. And some Hispanic Hobbits, bot gay and straight, maybe a drag queen or two. I mean who cares if J.R.R. Tolkein's work get's totally butchered, we need diversity!

In fact, some movies should be remade to include more racial and cultural diversity. For instance, Roots should be redone with Caucasian, Hispanic and Asian slaves. Pocahontas should have more people of colour because Native Americans clearly were not one colour. Same goes for 300, the Spartans couldn't have been all white. Let's just throw continuity and keeping to the story out the window in the name of diversity. Come on people, it's 2010!