Christine O'Donnell explains dating history using 'Lord of the Rings'

[Joanne98]

By Emi Kolawole
Christine O'Donnell's victory on Tuesday has many digging through archives to find footage of the Republican Senate nominee. This digging has produced a 2003 C-SPAN recording in which O'Donnell delivers her assessment of gender roles in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien

"You see Tolkien's wisdom applied to just about everything: Tolkien and communism, Tolkien and industrialization," said O'Donnell, while leading a December 2003 discussion at the Heritage Foundation as communications director for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). "In researching this topic I even found a book with a chapter on Tolkien and sexual fetishes."

The discussion centered on Bradley Birzer's book "J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth," which was published by ISI in 2003.

"It's so surprising, then, especially in today's very hyper-sensitive, post-Gloria Steinem world, that there's such a lack of commentary on Tolkien and women. While we were researching this topic, the only writings that we could find on this subject were on those freebie high school essays, you know, budding feminists who were saying what a chauvinist Tolkien was," O'Donnell said. "Is it that people assume that women don't have an interest in Tolkien? ... Whatever the reason why this topic hasn't been explored, it's an excellent topic that when you do dive into it it can provide very fun insight and amusement into the creature that we call the woman."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/09/christine-odonnell-and-middle.html

[nemo137]

1. What female characters?

If I remember, one of the big controversies when the movie came out was that Jackson had pumped up the roles of Arwen and Galadriel in order to avert criticism/get more screen time to those actresses. She's grasping at straws.

[FirstTimeVoterAt37]

2. I'm starting to hear off-key calliope music in the background

[tanyev]

3. "I aspire to be soft and gentle like Arwen, but realistically, I'm a fighter, like Eowyn."

What, no self-comparison to Shelob?

[Raksha]

4. Nope, she left the Shelob comparisons to real Tolkien fans.

I am more than happy to be the first to volunteer--that crazy bitch comparing herself to Eowyn (one of my favorite characters) is an obscenity.