Lord of the Rings Lesson

I had a "Lord of the Rings" marathon over the weekend. And no, I'm not a total geek - I only have two of the three movies (which I borrowed from someone else). While watching the last movie in the series, I noticed what appeared to be a few cases of Islamic symbolism in the caricature of the bad guys, or the "Orcs" as I guess they're called.

It has been said before that the books on which the movie is based, written by J.R.R. Tolkien of course, contain various racist messages. For example, the Orcs and various other bad guys are described as being dark-skinned while all of the heroes are white-skinned.

In the movie I noticed a few possible references to Islam in the Orcs. In one scene, the camera pans across the Orc army, armed with various crude weapons. One weapon carried by an Orc looks like a long staff topped by a crescent-shaped hook. The hook, however, is less prominent than the crescent shape. In that particular scene, the camera even hangs on the staff for longer than a moment.

In another scene, near the end, the heroes are attacked by an army of giant elephants. The elephants, which can be seen as a symbol of the East or Orient, are manned by men in black turbans not unlike the turbans worn by Muslims in South Asia. Then of course there is the big all-seeing eye that commands the enemy, held inside of a crescent moon. There are likely other little symbols here and there that I've missed.

I did some checking on the Internet and could not find any reference to this symbolism. It clearly, in my mind at least, gives the impression of hordes of Muslims threatening a white race eventually to be vanquished by the white people. The same has been said about the books but regarding blacks and other non-whites.

But Tolkien is defended by those who say he was writing as a Brit in the 1940s and 1950s, of course all the heroes are white. I do find it interesting though that the directors and producers of the movies today seemed to find it necessary to include some reference to Muslims.