Movies | November 29, 2010 | 15 comments

Extra rejected on The Hobbit for being "too dark skinned"

A British woman of Pakistani origin was turned away from auditions for Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit in New Zealand on the basis that she was not white enough.

Naz Humphreys, who is 5ft tall, had travelled to Hamilton from Auckland last Tuesday in the hope of securing an extra role on Peter Jackson's forthcoming two-part adaptation of JRR Tolkien's classic fantasy tale.

But after a three-hour wait she was told by a casting agent that her skin tone made it unlikely she would be cast.

According to the Waikato Times a video shows a film company representative telling the crowd: "We are looking for light-skinned people. I'm not trying to be – whatever. It's just the brief. You've got to look like a hobbit."

The independent contractor who made the comments and placed an advertisement in a local New Zealand newspaper specifying female hobbit extras "should have light skin tones" had been dismissed, a spokesman for Jackson's Wingnut Films said.

"No such instructions were given, the crew member in question took it upon themselves to do that and it's not something we instructed or condoned," he told AFP.

The agent had placed a classified advertisement in the Bay of Plenty Times listing essential requirements for potential hobbits, including age, 16-80, and height - below 170 cm (5 foot 7 inches) for men and 158cm (5ft 2in) for women. The additional demand for light skin tones applied only to women.

Humphreys has started a Facebook group called "Hire hobbits of all colours! Say no to hobbit racism!"

"It's 2010 and I still can't believe I'm being discriminated against because I have brown skin," Humphreys told the Waikato Times newspaper.

"The casting manager basically said they weren't having anybody who wasn't pale-skinned."

Naz Humphreys said she was a huge fan of Jackson's Oscar-winning "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and, at 150 centimetres, had hoped for a bit part in "The Hobbit", a two-part prequel to the original movies.

"I would love to be an extra," she said. "But it just seemed like a shame because obviously hobbits are not brown or black or any other colour.

"They all look kind of homogenised beige and all derived from the Caucasian gene pool."

In "The Lord of the Rings", Tolkien described three races of Hobbits inhabiting the Middle Earth fantasy world which is the setting for the movies, including harfoots, who "were browner of skin" than the others.

The Wingnut spokesman said anyone who met the height and age criteria was free to audition, regardless of skin colour.

"The crew member in question has been dismissed from the show," he said. "It's something we take very seriously." The spokesman did not say when the sacking occurred.

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15 comments // Extra rejected on The Hobbit for being "too dark skinned"

  • Darevalo
  • jeffreyak
  • stunner21
    • 0
      stunner21  

    • As far as movies go its one of the few places where skin colour actually DOES matter, if the role requires pale skin then it requires pale skin simple as. If a white man blacked up and went to play the role of Mohammed Ali instead of Will Smith all in the name of racial equality you'd get the exact same claim of racism by the idiots that shout it loud and proud at every opportunity. Quit bitching and just accept you don't fit the profile.

    • 1 year ago
  • Cubejam
    • 0
      Cubejam  

    • So? If she doesn't fit the profile then there's no point progressing any further. This isn't racism, this is just the fact they're looking for white people. You wouldn't make a movie about stone henge & has an asian in the shot would you?

    • 1 year ago
  • Virginia_Arndt
    • 0
      Virginia_Arndt  

    • If she doesn't fit the criteria then she doesn't fit the criteria. If they wanted 'pale skinned' people then that's what they want. That's like me going to a casting for a newer version of 'MLK' and trying out for the lead role of Martin Luther King, then screaming discrimination once they say I don't fit the criteria. I am a white woman and I fully well know I won't even get a part like that because of it. It seems more and more people are trying to scream discrimination on purpose just to make a scene. If the ad in the paper or Internet told them what they were looking for then she shouldn't be huffing and puffing over it. While I am against discrimination there are move important things to be fusing over then being an extra in a movie.

    • 1 year ago
  • remanns
  • ImConcerned
  • Radical_Centrist
  • Varex_Sythe
    • 0
      Varex_Sythe  

    • I hate to say it, but the side of the movie producers makes sense. Yes the movie is fantasy, but it is also based upon a book with very defining racial characteristics for fantasy races. I am curious about those three different depictions of Hobbits from Tolkien's world though. Are they depicted in the book "The Hobbit" and described as living in the shire, or are they depicted in other books by Tolkien and/or described as living in a different community and/or region?

    • 1 year ago
  • remanns
  • ayipis
  • BrushwithDeathToothpaste
  • remanns
    • +1
      remanns  

    • Well, you know Hobbits ARE basically modeled after rustic-rural, 19th to VERY early 20th century English farm folk,.......with just a pinch of German brewmeister pastry-chef thrown in. Just sayin. Not a hell of a lot o' the ol' "we are the world melting pot" went into that mix,.....that is pretty much "on the Tolkien record".

      And gurls who are cast for "Hooters waitress" have big tits. SURPRISE !

      p.s. -related - and Vulcans were supposed to be a very pale green ( copper blood ),

      I liked Voyager,....and the "black Vulcan" bit was easy to get used to almost immediately,...and it was ALL very PC,....but it did sort of make me rub my temples at first.
      ( Perhaps if they had applied some virdigris pigment and made a stab at " darker equatorial Vulcan" or something,....but instead the just totally blew off a key "fantasy race" defining characteristic.

    • 1 year ago
  • observer2121
  • remanns
    • 0
      remanns  
    • observer2121:

      Well,....to my mind, its "just a movie",....but the MATERIAL is Tolkien, and Middle Earth,....and that is a cultural resource not to be fucked around with, without some serious thought. She should play a HUMAN,..( how about that for a thought ),...or a Dwarf, whatever,...perhaps just not one of those pale little rosy cheeked fellers !

    • 1 year ago
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