The 1990s were characterized in film by a feminized machismo: Hollywood's perversion of feminism into a "girls

kick ass" philosophy, whereby women killed and maimed onscreen to demonstrate their equality.

    This was a reflection of the neo-liberal regime that held power at the time. The 21st century's retooled war

economy and its official nostalgia for the "greatest generation" announced a return to teh army-buddy genre and

its exclusively male line-ups: Band of Brothers, Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan, We Were Soldiers, Hart's

War, etc., all iterated that men must now be men again.

    This maleness extends into all mass media; Madonna, the Spice Girls, and other various divas of the old era

are history, condemned as castrating bitches (eg., M. Carey's strategically publicized humiliation.)

    The guys in a gang on a heroic mission, consecrated by violence, is the story du jour and there aren't any

lines for the ladies.

    That all this coincides with the new, endless war is unremarkable. American film is an obedient propaganda

medium. To confuse it with auteurism is naive at best. Just as Star Wars set the stage for the final phase of the

Cold War, and M*A*S*H*/Apocalypse Now rehabilitated foreign intervention for the US Army, Hollywood recently has

provided a catalyzing series of films to rally support for the rightist Christian Holy War and the regime's fear

and hatred of women.

    These films are Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien. The Lord of

the Rings fits perfectly into the misogynistic master plan of the dream factory, being the boyhood saga par

excellence. Indeed, its author J.R.R. Tolkien belonged to a Christian men's club, served in the Great War, and

preempted Robert Bly in many ways.

    The Lord of the Rings has long served as escapism for the awkward adolescent or the sexually confused pre-teen

boy to a fantasy world without women and mothers.

    A particularly homoerotic or sexually ambiguous period of rock 'n' roll is synonymous with the trilogy: Robert

Plant sang of "Mordor" and the "Misty Mountains," Mare Bolan's Tyrannosaurus Rex featured a member called

"Peregrin Took," and Queen's Freddie Mercury synthesized his Zoroastrian faith with hobbit imagery. While Zeppelin

supposedly fornicated with middle-school groupies, T.Rex and Queen both toyed with the anti-woman homo-eroticism

that serves as the basis of so much adolescent boyhood play.

    Aside from the trilogy's obvious eugenic overtones and Christo-Masonic symbolism, its hobbits, dwarves, and

goblins -- supposedly the benevolent domain of of so-called "nerds" -- are a cover for the cunningly constructed

hyper-macho ideology. On careful inspection, one recognizes that Lord of the Rings is the woman hater's bible.

    Lord of the Rings beings in The Shire, the land of hobbits, which resembles nothing more than an idealization

of a carefree children's world. Indeed, in Tolkien's milieu The Shire represents childhood, and the hobbits, or

"halflings" are children living in a perpetually pre-adolescent and polymorphously perverse sexual state. They are

unattended by parents and therefore frolic in magical shoeless grace.

    One day, the famous wizard Gandalf intrudes on The Shire for the hobbit Bilbo's birthday celebration. Bilbo is

more worldly than other Shire denizens, having left the comforts of childhood long ago on an adventure (with the

wizard Gandalf, in fact), whereby he came to experience the love and companionship of elves, men, and dwarves, and

where he discovered a ring of special seductive power.

    Bilbo found this ring in a hole, where it was guarded jealously by its owner and servant, a creature called

Gollum, who cooed incessantly about its beauty. The ring, which grants the wearer invisibility, helped Bilbo

escape from Gollum's hole, as well as some other sticky situationsl. On seeing his old partner after many years,

Gandalf notes that Bilbo has been driven mad by the power of the ring, calling it "my precious" just as its

previous wretched owner had.

    Piqued by jealous anger, Gandalf recognizes that the ring is in fact "the ring of power" which has the ability

to seduce and destroy all life in "Middle Earth," the confederation of fairy provinces which compromise Tolkien's

world. THe wearer of the ring, despite whatever good intentions, shall be irrevocably drawn into the service of

the evil one Sauron, who resides in the dark Kingdom of Moror.

    Gandalf recounts the saga of the king, how its master Sauron was nearly defeated at the great "Battle of The

Last Alliance" by the combined armies of Middle Earth, but that the weakness of man, who believed he could keep

the ring for his own use, had kept it from being destroyed.

    Gandalf won't even touch the ring, for he knows its power is too much, that he'll also be seduced. For the

ring is none other than the dreaded "vagina," poised to destroy boyhood irrevocably and smash asunder the childish

prestidigitations of the Shire-land. "Sauron is actually woman and "Mordor" is motherhood. The "Gollum" is what

occurs when a male is entrapped by a girl's charm; he's reduced to a pathetic, cooing parody of manhood.

    The vagina is such that good and noble men who think they can flirt with its powers and engage in

uncomplicated sexual aerobics are ultimately crushed, enslaved, and locked in servitude to Mordor: that is,

motherhood and family. Sauron reveals herself as a "flaming eye" that resembles a dangerous fiery vagina-egg

hybrid. When the ring is worn, it renders the wearer invisible, taking them away from the boyhood mileu. Sex leads

to such a vanishing act, the individual's destruction and the end of childhood and friendship.

    Gandalf recognizes that the only one with a chance of destroying the vagina and not being seduced is the pre-

adolescent and thoroughly homosexual Frodo, who is never without his simpering manservant, Sam.

    They are joined by another hobbit couple and embark for the land of elves. Despite his relative strength in

resisting the pleasure of vaginal intercourse, Frodo too feels very "Strange" when the "ring" slips, as it

sometimes does, onto his finger. It obligingly conforms in size to his hobbit hand and provides a frightening peek

into the weird, scary world of teenage sex.

    The hobbits are pursued by "ring wraiths" or Nazgul, nine cloaked riders who all waer mangical rings of their

own, but who seek the great "ring of power" for their mistress, Sauron.

    They are former Man-Kings who, like the Gollum, were seduced and destroyed by carnality. Now they are ghastly,

ghostly, pussy-whipped specters, seething with resentment at the freedom their womanless hobbit competitors enjoy.

Their leader is called the With-King.

    As they pursue their prey, they are stopped at a river by an elfin beauty who dangles her virgin purity before

them. As jaded,sexually knowing degenerates, they are shamed into adjourning.

    Meanwhile, Gandalf rides to the wizard Sauron's tower, called Asengaard, where he hopes to confer about

destroying womankind. Sarumen, the leader of Gandalf's order and apparently his old lover, is an extremely

powerful ally. Sarumen, however, is cantankerous, and bitterly gripes about Gandalf's dalliance with Bilbo.

    Gandalf's sexual licentiousness has actually caused Sarumen to seek commiseration with Sauron, whose sway he

is now fully under. On learning of Sarumen's treachery, Gandalf and Sarumen engage in a heated phallic battle with

their staves, and Gandalf is finally imprisoned on the top of Sarumen's tower. The gog-eyed Sarumen asks his new

lover Sauron for instructions, whereupon she instructs him to "Make me an army."

    This is really an instruction to give her children, and soon Sarumen is concocting "orcs" -- the couple's

babies -- out of gooey placenta from a hole he has dug in the ground.

    Meanwhile, the elves, who represent a sexless children's idealization of adolescents, have rescued the hobbits

from their mishaps and are bitterly condemning mankind/adults for their "weakness, a.k.a. their libidy.

    In their art deco castle they house a relic from the Battle of the Last alliance, the sword "Elendil," broken

in pieces and representing the castration and powerless fated for Middle Earth if the woman threat is not

destroyed. The sword/phallus broke when it hit the ring/vagina though it sliced off the finger that wore it.

Though the penis of the father is easily lopped off, the mother and her vagina are more formidable.

    The "fellowship" that goes to protect Frodo on his dangerous journey to wreck the ring includes the hobbits,

an elf-dwarf couple, and an argumentative pair of male knights, Aragorn and Boromir. While the one knight is so

chaste as to have taken a eunuch elf wife, the other, Boromir, is constantly tempted and tormented by the power of

the ring. He finally succumbs to its temptation, whereupon the orcs, Sauron's babies, destroy him. His momentary

weakness leads him to fatherhood and banishment from the latently homosexual Tolkien boy-world.

    When the fallen knight apologizes to the other for betraying the gang or "fellowship," the other knight lays

on him and kisses him genty' the destruction of babies the duty of the child, for the newborn signals the

impending own of his own childhood. "We won't let the white city fall," Aragorn promises, tantrically. (This

promise of erectile endurance is important, for it mixes a pledge of vengeful support with a stern chastisement:

with a little more discipline, impregnation could have been averted.)

    All who come into contact with the ring are tempted by its charm. Even the elvish princess Galadriel briefly

imagines herself sexualized through its appropriation; this fantasy of vagna ownership, though momentary,

transforms her from lovely coquette to horrible tyrant mother.

    Throughout the story, holes are equated with evil and all manner of evil resides in them. The ring is a hole,

the orcs come out of holes, Gollum lives in a hole, and Gandalf is finally killed when "an ancient evil" is

summoned up from another hole. The ring can only be destroyed by being cast into another fiery hole, atop Mt.

Doom; Tolkien is proposing here that creation try again after its folly in forging womankind.

    It is important to note that the ring or vagina of Sauron is actually disembodied from her; she is not whole.

It is the union of the two that is the great fear. While the sexless Sauron in Mordor has been kept militarily

contained by men and elves, the ring has likewise been kicked around for ages, fornicated with by randy scamps

like Gollum and Bilbo. The mother and the ring, though certainly despised, are known quantities and under control.

    But if the mother is reacquainted with her sexuality (the ring/vagina), then it is the apocalypse for Middle

Earth and the triumph of evil. The mother threat can be tolerated if and only if it is divorced from sexuality.

Bilbo's sexual liasions with the passive, lost ring, or Frodo's temptation to screw it in a fit of bisexual

hedonism, were weak and embarrassing, but ultimately okay.

    It is feminine power and sexuality combined which is the great, insurmountable Satan, and particularly, it is

the transference of the boy's feelings for his brotherhood onto his female lover (the surrender to Sauron upon the

taste of the ring), resulting in union/mariage (Mordor), which is the destroyer of childhood (Middle Earth and

particularly The Shire). Thus the strongly homosexual subtext of the Lord of the Rings.

    --

    The film industry has always colluded with federal aims. Through its monopolization of the means of

production, Hollywood has invariably utilized what Lenin called "the most important of art forms" as a commercial

propaganda tool that not only corroborates the imperialist power structure, but also complies with federal aims in

maintaining myths and promoting policy. The American film industry's obedience with the government in

disseminating propaganda for both World Wars is particularly striking, when the entire might of the studio system

was brought to bear on educating audiences as to their proper perspective.

    During the arms race, films like Red Dawn and Stripes maintained the official myth of the Soviet threat, while

The Deer Hunter, Platoon, et al. successfully rehabilitated antiwar sentiment regarding Vietnam. Hollywood's old

reactionary history of red baiting and blacklisting is much publicized, but even in these apolitical and passive

times the role of Hollywood in wiping out dissent and propagating ideology is relentless.

    Hollywood's promotion of various industries through product placement barely warrant mention due to its

ubiquity, but the extent to which the subtext of modern film attempts to affect the ideological system of the

viewer is truly remarkable. Lord of the Rings is the direct result of the Ashcroft/Bush born-again, woman-hating

White House, and contains a convenient race war allegory to boot.

    Though this born-again agenda seems at odds with the homosexuality latent in the fellowship, it is the

enforced repression of their brother love that makes them fight, expressing itself in their violence towards

orcs/babies and the various manifestations of women.

    This paradox of repressed homosexual brother love and fratricide is at the rood of all military action.