The Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global Context (review)

The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003) will undoubtedly be seen as a watershed in contemporary film history. Together with the Harry Potter series (2001– ) it demonstrated, in no uncertain terms, the cultural and economic value of branded fantasy at the turn of the twenty-first century. Generating multiple content streams and a raft of licensable characters, the revival of fantasy, like that of sf in the blockbusting Matrix (1999–2003) and second Star Wars (1999–2005) trilogies, was symptomatic of Hollywood's full-scale adoption of 'world-building' within its franchise strategies. At the same time, Peter Jackson's film trilogy would herald new approaches to the global production, distribution and marketing of film. Whatever its status as a literary adaptation or film genre, The Lord of the Rings created its own gravitational field within popular and promotional discourse, becoming a sustained event.

In assessing the industrial and cultural significance of The Lord of the Rings, Ernest Mathijs's lively collection of essays considers the franchise as a popular culture phenomenon. As outlined in the introduction, the volume is less concerned with the textual attributes of the trilogy than with the significance of the films' indefatigable 'public presence' (6). This term anchors the book. Mathijs argues that 'a film text's public presence is its primary condition for existing, and the lens beneath which its meanings are consummated' (6). It is the scale and orchestration of the public presence of The Lord of the Rings – a truly international and intermedia cultural event – that makes the trilogy such a rich case study for analysing contemporary film culture. As Mathijs writes, 'as the first significant tent-pole production of the twenty-first century, The Lord of the Rings has been setting a standard for (dealing with) the public presence of films, a standard which extends beyond the blockbusters to include generic produce and art-house fare alike' (9).

The Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global Context is one of several critical studies of the film trilogy to be published in the last two years; its adds to a growing literature that includes Kristin Thompson's The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood (2007) and Mathijs's co-edited collections, From Hobbits to Hollywood: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings (2006) and Watching the Lord of the Rings: World Audiences for the Film Adaptation (2007). While his co-edited works develop textual and audience-based methodologies, Mathijs's single-edited volume takes a multidimensional approach to the 'public and commercial dimensions' (18) of The Lord of the Rings. It is organised into three sections – 'political economy and commercial contexts', 'public receptions' and 'ancillary contexts' – which provide an effective structure for analysing the creation and consumption of the franchise, but also for tracking what Mathijs calls the 'timeline' (11) of the trilogy's public presence.

The book begins with a detailed study of The Lord of the Rings as a corporate property, Janet Wasko and Govind Shanadi outlining the merchandising and promotional strategies used by New Line. After seventeen essays dealing with issues ranging from New Zealand cultural policy and online blockbuster fan-dom to critical news reception and DVD bonus material, the collection ends with an appraisal by I. Q. Hunter of hobbit-inspired erotic spoofs, focusing on the soft-core take-off Lord of the G-Strings (West US 2003). As these bookend chapters suggest, a range of methodologies are on show, many contributors applying their established critical concerns to a blockbusting über-case – Wasko and Shanadi data-mining the economics of Lord of the Rings, Hunter finding the exploitation angle, Matt Hills theorising the cult dynamics, Jon Dovey and Helen Kennedy conducting observational studies of Lord of the Rings gaming, K. J. Donnelly listening to the music. The book is critically varied but also appropriately international in scope, with chapters considering aspects of the public presence of...