… people start absconding with it to promote their own value systems.
Thus, JRR Tolkien and the folks behind the Lord of the Rings movie can take some cold comfort in knowing that Italian Fascists are borrowing LotR “as a celebration of their own values of physical strength, leadership and integrity.”
The National Alliance youth wing is looking back to the 1970s when Italian rightists spun its own interpretation of Tolkien’s mythical world to bolster their image, already imbued with Celtic legends, knights and a cult of personal strength.
“There is a deep significance to this work. ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is the battle between community and individuality,” Catanoso said.
Tolkien, of course, denied that the books were any sort of allegory, and eschewed any political intent in their creation.
But the power and danger of myth is that it can be spun whichever way you want. When the books hit the Italian scene in the 70s, they were picked up by rightists there, who created “Hobbit Camps” for kids. Today, the youth group of the National Alliance is inviting young people to “join the fellowship,” as the movie hits Italian screens.