Amy Hemphill links to a NYT article and writes about gender and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Oh, okay, now I get it. She didn't UNDERSTAND the films, so girls must not like them. This aspect of Sam's character is part of the POINT of the story. His depth of humanity and affection for Frodo is part of why the story goes the way it does. (No spoilers here in case there are those who haven't seen it yet.) His character is MEANT to stand out in this way. She just missed the point.

Beyond my general annoyance at any sort of "all people of this category feel this way", and specifically at "all girls [sic] don't like this particularly male thing" assertions, this article just proved that, beyond her clear misunderstanding of women, she also had a vast misunderstanding of these films. I'm surprised some editor above her didn't suggest some serious rewrites of this article, or can it altogether. I know that most newspapers have been lowering their journalistic standards of late to appeal to a wider audience, but this is just silly.

If it hadn't been for a female-type, I actually probably never would have gotten around to see LOTR. I mostly went because she asked me to and there was sort of something going on between us at the time. It's not that I didn't want to see the movie, but I don't go to the theatres much these days and wasn't going to make an exception for LOTR. I've never read Tolkien's work and medieval magic fantasy does not particularly interest me.

Despite that, I'm extremely glad that Rosalinda drug me out to see the first and second parts and I greatly anticipated the third. But for how much that I loved the movies, Rosalinda and Audrey are two of the most interested people in them that I know. Both female and running contrary to the NYT article.

That said, I'm not entirely sure that the article is entirely off base. Speaking in generalities, of course. For my experience, the things that I loved most about the movies are very male things. War! Adventure! Very little time spent on inane love subplots!! Inversely, the more humanistic side of me (one might call it feminine) were what I considered its weakest points. The character development was only a couple notches above mediocre. With the exception of Sam, I didn't find any of them particularly compelling up to and including Aragorn and (especially) Frodo.

I should note that the extended version of the second movie does flesh the characters out a lot more and makes relatively minor characters some of the most compelling in the series. I guess cuts had to be made somewhere to bring it down to only three or so hours, but I think it was the more human areas that were cut in favor of action and the clash of good and evil. Those are generally things that guys prefer.

Not that I begrudge Amy her enjoyment of the series or think because she's female she can't truly "get it." I think I just agreed with the writer's assessment of the movie's stronger and weaker points a bit more.