**Spoiler Alert! If you’ve never read The Hunger Games, some of the information below may spoil your movie watching experience. Please proceed with caution!***
Unless you’ve been on some sort of internet blackout, you already know that “The Hunger Games” debuted last weekend to record-breaking box office sales. Based on the first book in a trilogy by Suzanne Collins, “The Hunger Games” is set in the near-future, where children are forced to battle each other to the death as an ultimate reality TV show under a devastating political regime.
The books have a fairly passionate fan base, not unlike Twilight, and, like Twilight, fans have been vocal about what each character should look like, according to the novels and their own feverish wishes, and how well that was translated to the big screen. As soon as casting was announced, there were some unhappy reactions to blue-eyed Jennifer Lawrence (breakout star of 2010’s “Winter’s Bone”), as a 16-year-old Katniss, described in the books as having olive skin and gray eyes. And while there are any number of justified complaints about women of color not getting lead roles in Hollywood, people also complained that Lawrence wasn’t thin enough to be the scrappy, semi-starving Katniss. Of course, Lawrence also has all her teeth and perfect skin, but no one seems upset that even a hardscrabble future world has good orthodontia.
That wasn’t the only backlash. After the opening, there were a number of tweets about the black actors who were cast in roles when the tweeters had expected white actors. Smoking hot (Yes, he is. Don’t even) Lenny Kravitz played Katniss’ stylist Cinna, described minimally in the book (his race was never mentioned). Rue, a tree-climbing little girl who played a pivotal role in the novel, was described as having “dark brown skin and eyes” in the book. She was played by a little girl with dark brown skin and eyes, Amandla Stenberg. And some people simply couldn’t handle it.
And those weren’t even the worst ones.
“Why does Rue have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined the movie.”
A fan began tracking the racist comments via “Hunger Games Tweets“ and the story quickly gained national attention, from Jezebel to USA Today. “Hunger Games Tweets“ paints a pretty bleak picture.
Then again,
“In all these people’s defense, it’s easy to miss things when reading through 2 small holes in a white sheet.”
Are those tweets just another example of people being stupid, a la the Chris Brown ”can beat me up anytime” foolishness from this February? Or are these racist tweets a bellwether about race in our culture? I’m not sure we needed the additional example of callous and hateful reactions to the fictional death of a little black girl, when we’re already dealing with them regarding the very real death of young black man.
Barbara Card Atkinson lives in California with two kids, one husband and too many dogs. She writes for work and for fun, as a copywriter, and as a pop culture smartmouth. She likes most people, the color orange and whenever anyone makes coffee.
image via lionsgate
I remember fans being similarly shocked when viewing Harry Potter and Dean Thomas turned out to be black, because the description of his skin colour was cut from the British novel ( though left in the US version so perhaps American fans weren’t surprised) I was 12 when the film came out and remember conversations among my friends about it.. but we didn’t have Twitter then.
I feel like a lot of these comments aren’t really as racist as they appear.. just young people expressing their surprise that a character on screen looks nothing like they did in their head.. however saying her death is less sad due to her race, well that’s just unforgivable!!
I think that Rue is an African American in the movie bothers or surprises some people because all they took in when she was described was that she reminded Katniss of Prim, who is blonde and blue eyed. I did the same thing, though I was more pleased, because after I read an interview with the young lady that plays Rue, I thought she was cast perfectly.
There is no excuse for these comments, and they absolutely are racist. As Barbara clearly quotes, anyone who read the book knows that Rue is dark-skinned, so if you read the book you shouldn’t be surprised by this, and if you didn’t read the book then you are racist for liking a character less or liking the casting less becuase there is an African-American girl playing the role. It is absolutely inexcuseable and just shows how race is very much still an issue in this country. Trayvon Martin’s death is a unspeakable tragedy but many can write that off as not indicative of a larger issue…this shows that there is still a much larger problem.
Only because this was crazy bugging me I got all anal and looked it up in the book:
The Hunger Games pg 98, second to last sentence on the page:
“She has bright, dark eyes and satiny BROWN SKIN, and stands tilted up on her toes with her arms slightly extended to her sides, as if ready to take wing at the slightest sound.”
ummmmm….so yeah. she’s black. and the problem is? It’s not set in a completely white world….it’s the States…where it’s a very mixed population to begin with, just in the future. I just don’t understand why there are still such stupid people out there who such issues with skin color. Get over yourself. Haven’t seen the movie yet, but I thought just from her brief appearance in the trailers, she’s casted perfectly. I think the Prim references are due to her small size and stature and youngness.
Yes, those comments are definitely racist. I honestly can’t believe that people would think it’s okay to say things like that! I didn’t picture Rue as black in my mind when i read the books, but I don’t always do the best job at paying attention to physical descriptors in books, either. It doesn’t bother me at all that Rue is black in the movie, especially since the book describes her with brown skin!! (to emphasize how i don’t pay much attention to physical descriptors, for some reason I always pictured Haymitch as overweight… no idea where I got that from! But I do like the movie version of him much better than my mental picture!)
I totally pictured him over weight as well!! I mean he’s the winner and is supposed to be living “better” then most in district 12 and also all the alcohol consumption, it kinda made sense he may have had a gut. I thought he’d be a bit dirtier tho?
My husband and I both pictured him as a mad-eye moody (from Harry Potter) looking character. Dirty, overweight and drunk.
That is exactly who I pictured as well. I love Woody Harreleson very much as an actor and I’m sure he knocks it out of the park (haven’t seen the movie yet)- but it took me a while to wrap my head around that casting.
In Catching Fire, Katniss remarks that Haymitch has actually stayed in very good shape despite his drinking and was very strong. Although he had no stamina.
Yes, well… that’s what I was saying. I got a picture in my head despite what the book said. Sometimes I just skip over those descriptors, unfortunately!
It seems that it might be indicative of unconscious prejudices when so many people picture a sweet innocent young girl as white, even when she is described otherwise, and a drunken, lazy character as fat even with no such description.
Yes. This. Exactly what I was thinking.
Oh, come on. I think you’re attributing to me character traits that aren’t there, just because I tend to read very quickly and miss a lot of details. That’s just the way I read. I often can read a book and don’t remember a lot of it. I read a lot of books. I enjoy them while I’m reading them. I don’t always remember a lot of the details of the book afterwards. That is why I want to re-read the Hunger Games. Just because I don’t absorb all the details doesn’t make me an “ignorant moron.” (see comment a few spaces down) Not everyone, when they read books, pictures the characters in their head the way the author intended, despite the author’s best descriptors in the text.
I very rarely comment on this blog, but something resonated with me in this post. I couldn’t believe that people would be offended that Rue was black, and posted to say so. In return I get comments like “ignorant moron” and that I have “unconscious prejudices.” I think I’m done commenting.
For the entire first book I totally pictured Peeta as the german kid from the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Augustus Gloop. Not really sure why. Sometimes the movie is better than your imagination.
I hate sharing my oxygen with these ignorant morons. Despicable.
Ok, I’m sorry, I read the books and 100% expected Rue to be african american. Before casting was announced, based on the book description, I pictured her as such in my head. I confused where the shocking revelation is here?
As an aside, I thought the film was PERFECTLY cast (aside from Gale…sorry) and my only qualms with it were that so much was omitted.
I tend to bring to any fiction I read my own slant (I default to believing the heroine is straight, and Caucasian, until I get info from the text that tells me differently).
The tweets we are talking about? Are not that.
Also, Peeta needs to be less of a mouth-breather. Other than that, I liked the casting.
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