The Hungry Controversy: Part 1

Oh my dear readers, I've been absolutely shameful towards you. I haven't written in weeks. Blame it on my spring break (which I spent tumbling down mountains in Colorado )and my spring fever (which has me spending every available moment out of doors reading on my deck or putting my feet into [the still very cold] Lake Michigan). I know, it's hardly an excuse but there you have it.

So during my prolonged and inexcusable absence, the Hunger Games movie came out to mixed reviews. Some people thought it was very true to the style of the book--fast paced and violent. Some people thought it was a little too fast-paced and violent--to the extent that the story was difficult to follow if you hadn't already read the books.  (One anonymous viewer came out of the theater without any idea who Haymith was--given that Haymitch is a pretty major figure throughout the trilogy, this strikes me as a fail.) However, I haven't seen the movie yet. I tend to avoid teen hysteria in all it's various forms and I won't be attempting to see the movie until the fever has died down. As such, I won't be reviewing the movie here or commenting on it's value any farther. I do want to address something related and even more important than a critical review of the biggest blockbuster of the series: Race.

What does a book about a death match between twenty four teenagers have to do with race? More than you might think. You would hope that in a world where teenagers are brutally murdered while an entire nation watches, we might be able to move past arbitrary and outdated prejudices but apparently not. In case you missed it, here's a little run down of the controversy: A number of reader's skipped the section of the book where Rue is described as having "dark brown skin and eyes" and assumed she as a little white girl, which might be understandable given that she's also described as being "very like Prim," who is a little white girl. What's not understandable is the outrage some of these readers felt at seeing Amandla Stenberg, a young black actress, portraying Rue. Some of the comments made were positively sickening. If you've got the stomach for it, you can read a collection of those tweets in this post from BuzzFeed. There was similar outrage over the casting of Thresh and Cinna, who were played by African American actors Dayo Okeniyi and Lenny Kravitz respectively. (The tweets have even inspired their own Tumblr. If you're interested, Slate has also done a follow-up with some of the teens whose Tweets were published, although many deleted their accounts.)

Far less disturbing, in my opinion, is the flak HG has gotten for white-washing the cast. Katniss, for example, describes herself as having olive skin and black hair. Jennifer Lawrence, on the other hand, is a pale skinned, blue eyed blonde. I feel certain she's a fantastic actress--she got an Oscar nod last year and I heartily approved as her performance in "Winter's Bone" was absolutely incredible. I am absolutely not saying that she's not an incredibly talented and dedicated young woman or that she's not good at her job. But the fact of the matter is that the cast isn't exactly highly multicultural. Again, if you're interested, there's a really interesting post on Jezebel that goes through the characters individually, matching their physical descriptions with alternate (read: "not white") castings. Regardless of how you felt about the movie, it's pretty fascinating. 

The underlying message here is that there are still a lot of people who don't view a horrific event as tragic unless the victims are angelic caucasian kids. That does not make them racists necessarily but it makes what they said very racist. And that is absolutely unacceptable. We do not need to castigate kid who have said admittedly saddening and discouraging things because those kids are a product of the society they're growing up in. We need to change the conversation. That means not shying away from the difficult questions and the unpopular opinions. It means criticizing movies and TV shows that give us predominately white casts. Because those questions will continue to be difficult and those opinions unpopular until we address them.

(The boy on the far left is named Token. I can't fathom why. 

Oh, South Park, how I do love you.)

Next up: is the Hunger Games anti-feminist? As ever, I'll be writing out my lengthy opinions in a few days. Stay tuned!