Outcry Over 'Hunger Games' Casting Draws Media Ire
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(Image Source: Entertainment Weekly)
BY JJ BAILEY
ANCHOR CARISSA LOETHEN
When adapting a book to a movie, who to cast for the roles almost always come under fire from the public. And that was the case when fans of Hunger Games went to the internet to protest.
“...there appears to be a group of fans who are displeased that black actors were cast to portray Cinna (Lenny Kravitz), Rue (Amandla Stenberg) and Thresh (Dayo Okeniyi).”
While some of the complaints come from people who think that the characters should not be played by black actors at all, while other fans cite the book as being misportrayed. To that, a writer for Jezebel counters with some passages from writer Suzanne Collins.
“On page 45 of Suzanne Collins’s book, Katniss sees Rue for the first time:
‘…And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes...’
Later, she sees Thresh:
‘The boy tribute from District 11, Thresh, has the same dark skin as Rue, but the resemblance stops there.’
Dark skin. That is what the novelist, the creator of the series, specified. But there were plenty of audience members who were “shocked,” or confused, or just plain angry."
The reactions from fans on Twitter have some in the entertainment media on the offensive. Jezebel called the protesters racist, while US Weekly called them...
“totally clueless,” “bigoted” and “ignorant”
The exposure of the protests grew when a tumblr was created to highlight the tweets. Hunger Games Tweets was made by Peter Vidani, and was designed, as he says, to...
“...expose the Hunger Games fans on Twitter who dare call themselves fans yet don’t know a damn thing about the books.”
The blog has seen a tremendous outpouring of support in its comments, as well as discussions on race relations in the country.
The tweet that seems to be the symbol for the outcry came from @Maggie_Mcd11, which said,
“Why does rue have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined the movie.”
Nearly every report online features this tweet, but after looking at the full account, it would appear that the original user has abandoned it, leaving it to be picked up and used as a meme generator mocking the original tweet. Now, every tweet coming from it reads something like...
“why does space have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined vacuums”
and
“why does graphite have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined #2 pencils”
The Hunger Games grossed $ 155 million in its opening weekend.
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