Blog 2 "Hunger Ganes" Racism

For my second blog I chose an article from CNN.com. The title of this article is “Hunger Games and Hollywood’s racial casting issue-CNN.com”. This article is from February of 2012, and is written by Stephanie Goldberg. Until I read this article I did not really know what the “Hunger Games” was all about.  So, I did a little research online to find out a little more about what it is. The “Hunger Games”, was originally a novel written by Suzanne Collins.” The Hunger Games are an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12 to 18 from each of the 12 districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle in which only one person can survive.” (Wikipedia) There are twenty-four people going in and only one person coming out.

It is 2012 and the “Hunger Games” is hitting the big screen. In this article movie goers are unhappy with the cast. Three of the main characters are Lenny Kravitz, Dayo Okeniyi, and Amanda Stenberg. So, what is the problem you might ask? The race of the characters is what has the fans all in a twitter. Fans were very upset when the characters Cinna, Thresh, and Rue were played by African American actors. One fans’ remark was “Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the little innocent blonde girl you picture”.

The article states that when people are reading a book that they typically project themselves onto a main characters image in there head. This helps the reader empathize with that character and what they are going through.  “Skin color is a recurring but understated motif of the novels.” When the author is writing the novel they have a picture in their head of what the characters look like. And when we read them if the author has done a good job then we get this image as well. And we all know that when a novel is made into a movie for the big screen, things change. Sometimes they cut things out of the story, they add things and they change things.  Hollywood sees this as an opportunity to make more money.  The more the audience can connect with a character the better the movie experience is for them. The better the experience the more people they will suggest see the movie and the more money Hollywood makes.

According to the article there is a problem. People expect to see characters a certain way, a certain skin color to be exact. And when they are not, they are becoming very upset. “In 2010, African-American blogs lit up when Angelina Jolie’s name was proposed for the lead role in the upcoming “Cleopatra: A Life.”” People are assuming that certain characters should be certain colors. This is racism. The fact the people expect it is bad enough, but then the fact that they get upset when it isn’t that way makes it that much worse.  In the, you-tube sketches by Reckless Tortega, this is the same. In the first video, the gentleman goes in for an interview. The girl at the receptionist desk starts asking very personal questions about where he is from. When he states that he is African American she again asks if there is anything else in him. After a few more question the gentlemen gets upset and suggests that her great granddad raped his great grandmother and that is why his skin is so light colored. This is a prime example of people assuming people should look a certain way. Then the gentleman goes into the back for the interview and gets more racial comments from the interviewer. He proceeds to tell the gentlemen that he sounded white on the telephone.  Both of these are examples of people assuming people should be a different origin or color based on the way they look or sound.

The article shows just what we have been talking about in discussions and readings. These are just a few cases of when people are discriminated against because of their color. People believe that others should act, or talk, or dress a certain way because of what they think is correct. They believe that all white people should act one way, and all black people should act another, and so on. So, when they believe a role should be cast to a white person, or Asian person and it turns out that they cast an African American person they feel that there has been some injustice. In the article there is a statement made by Rubin a casting director that I think fits this situation perfect. He says “If and audience leaves a film overly concerned about the color of a character’s hair, something might be missing from the storytelling.”

Resources:

Wikipedia

  http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/28/showbiz/movies/hunger-games-black-actors/index.html?npt=NP1