Photo Source: Murray Close
Some viewers, upset with the decision to cast black actors Amandla Sternberg (Rue), Lenny Kravetz (Cinna), and Dayo Okeniyi (Thresh), expressed their surprise and disgust on Twitter.
Their surprise was unwarranted as author Suzanne Collins specified both Rue and Thresh’s appearance in the book. She describes Rue as “...most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes.” Thresh “has the same dark skin as Rue, but the resemblance stops there.”
Sternberg, the cast’s youngest member at 13, was met with shocking backlash. “Why does rue have to be black,” wrote one user. “Not gonna lie kinda ruined the movie” Tweets like “Kk call me racist but when I found out rue was black her death wasn’t as sad #ihatemyself;” “why did the producer make all the good characters black smh;” and “EWW rue is black?? I’m not watching” shocked and disturbed readers and fans.
A fan started the tumblr page “Hunger Games Tweets” to expose those who "dare to call themselves fans yet don't know a damn thing about the books.”
Collins never specified Cinna’s skin color, yet people were upset when Kravetz was cast, which raises deeper questions about audience’s assumptions when race isn’t specified. Hollywood is notorious for whitewashing film casts that are written as ethnic characters in the book. In 2010 “The Last Airbender” and “The Prince of Persia” caused a huge uproar when the line-up was revealed to contain no Asian or Persian actors. The problem is not exclusive to film, either. A regional production of “The Motherf**cker With the Hat” came under fire earlier this year, when two non-Hispanic actors were cast in Latino roles.
So why are people upset about “Hunger Games” adherence to the novel? Once Twitter user might have the answer: “#HungerGames outrage over Rue being black great example of Americans not reading books”
Fans fought back with humor by posting comments like, “I hear Donald Trump is trying to prove Rue wasn't even BORN in Panem,” refering to Trump’s demand of President Obama’s birth certificate in 2011; and “The people pissed that Hunger Games characters weren't white are really going to s--t when they find out about Jesus.”
Many of the accounts that posted racist comments have been deleted or made private after being exposed.
