By Guest Contributor Roxie Moxie, originally published at Nerdgasm Noire Network
Last week the Hunger Games character posters were revealed to fans.
There were the usual complaints of actors not meeting book loyalist expectations.
However, among the usual complaints of “She doesn’t look as young as I thought” or “Where are Effie’s pink curls?” There was a different kind of shock and surprise toward Rue & Cinna, who will be played by Amandla Stenberg and Lenny Kravitz, respectively.
”And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that, she’s very like Prim in size and demeanor.“―Katniss Everdeen, while watching Rue’s reaping
She is 12 years old, with dark brown hair, skin, and “golden brown” eyes.
- Wikipedia
Rue is pretty clearly described as African-American which has been confirmed by director Garry Ross and author Suzanne Collins.
Entertainment Weekly: In the books, Katniss is described as being olive-skinned, dark-haired, possibly biracial. Did you discuss with Suzanne the implications of casting a blond, caucasian girl?
Ross: Suzanne and I talked about that as well. There are certain things that are very clear in the book. Rue is African-American. Thresh is African-American.
So then, why did comments like these show up on the Hunger Games Facebook when Rue’s poster was posted?(SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOKS, STOP AT GRACE’S COMMENT.)
Everything from the innocuous ”She’s not how I pictured her” to “I was all sad and like “she’s black!’”
Seriously? My good nerds, what in the entire f-ck?
While it is true that Rue is described maybe only twice in the entire book, she is described as having brown satiny skin that is darker than Katniss’ own tan skin. While it is also true that the Hunger Games books are a very quick and absorbing read I don’t find that any of this an excuse to post on Facebook ”Shes Black?”
It makes me wonder if we all read the same book.
How is it, when Rue is so clearly described that fans insist they believed her to be white? White people are considered the norm in society; the default person. It’s as simple as when you hear the words “All-American”, I can say with certainty that you are not picturing a minority person of color. This is white privilege.
I’m a longtime Hunger Games fan and have followed many conversations on the internet concerning the casting of the film. Whenever the conversation comes to Rue there is always (1) person who is surprised to find out Rue is black and (2) another person who is upset that Rue is black. Upset as if they have been tricked or as if something has been stolen from them. Upset as if they now have to reevaluate how they feel about Rue–a character many fans love dearly because of her incredible courage.
“OMG, THERE IS A BLACK PERSON IN MY BOOK!?”
And the one that really kills me is {SPOILER AHEAD–HIGHLIGHT TO READ} “Where’s Prim? Her death is the one that gets to me most.” As if Rue’s death is not even worth this poster, and it should belong to Prim.
The reaction to Cinna is even more harsh.
Cinna:
Most people who live in the Capitol follow very absurd fashion trends. This is not the case for Cinna. The first time he is seen in the book, he is described as wearing a simple black shirt with matching pants. His one strange fashion choice is gold eyeliner, which brings out the gold flecks in his green eyes and which Katniss describes as attractive. Other than that, Cinna looks very normal, with close-cropped natural dark brown hair and slightly dark skin. {The Hunger Games Wiki}
Cinna is very different from the other inhabitants of the Capitol; he does not use surgery to alter his features, wears simple black clothes, and leaves his hair its natural dark brown color, close cropped. His only evidenced feature is a slight touch of gold eyeliner that brings out the gold flecks in his eyes. {Wikipedia}
It’s true that Cinna’s description is vague. Cinna could be absolutely any race. I felt the lack of description was purposeful. Cinna could be a hero that looked like anyone. I can’t fault anyone too much for thinking he might look like them, however …
Really, fandom? You nearly make me want to revoke my love of this series with these comments! Especially those who pictured Cinna as “sweet and loving”–A statement that implies that Kravitz doesn’t look that way.
However, many fans get it
I admit that some of the casting of the movie surprised me, but not because of anyone’s race: well, I did think that Katniss should be a little more naturally olive-skinned, perhaps a little Middle Eastern-looking.
What bothered me about the casting of Cinna – initally – was Lenny Kravitz’s age. I pictured Cinna being much, much younger. The impression I got from the book was that he was not only a new stylist for the Games, but rather youthful and idealistic. But I’m quite excited to see Lenny Kravitz in this role, now. If anyone can pull off Cinna’s mixture of quiet, unassuming support and outright sabotage against the Capitol, it’s him.
I am generally pretty terrible at paying attention to author descriptions of characters–I end up picturing them one way and then later there will be some mention of blonde hair and I’ll think “What? She has brown hair” and I have to go back and find the description again.
So I was surprised when I first saw Rue, mostly because I had a hard time keeping her and Prim straight in the book (since Katniss keeps comparing Rue to Prim) so I’d pictured her looking just like Prim.
That said, my first instinct is to go back to the character description in the book, not to whine on Facebook about how the character looked different in my brain.
On the other hand, when I saw Cinna in the preview, he looked exactly like I’d pictured him while reading the book. Weird, huh? It’s always fascinating to me when other people picture a character completely differently in their heads. It sounds from some of the comments like people matched him in their heads to someone they knew on TV and pictured him that way. I’ve definitely done that when a character reminds me of someone I know. I would guess people have a tendency to picture people they already know when trying to assign a visual to a character.
Don’t “revoke [your] love of this series” over these comments. Just your love of the American reading public. It sure isn’t the books’ fault.
Interesting. I really don’t see how a person could have missed that both Thresh and Rue were black. I thought it was made pretty clear that the majority of Rue’s district was black…or am I bringing in info from later books? Seriously, though, I also don’t see how someone could mix her up with Prim. Reading the comments is kind of making me question people’s ability to comprehend what they are reading.
Let me just say that I thought casting Lenny Kravitz as Cinna was genius, pure GENIUS. He can totally do that contained, yet flamboyant personality. I haven’t seen him act before, but I hope he can pull it off, because it could be soooo great. Can’t wait to see it.
The facebook comments make me really sad. What matters most about all of these characters is, well…..their character! Let’s say the author created a land of nothing but blonde-haired blue-eyed, pale-skinned people. It would be super boring and a pretty dull idea, yes. But let’s say someone made that into a movie and used all African-American characters instead. Who cares? Their personality, their struggles, the plot, that’s what matters, and that would still come through in the movie. In all honesty, I pictured Cinna looking just like Jay Manuel from America’s Next Top Model (I guess I subconsiously paid attention to the racially ambiguous description). I think Lenny Kravitz will be great!
I’m psyched to see both these characters! The world needs to shut UP. Rue seems perfectly cast, I can totally see how she would capture Katniss’ heart. She looks so tiny and innocent and woefully out of place among the brutal violence. I definitely want to protect her, and all I’ve seen is the one poster. I can never complain about more Lenny Kravitz in my life.. Interestingly enough, his daughter is one of the only black characters in X-men: First Class (but don’t get me started on that movie and their lack of black superheroes. My boyfriend and I had a big long rant about it. He said it SUCKED not seeing black superheroes as a kid. It still sucks at 23.)
I read the Hunger Games books several years ago and was following the whole casting of the movie closely. I was rather surprised by how many fans didn’t recognize that Rue was black. I wonder if has anything to do with the fact that her personality doesn’t play into the stereotypical black girl tropes, (sassy, outspoken, big attitude).
Annother point of contention in the casting process was that Katniss is described as having olive skin and dark hair, and probably could have been played by actress of any number of ethnic backgrounds but the casting slide were for white girls only and when this was criticized both the author, Suzanne Collins and the actress playing her (Jeniffer Lawrence) made it seem like the fans hated her for having blond hair. You can read more about it here: http://www.racebending.com/v4/tag/hungergames/
One of the interesting things about this whole discussion is that people are doing exactly what real readers do – they are creating mental pictures of the characters and, to take it a step further, are becoming attached to the characters. This speaks a lot to Collins’ writing style that she can create such vibrant characters that people care about. And the fact that people are making these connections, speaks to the fact that they are intelligent, active readers.
The problem is when we insist that “my mental picture is better than your mental picture” because we build these mental pictures from the text and what we, as readers, already know. These are extremely personal images and to expect that any actor could even come close to what we all imagined is a bit absurd.
The books are the books. The movie is the movie. As much as I would love to have the film look just like I have created it in my head, it’s just not going to happen. So, enjoy the book and your relationship to Cinna, Rue, Katniss, Peeta, etc. and let the movie speak for itself. Form new relationships with the movie. Just enjoy the ride. It will, no doubt, be great.
Allison,
Although it’s true that we build “mental pictures from the text” and all bring our unique experiences to bear, it’s interesting and problematic that the readers referenced in this piece managed to ignore the text that indicated Rue is inarguably black and that Cinna may not be white. And then there’s the judgmental, and dare I say racist, valence to these comments, like “ew, since when was he black”; “he better acted [sic] like a great Cinna to make up for his looks”; “at first I was all sad and like ‘she’s black’!” To say nothing of all the comments about how Kravitz can’t possibly play Cinna because he’s not “sweet and loving” or “will be able to reenact Cinna’s calm temper and quiet personality”–personally, I find it very difficult to believe that these comments don’t reflect the commenters’ own biases about black men. And this, I think, is the author’s point–not that the movie should reflect all of our individual mental images, but that a portrayal that attempts to be authentic to the book’s words is received with such disgust. These fans’ appreciation of the book really seems to be for a book that they have “whitened” in their heads.
I’m wondering if the readers are absorbing every exact detail of the book. While reading I knew that Rue was brown skinned and that is how I pictured her. A beautiful slender little brown skinned girl. And Cinna is spot on too! I love that fact that there are a variety of races in the Hunger Games!
Could it be possible that some people are limited in what they can realistically imagine based on limited data? I think this happens to me when I’m reading sometimes. I grew up in an area with very few black (are people saying that now?) people. It seemed as though there was always only one or two in each school I attended. I wonder if perhaps this has crippled in some small way my ability to construct a generic image when presented with the prompt to “imagine a black person.” Could there be an insufficient supply of faces to come up with all the requisite parts? I can do it if taxed, of course, but it is much much easier to imagine a caucasian person for me. I think it would interesting to probe how the brain actually constructs these images that we see when reading. Perhaps if the brain is given a cue that would require too much effort and it interprets the cue as non-essential (e.g. physical details in reading) it will dismiss a “challenging” cue and proceed to create a character from a stock image it has handy. Just a thought. On a personal note, I am not particularly familiar with Lenny Kravitz but I think the poster of Cinna looks lovely. Cinna was a favorite character for me in the book (although it seems unfair to make a character that seemingly had no flaws whatsoever a favorite).
This post inspired me to go back and re-read the books, this time with the actors and actresses in mind… I am SO excited to see Lenny Kravitz play Cinna.
Whenever I do a search on Twitter for “Rue” and “Black”, I’m guaranteed to come across at least 3 people who’ve recently posted something like, “Rue is black? Since when? That’s not what the book says! Didn’t see that coming” along with a bunch of other ignorant comments.
I find it so hurtful and ridiculous. How is that that this is the ONE descriptor that everyone missed? Sometimes I’m not sure if I should blame the reading comprehension of readers, or if I should blame Suzanne Collins for having a poor writing style when it comes to describing minorities.
Then you have those who clearly saw the description, but altered it in their minds to say, “Well… maybe she’s Italian!” Basically, they’re saying, “make her ANYTHING but black because that’s a pill that I just can’t swallow”.
Black women just can’t seem to win in the media and it breaks my heart to see this happen to them. If we are to truly follow the text, Rue was described as having the “same dark brown skin” as Thresh. But we all know what would’ve happened if a truly dark-skinned girl were to have been cast as Rue.
For me, I’m willing to accept the idea that people were confused since Suzanne Collins made several references comparing Rue to Prim and today’s generation (being just basic readers) not being able to discern what “stature” means. What I can’t accept is when the ‘proof’ is placed in front of them and they continue to deny the fact that Rue was not written as a white girl. THIS, to me, screams ugly racism. And it’s ALL OVER the net.