Greetings and salutations, before we get into all this, uh, this video's been brought to you by NordVPN. Thanks to NordVPN for sponsoring this... um... thirty minute nightmare. It’s September 14th, 2008. Scholastic Press publishing has released the first installment in Suzanne Collins’ sci-fi
adventure trilogy The Hunger Games. The book’s partly inspired by the
myth of Theseus and the Minotaur in which children are sent as sacrifices into
a labyrinth to be devoured by a bloodthirsty... you guessed it: minotaur. This was done to stave off a
plague that had befallen Athens. In the world of The Hunger Games, two children
from twelve districts are sent to The Capitol, the wealthiest and most
inaccessible part of the country, to be killed for the entertainment of rich people as punishment to the districts
for uprising years earlier. The Hunger Games would get a lot of comparisons
to the masterpiece Battle Royale to the point that Collins’ name would occasionally be
eviscerated online for shits and giggles. But besides the initial concept, the
stories are very different and they’re also both basically Theseus and the Minotaur
and the 10th Victim, the Elio Petri film about something called The Big Hunt, a game show
where spectators watch hunters kill prey. [gratuitous deep inhale] So whatever. When it was published, 50,000 copies of the book
were released and that number continued to climb. Suffice it to say it was very fucking popular. It’s March 2009, a few months after the release of
the first book, and the production company Color Force has acquired the rights to adapt the book
to film and Lionsgate enters the deal with them. And this is where our story starts. The Hunger Games rollout happened pretty fast. The first book was released in 2008 and by
2015, just seven years later, the last of the trilogy’s movie adaptations had grossed
over 600 million dollars at the box office. The movie counterparts marked the beginning of a wave of YA Dystopian novels
adapted for the big screen. Right after this first installment,
we’d get adaptations of Ender’s Game, The Maze Runner, The 5th Wave and many more. Out of all of them, Hunger Games was the
most competent and fulfilling series. But we’re not there yet. We’re here on April 4th of 2011, Lionsgate
announces the official casting of three actors. Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, Josh Hutcherson -- who publicly campaigned
for his part -- as Peeta Mallark and Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne. And fans are excited. No, I’m kidding, a lot of them were really mad. I'm absolutely heartsick right now. Gary Ross and Nina Jacobson have completely ruined
this amazing book with such horrible casting. Josh will never be my Peeta!
What a disappointment! I have no enthusiasm for
this movie at all anymore. This is the biggest fail since
Charlie Sheen's Warlock tour. I will not support this doomed project. For God's sake Josh is terrible! Hunter Parrish
as Peeta would be a thousand times better. Terrible casting all around! None of
them are right. What a disappointment. OH MY GOD I HATE THIS CASTING! Peeta and Gale's casting
people should be switched! Peeta is a blonde buff guy
like the guy casted for Gale! And Gale is dark haired like the
guy casted -- cated -- for Peeta! I hope they're willing to get their hair dyed! Also Katnis is supposed to have long, dark hair,
not medium-length blonde hair and by the way I think she looks way too old to play Katniss too! The casting is all wrong! Also, I heard some old guy is playing Haymitch! NOOOOO! Johnny Depp or someone
like that is perfect for that role! OH MY GOD THIS IS ALL WRONG! I HATE IT BECAUSE I LOOOOOOVE THIS BOOK IT'S MY FAVORITE BOOK EVERRRRRR!!!!!!!!! Jesus Christ... Casting has always sparked
controversy among fandoms. Whether its people having ulcers over
Robert Pattinson playing Edward Cullen or people having ulcers over
Robert Pattinson playing Batman, casting is a thing that
causes a lot of excitement. It should be said before I get into all of the
stuff that’s about to unfold that generally, fandoms are disdainful of all casting decisions. It is impossible to satisfy them. Josh Hutcherson is too brunette,
he couldn’t possibly dye his hair? What even is bleach? Did you make that up? Liam Hemsworth couldn’t possibly play Gale, he’s blonde? There’s no such thing
as hair dye, stop lying to yourself. And Jennifer Lawrence, among
other things, couldn’t possibly play Katniss because she can’t dye her
hair and her ribcage isn’t protruding. Ugh, this is all messed up. But eventually, Josh grew on people. At
the time that he was announced as Peeta, I was honestly really excited because Josh was
exactly who I envisioned Peeta looking like. Short and stocky with a friendly smile. Are
you kidding me? Who else was it gonna be? Awwww. No. More castings would be announced
and a few days later on April 18th 2011, characters Rue and Thresh would be cast
by actors Amandla Stenberg and Dayo Okeniyi. For the most part, the response was good. The publications that posted about the
casting choices don’t have comments on them and the few that do have one or
two comments, are thankfully positive. A lot of fans seemed to really like Amandla as
Rue. And when you go to a video that ClevverTV posted about the casting, many of the comments
were people expressing sadness not because Amandla was cast but because she was so cute,
people didn’t want to see her character die. While it may seem as if there was no
backlash until after the movie came out which almost never happens, once upon a time, these casting
announcements were made on news sites and the posts were flooded with outrage. Since those comments -- and all
comments -- have since been removed, the full scope of anger is missing from history. But you can still find a few comments on
YouTube videos that included the announcement. And even on those old fan cast videos. Going back to look at those dream casts,
I found that, more often than not, a white actress was chosen for Rue. And the rare videos that included a black actress
for the role would get comments like these: I also imagined Rue as white thus her resembling
Prim...I think that's why it was confusing. Rue was supposed to have olive skin. *OLIVE.* I'm
sure this was just done for political correctness! Ugh, that's Rue? I'm sorry but she doesn't
seem like Rue. I thought Rue would have lighter hair. Dude! I think it's perfect. Not what I
thought Thresh would look like but still. I imagined a big buff white dude as him. "The boy tribute from District 11,
Thresh, has the same dark skin as Rue but the resemblance stops there." They were in the minority and their
racism went unseen by the mainstream. It wasn't until after the movie was released
on March 23, *2012* (not 2011, you dumb fuck) that Twitter started to do what Twitter does The difference between the
disappointment surrounding Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth is that A) people weren't being racist and B) No one took screenshots. The thing is Rue and Thresh were
described as being black in the book. Or, okay, if you want to get technical about it:
they were described as having dark brown skin. And I know that the Hunger Games thing
with District 11 is very messy stuff. I might handle that in a different
video all together because there's so much to unpack there. The only character cast with a Black
actor whose skin color wasn’t described as being brown or any other
color for that matter was Cinna. but if you’re complaining about
Lenny Kravitz being cast in a movie, that sounds like a you problem. As in a you have no taste problem. Why is Cinna Black?! There’s been a long-standing history
in Hollywood to replace characters of color with white characters or
to keep the characters' race the same but have those characters
still played by white actors. In recent years, we’ve seen this most frequently
with American live action anime adaptations. Changing Light Yagami to Light Turner, casting Justin Chatwin as Goku and a tree playing Motoko Kusanagi. And that’s just the newer stuff
because this dates back decades. The list is exhaustive. The movie Hud, for which the leading
actress Patricia Neal won an Oscar. In the book, this character was originally Black. This was changed because the
producers didn’t think it was possible for a Black woman to be so desired. In Pay it Forward, Kevin Spacey’s
character was, in the book, a Black man. In the adaptation process, it was
decided that he wasn’t anymore. And in Warm Bodies, the character played by Analeigh Tipton was described in
the book as being half Ethiopian. But I guess that didn’t work for the story. And literally no one who read Warm Bodies
pre film adaptation seemed to mind. Although Lavender Brown, a character in the Harry Potter series, was never described
as any particular race or color, she was initially cast in the
movies with Black actresses. Twice. But when it came time for Lavender to have a speaking part and to play a
more important role in the story, she was replaced with a white actress. While a lot of fans did have gripes with
this installment in the film franchise, none of those qualms had anything to
do with Lavender suddenly being white. It’s likely that no one noticed and it’s
just as likely that anyone who did notice simply didn’t care. So, characters like Rue and Thresh,
if they’d been cast with white actors, would have been far from the first characters
in the history of cinema to be whitewashed. The sad thing is that if
they had been whitewashed, the fans wouldn’t even have noticed
because clearly few of them, despite being such “huge” fans of
the Hunger Games series seemed to pick up on the key descriptions
of the characters to begin with: My guess is that the Einsteins
who “read” the book lacked reading comprehension skills and dismissed the
first part in favor of the second part where Katniss says Rue reminds her of
Prim *because* of her size and demeanor. So, Rue was always a black character. And
it was one of the few and first times that such a character was cast with an actor
who somewhat matches the description. Because colorism. Put a pin in that. But despite these characters and the color
of their skin literally being described more than once, a section of Hunger Games fans
were still unreasonably surprised because white fans in particular are very used to being the only
kind of people who exist in their favorite books. And this is especially true with
science fiction and fantasy novels. Western literature in general tends to center
white writers and, in doing so, centers whiteness. How many times have you found yourself reading a book and noticing when an author
describes a character as being Black or Asian or Hispanic? It feels sudden not only because this is the first
character of color you've come across in the book but because no other characters have
had their race or skin color described. And you realize: "Oh. They don't need the description because
they are understood to be white." This technique makes whiteness the standard, the default and it effectively
others anything that isn't that. In 2012, one of my all time
favorite writers Zadie Smith released her fourth novel NW. It follows four different characters and it’s a
pretty experimental book with some passages being written in third person, others in first
person and varying narrative techniques. But my favorite element about the novel is that Smith doesn’t describe the race of
any character unless they’re white, effectively subverting what
has become an accepted norm in western literature of whiteness
being the neutral or default. When asked about her decision
to do this, Smith said: "I grew up reading a generation of American
and English people like Bellow, Updike or Amis. Everybody's neutral unless they're black — then
you hear about it: the black man, the black woman, the black person. Of course, if you happen
to be black the world doesn't look that way to you. I just wanted to try and create perhaps a
sense of alienation and otherness in this person, the white reader, to remind them that
they are not neutral to other people." That same year that the first Hunger Games
film was released, casting choices for the film adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s novel The
Mortal Instruments: City of Bones was announced. In July, news broke that the late and great
actor Godfrey Gao was going to play Magnus Bane. Again, most fans were happy with this casting.
But there were others who were extremely upset that an Asian character was
being played by an Asian actor. What is y'all's thing with Adam
Lambert? Can we please stop? You did! On Tumblr, Cassandra Clare was asked
by a fan if she could please explain to her racist fans why an Asian actor
was going to play an Asian character. Because there seemed to be a
lot of confusion on Facebook. Cassandra Clare said: “...I am
confused about the confusion. They want an Asian actor to play
Magnus because Magnus is Asian…” She went on to show sections of
what she’d written in the book, lines that clearly point out Magnus is half
Indonesian and speaks Indonesian a few times. She couldn’t have made it any clearer that
Magnus was not white. Or not only white. “I remember being told early on in the whole
movie process (before I sold the rights) that I should be wary about having
written a biracial character, because if there is any excuse
to cast a character as white, even if they are not, even if they are
only half, Hollywood will take it…” “The general assumption that is always made
about characters is that they are white. I am constantly asked if Jem is Chinese,
even though he is from Shanghai and speaks Mandarin and says he is Chinese and is portrayed
on the cover of the book by a half-Chinese model. Apparently the idea he might not be white is
just that startling. And why is it startling? Because of things like whitewashing. Because
if mainstream media can take an opportunity to accord more privilege to the already privileged,
and make everybody white, by and large they will. And every time it happens, it contributes to the
problem and makes sure the problem lasts longer. So why are they casting Asian actors
for Magnus? Because Magnus is Asian.” For centuries, art has featured
white people as the primary subjects. Whiteness is considered by many to be the default. Studios don’t question whether a teenage black girl will be able to relate to a
story about a teenage white girl. It’s not even considered. They ask if white girls will be able to relate to
black girls and then decide they can't, which ends in black girls getting little to no light-hearted
stories about high school or coming of age. The reason often given for these
decisions is that white people are incapable of relating to
characters that aren’t white. Which sounds like a load of shit given Hollywood’s
history of telling stories about black, Asian and Indigenous characters
while having white actors play them. The popularity of the story of Othello, the
popularity of movies like The Conquerer, the infamous film about Genghis Khan
where he’s played by John Wayne, are testaments to the truth that
white audiences have always been interested in stories about people
of a different race and culture. Perhaps, the distinction is
that they’ve always been more comfortable with white actors playing these roles. With the exception of Ira Aldridge, it was
the norm for white actors to play Othello. In fact, the first instance of a
Black actor, Laurence Fishburne, playing Othello in a mainstream
studio film wouldn’t be until 1995. So, even when characters are explicitly described
as being Black or Asian, you’ll still have white audience members who ask if that’s really
their race and if it actually matters. Some people are so used to
whiteness being the default, they view it as the norm and any deviation
from that norm is looked at with suspicion. Every time there’s been a case of
whitewashing in anime for instance and people of color are rightfully upset
about having an opportunity taken from them, there’s always a counter defense
from white audience members. It gets to a point that they’ll claim characters
with Japanese names who live in Japan and speak Japanese are actually white and that anyone
who watches anime would be able to see that. Then at the same time, they say that
race shouldn’t matter at all unless it’s pertinent to the story. And if a Black
character is leading a film where the theme isn’t centered around their race, people
will get upset and claim the character’s only Black because of political correctness.
Because people who aren’t white only exist because of political correctness and not because
we were born into the world like everyone else. The whole thing with only casting people of
color if their race is important to the story is how we get so many movies and books about
how hard it is to be a person of color. We get stories with a mostly Black cast where it’s
all about Black trauma and Black pain because, even though our experiences with race will
never disengage from our everyday life, stories about Black people just existing without their race being the main focus is seen
as an unnecessary result of PC culture. After scouring social media to see if I could find
more reactions to the Rue situation around that time period, I found one who read the Hunger
Games and did see that description of Rue. And they straight up admitted that although
they saw that the character had dark brown skin, they just kind of assumed Suzanne Collins meant
olive skin, that Rue was Sicillian or something. And, you know, I guess that’s valid but I feel
like if Suzanne Collins wanted to write that Rue had an olive skin tone, she would have just
written that she had an olive skin tone... You know, kinda like she
did with Katniss and Gale? Don't know how one substitutes
olive for dark brown but okay. Most of the racist outrage we
see with casting choices today come with the news of actors of color
playing traditionally white characters. Which makes this case so bizarre because apart from writing that Rue was
Black every other sentence, I’m not sure how Suzanne Collins could have
made it more obvious that she was Black. For that piece of information though, some
people just refused to acknowledge it. When all the racist attacks were going on, there was one YouTube commenter who
summed up the reactions pretty well: The racist reactions to a black character being played by a black actress
was obviously unwarranted and incredibly fucking stupid. Authors were panicking about how
their readers were perceiving their obviously Black coded characters, teachers across the country
were scrambling to reintroduce basic reading comprehension
skills into their curriculum. Guys, it was cataclysmic. And the thing is, at the end of the day, although a Black actress was chosen for the
part, the casting directors still got it wrong. Let’s return to the descriptions of Rue, shall we? “She’s the twelve year old, the one
that reminded me so of Prim in stature. Up close she looks about ten. She has
bright, dark eyes and satiny brown skin.” "She has dark brown skin..." Yes, Rue is a dark-skinned black girl. The racism toward her character didn’t begin nor did it end with Amandla
Stenberg being in the movie. It began in the casting room where the decision was made to cast a light-skinned
biracial actress for the role. And, you know, props to Amandla because I
do think she brought Rue to life beautifully but that doesn’t change the
fact that her casting was yet another instance of a dark-skinned
actress being erased from a film. On one hand, the filmmakers did a
disservice to Rue by casting her this way and on the other, I know that had
she been a little dark-skinned girl, the vitriol and racism the actress
received would have been ten times worse. One of the tweets that popped up read: “When I
found out Rue was Black her death wasn’t as sad.” Comments like these were just the
tip of the iceberg of a larger issue. The issue being that Black girls are perceived
to be less innocent than white girls and that dark skinned Black girls are perceived to be
less innocent that light skinned Black girls. There’s an actual study confirming that
and I recommend everyone reading it. Girlhood Interrupted: The
Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood focuses on the adultification of young Black
girls and how, as early as five years old, they’re perceived to be older and
less innocent and more culpable. “Across all age ranges, participants viewed Black
girls collectively as more adult than white girls. Responses revealed, in particular, that
participants perceived Black girls as needing less protection and nurturing than white
girls, and that Black girls were perceived to know more about adult topics and are more
knowledgeable about sex than their white peers.” “...beginning as early as 5 years of age, Black girls were more likely to be viewed as
behaving and seeming older than their stated age; more knowledgeable about adult topics,
including sex; and more likely to take on adult roles and responsibilities than what
would have been expected for their age.” In 2013, Quevenzhane Wallis became the
youngest person to be nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role at the Academy Awards.
Leading up to this and following it, she was constantly ridiculed by the media. Her name was
mocked, she became a punching bag for certain celebrities and news outlets. The Onion made a
headline calling her a cunt. At nine-years-old! Why, you might be wondering, did such a thing
happen to other young nominees? Like Anna Paquin for instance? No. This little Black girl, for some
reason, was perceived by many to be a grown woman. "Had you watched Annie as a little girl?" "When I heard that they were --
well, I'm still a little girl." "Those of lighter skin are
awarded social and economic privileges because of their closer
phenotypic resemblance to whites and their assumed superior social value
relative to their darker-skinned counterparts." And here's how that translates into Hollywood: That racial empathy gap makes them
believe it is impossible for white audiences to relate to anyone who's Black
and especially to anyone who is dark-skinned. So if they have to cast a Black girl as
a lead in a movie, more often than not, they will cast a light-skinned actress because
they are perceived to be "white adjacent." Example: The Hate U Give. I remember
being very upset when Amanda Stenberg was cast in the role of Starr Carter
because Starr is a dark-skinned girl. You see that in the descriptions
of herself, in the descriptions of her mother and Uncle Carlos where she
singles them out as having light skin. You see it on the fucking cover of the book. And, yet, this is who they cast. "Scholars have noted that skin complexion is more consequential for Black
women's lives than Black men's. Intersectionality theory provides a lens through which we can understand how light
skin affords special advantages and opportunities to African American
women in ways that it does not for men." Hence, Thresh is allowed to be played
by a dark-skinned actor and Rue is not. For a lot of filmmakers, biracial is the default
for Blackness. This is most evident with Netflix originals where any and all Black girl characters
are as light or lighter than a paper bag. And, again, most of the time, this is with women. Because when you see Black male actors on
screen, a lot of the time, they are allowed to be dark-skinned. They're allowed to have Black
features and it's not made a big deal out of. You see this dichotomy with the
casting of Thresh and Rue respectively. Thresh is described in the book as having the
same dark brown skin as Rue. For the movie, Thresh was permitted to be played by
an actor matching this description while Rue was lightened for the
appeasement of white audiences. Funnily enough, one of the few
times in YA film adaptations that a biracial actor was cast as a
biracial character was for the film Everything, Everything. And they still got it wrong! Maddy in Everything, Everything is half Black
and half Japanese but again Amandla Stenberg was given the part even though she is not Asian,
how do you guys keep getting this wrong?! It's a good time to talk about Thresh. While there was some upset
about Thresh being Black, you might have noticed that a lot of the vitriol
was directed towards Rue, towards Amandla. As a character, Thresh keeps to himself, keeps quiet and is known for his huge
stature that sees him towering over everyone. It appeared to be more palatable to white
fans to see a Black man playing such a role. It’s evident that a good portion
of the vitriolic reactions to Rue’s “surprise” Blackness was that people
-- the racists -- literally could not compute with the idea of Rue being this sweet,
innocent little girl and also being Black. Katniss constantly compares Rue to her sister
Primrose. They both share flower names, they're both twelve years old, they share
the same small stature and the same big eyes and the same innocence and Katniss wants to
do everything she can to protect them both. Every time Rue is described, Katniss
makes a note of her tiny figure. She’s so young and so tiny and so sweet. “Rue, who is dressed in a gossamer gown complete
with wings, flutters her way to Caesar. A hush falls over the crowd at the sight of this magical
wisp of a tribune. Caesar is very sweet with her, complimenting her seven in training,
an excellent score for one so small.” Some readers were wholly incapable of holding the
fact that she was Black along with the fact that she was so innocent and angelic. For certain
readers, it could only be one or the other. Perhaps most disheartening is the defense
that came to these young, prejudiced... and frankly, stupid people. When they were rightfully called out
for being racist, the defense was: "No, these kids aren't racist! They're using
racial slurs and implying that Black lives don't matter as much as white lives but they're
not being racist! Where'd you get that from?" And it's like, dude...just call it what it is. This one person on Reddit made a fantastic
point about bigoted readers and writers: "I create my picture of them
based on their personality." That's exactly the problem though. Even 'making
your own picture,' you defaulted to light skin, blonde hair and blue eyes for no reason at
all. It's good that you don't rage about it like these people in the article but
deep-seeded white bias so prevalent in society is what's really disheartening
and kinda fucked up about it all." And they were downvoted! "Why are you booing me? I'm right!" And that’s how you get people screaming
that Rue can’t be Black and now that she is “suddenly” Black, her race detracts from her
innocence and now that she is “suddenly” Black, they can’t feel any sadness about her death. There are people who have argued that
the kids who tweeted those racist things weren't racist and meant no harm,
that they were just surprised. You don't need me to tell you that
surprised people don't just drop racist ideologies and slurs
when they're surprised. And if they do, it's because they're racist. Some of the blame for this incident fell
on the shoulders of Suzanne Collins. The fans that were called out for their tweets
defended themselves by saying they thought dark/satiny brown skin meant olive skin. And some insisted that it was easy to overlook
the description because it was "too brief." As someone who has read all of
three books in my life time: Slaughterhouse Five, Hunger
Games and What Would Keanu Do?, I feel safe in saying that most physical
descriptions of characters are short and sweet. The ones that aren't are either
Wattpad fiction or they're Moby Dick. No in between. For the sake of this excuse
though, I decided to re-read to determine how many descriptions
there are of, say, Peeta's Blond hair. Because that had a lot of people fired up, right? I'm absolutely heartsick right now. So, I read the book and, by the
way, I did restrict it to just Book One because, I mean, Rue
only appears in Book One so I thought it'd be fair to just do the first
one. Maybe that doesn't make sense, I dunno. And, uh, anyway, that description of Peeta
having blond hair, it shows up twice. Do you know what else showed up twice? Okay then, I thought, alright, how many times did they
describe Katniss, for instance, as having dark brown hair and olive toned skin? Because that's
something that a lot of people seem to remember 'cause they point it out all the fucking time. And would you believe it? This vague and brief description shows up once. So, Suzanne Collins established
that Peeta had blond hair twice. She established that Gale and Katniss
had olive toned skin and dark hair once. And she established that Katniss'
mother and her sister Primrose had light eyes and light hair twice. And that is something
everyone seems to remember but the fact that Rue and Thresh have dark brown skin which was established twice and once respectively, technically three times if
we're counting the time it described Thresh because it was used
to describe Rue as well or whatever, no one could remember that. Why is that? No, it's a rhetorical question. It's the racism. There's really no happy ending here. There's no moral, there's no way to tie it all up in a pretty
bow. It's just racism and racism tends to have no rhyme or reason. All you can say is
that this happened and it was awful. And that's it. The question often posed in
light of this whole thing was, "Well, where does it say
these characters are Black?" And to be completely fair, the characters
of Rue and Thresh, as they are described, aren't necessarily Black. They were confirmed to be Black by Suzanne Collins but they
could have been Indian, for instance. What we know for sure, regardless, is
that they are definitely not white. The choice to base character descriptions
on skin color alone and not race means quite a few characters' races
become open to interpretation. So, ironically, because of that decision
to make whiteness neutral and the default, to make it the standard that goes
unsaid, I could ask the same question. Where does it say these characters are white?
Love Yhara Zayad!
This is a very good action movie, I will watch it
Same sort of thing happened with Dumbledore. His sexual orientation was never touched upon in the books and then when asked by a fan of he'd ever been in a relationship Rowling said he had with a guy and people lost their shit because they defaulted him to white so apparently clarifying something that was never touched on in the books but was contrary to the default means she must have changed something.