Recently I saw The Hunger Games in theaters. Being a fan of the books before the movie came out, I was really excited to see all of the characters come to life on screen. My expectations were exceeded by the set, the cast, the acting, the screenplay….the production as a whole. I thought the film was one of the best adaptations of a novel that I have seen to date. There were some others, however, who did not agree with my sentiments.
Some found the movie to be a disappointment because some of the characters were cast with black actors. Apparently, they did not have the reading comprehension to realize that these characters were described as being “dark-skinned” in the book. Not that it even matters, AT ALL. Whether or not the characters were described as being black should be a non-issue. And if it was an issue for any reader, they completely missed the point of the entire book, and the entire trilogy, to be honest. The sheer fact that the race of the actors is even an issue to them, particularly a negatively viewed issue is completely embarrassing.
Here are some examples of some disgusting tweets (in bold) from some narrow minded hunger games fans/bigots and my thoughts on them:
“I was pumped about the Hunger Games. Until I learned that a black girl is playing Rue.”
I was pumped about being a Hunger Games fan. Until I had to be associated with people like you.
“Kk call me a racist but when I found out rue was black her death wasn’t as sad #ihatemyself.”
Okay, YOU ARE A RACIST. At least you said one thing that made sense. It came after the hash tag, by the way.
“Cinna and Rue weren’t supposed to be black…Why did the producer make all the good characters black?”
They were, actually. It says so. In the book. That you “read.”
“EWW Rue is black?? I’m not watching”
How did you think that equating black to “EWW” was okay? Ever? Rue isn’t EWW. Your hateful rhetoric is EWW.
“Why is rue a little black girl? #sticktothebookDUDE”
Read the book, DUDE.
Okay. So I may be a little harsh. But seriously….if there is any time people deserve harsh comments…its times like these.
This is scary because the majority of these hateful comments came from people in the young, up and coming generation. Future leaders, future parents, future teachers, future contributing citizens of society. I only hope that these people realize that the way they are thinking and behaving is wrong, and hurtful, and destructive. I understand that racism will never totally be eradicated because we will always have people who want to project blame and hate onto others because they are too weak or scared to own blame themselves. But we can at least try, and try harder.