(In my best after school special voice) As an avid reader, and a black woman who was once a black girl and even then an avid reader I was pleased to read The Hunger Games. It’s not 1984 or anything, it’s one of those books like a light snack, you read it, it’s entertaining and you go on with your life. This series stuck out to me because it has a strong female character, Katniss Everdeen who takes care of her family in a dystopian future and goes on to kick ass in a kill or be killed reality show. I was especially pleased with this series because it is ethnically diverse, there are several black characters who play an integral, and noble part in the plot. The author Suzanne Collins is to be commended for including black characters and not turning them into total stereo-types.
Now I know that when I read an author’s description that it is up for interpretation. Katniss Everdeen was described as being olive-skinned. I have an aunt who is olive skinned. When the author describes a character Rue as dark-skinned, I picture someone who is more than likely of African descent. If the casting director for The Hunger Games had cast an Asian girl, or a white girl for the part I would not have gone on angry Twitter and Facebook rants over the fact. SPOILER ALERT: Rue is a young girl who is picked for the Hunger Games. Her character is shy, and innocuous. She helps Katniss and the two form an alliance. As a reader or viewer this is a tense relationship as there can only be one winner of the Hunger Games. Rue is killed and since she reminds Katniss of her younger sister she grieves for Rue. The actress is cute as a button, and it was sad to see her killed. Apparently for some white fans, they enjoyed seeing poor Rue die because she was black. Some fans went on Twitter and called her a “black bitch” and a “nigger”
That pisses me off to no end. I have students who look like this girl, cousins, hell, one day I may even have a daughter who looks like this. The fact that she will be thought of as those horrible words for no apparent reason other than her skin color just burns my ass.
So my question is, Why are some Hunger Games fans so pissed?
My theory is that since black people are either under-represented in the media or misrepresented, people of other races do not want to sympathize with us. In movies we are the comic-relief, the bug-eyed, wise-cracking clown when everything is serious. When the plane is rocking in ominous turbulence, we are the ones screaming “We gone die.” But then, we gladly sacrifice our lives, one tear falling for dramatic effect to save all the white folks. Our women are loose, but they can sing. Our men have an emotional range of pissed off to angry, or they dress in women’s clothes and get angry. We shoot hoops to let off steam or we rap and smoke weed. We rob convenience stores. Our elderly grin and give sage advice to help white kids. We sacrifice for them. Our children are Disney fodder, tokens to diversity the background. White viewers and readers are allowed to be lazy. Their interpretations are never wrong or even questioned.
So back to the book. When I as a black woman don’t see my interpretations realized, I am used to it. I have had to learn to love certain characters from books and movies by finding different ways to identify with them other than skin color. I love strong female characters. I will see any movie that features a writer as the main character. I love under dogs. Meanwhile it seems certain white people can only identify and sympathize with a character if they are white. Characters of other races are just so much fodder to be killed off, or used as plot points.
I read this awesome blog by Rebekah Weatherspoon and I enjoyed her sort of affirmation at the end so I am going to write one of my own:
I am black. I grew up in the rural South. Texas. I roasted weenies at night in the back yard, and chased fireflies. My grandmother told me ghost stories. My father is a fan of Western novels, and when I was four he read bits of Lonesome Dove to me and since then i have been in love with the written word. My mother stayed at home with the kids. She taught me how to bake all those Southern goodies. She loves music and yes she can sing, but I missed out on that gift. I have three sisters and one brother. We all have the same mother and father. We lived in a black neighborhood where there are many, many families like us. No one ever got shot in a drive-by. Dudes did not hang out on the corner. Everyone looked out for each other.
I got in trouble in school for drawing pictures on everything. All I wanted to do was read. I would climb the big willow in the back yard and read in the afternoon until the sun went down. I also loved and wanted to help animals. Once I nursed a fledgling hawk. I had a Chow mix named Bear who lived until I was a senior in high school. I started writing novels when I was fifteen years old on a Smith Corona type-writer. My Dad saw my interest and told me about the time he tried to write a western novel. He was my first writing coach. He bought the family a computer and I discovered the internet. I wanted to be like Stephen King and Anne Rice.
I graduated, went to college but I quit going because I wanted to write. I fell in love with a girl and went to live with her on my own. We were together for ten years but we divorced. My favorite movie is Silence of the Lambs and Kill Bill. My favorite books are A Clockwork Orange and Catcher in the Rye, they are by white men about white people. It was very clear that Ardelia Mapp was black.
I have a degree in Graphic Design but I teach art to disadvantaged students. They are just as smart and sweet and noble as the kids from the white schools. They need me and I need them. I like to listen to NPR. My favorite show is Mad Men, I want to boycott it but it is just too awesome. I also like Game of Thrones. I love Tori Amos, not even white people know who she is.
I’m finished with my rant.
Here is the article from Jezebel that got me started:
