Aversive racism + lack of reading comprehension
Yet another fandom has recently been rocked by shocking news of character blackness: Click for evidence of how far we as a society have not come The linked post collects evidence of racefail, plus some gayfail in case the skeevy race issues weren't disappointing enough.
Two significant characters in The Hunger Games are obviously described as being black in the book. One of them is in the first wave of character posters for the upcoming movie, and some people who claim to have read the book are unhappy to discover that a black actress has been cast in that role. I do not understand how anyone who grew up in the US could have read the book and missed that Rue is supposed to be black. Apparently the white default is very, very strong. Furthermore, there are characters who are described in racially vague or ambiguous ways in the book, and one of them is to be played by Lenny Kravitz, in response to which news even more people are revealing the gross undersides of their flipped lids. Also, Cinna is a male character who designs clothing for female characters, so gay stereotyping abounds in the discussion.
This entry was originally posted at http://gryphonsegg.dreamwidth.org/47974.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Two significant characters in The Hunger Games are obviously described as being black in the book. One of them is in the first wave of character posters for the upcoming movie, and some people who claim to have read the book are unhappy to discover that a black actress has been cast in that role. I do not understand how anyone who grew up in the US could have read the book and missed that Rue is supposed to be black. Apparently the white default is very, very strong. Furthermore, there are characters who are described in racially vague or ambiguous ways in the book, and one of them is to be played by Lenny Kravitz, in response to which news even more people are revealing the gross undersides of their flipped lids. Also, Cinna is a male character who designs clothing for female characters, so gay stereotyping abounds in the discussion.
This entry was originally posted at http://gryphonsegg.dreamwidth.org/47974.html. Please comment there using OpenID.