warning: character death spoilers if you have not seen the movie or read the books

[sunoftheskye]

Racist Hunger Games Fans Are Very Disappointed

The good news? The Hunger Games made $155 million at the box office its opening weekend, making it the third-best debut in North American box office history.

As CNN reports, "Only Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and The Dark Knight - both sequels, with the strength of a franchise behind each

Comments

[longelateque]

Just seen this on tumblr, and now here.

I have never wanted to punch humanity in the face this bad, this week.

Seriously, Collins talks about Rue's family being dark and a lot of District 11 being African American.

[doverz]

They also fit the stereotype of a slave. Thresh couldn't speak proper English and worked in the fields all day.

[longelateque]

District 11 raises some interesting Racial connitations as a whole to be honest.

They are in the deep south, they work in fields, they are 'guarded' by men dressed all in white, in towers with guns, can't speak english and their race on top of this. It's all very set out in the book, if only these people would read it.

[capitol_barbie]

I never got the sense that the people of District 11 couldn't speak English. Where is this coming from in the book for you?

[longelateque]

Sorry, I wrongly worded that, that SOME people of D11 can't speak English - RE: Thresh's family.

[doverz]

Thresh certainly spoke broken English so there had to be other people in the District who did as well.

[capitol_barbie]

I didn't necessarily interpret his statements in THG as broken English so I think we can just have different opinions on that -- though I agree that he did speak in clipped, short phrases.

[lilyginny27]

I don't remember Thresh's family speaking broken English in the book. I thought his accent and manner of speaking was just the actor since he's from Nigeria and English is his second language.

[turkwriter]

I don't remember Thresh's family really speaking at all in the books. I also don't remember Thresh speaking in broken English at all. During his interview, he's mentioned as remaining mostly silent but that seemed to be just his personality to me? I don't have my book at hand at the moment but looking at the wiki for it, there are the following Thresh quotes:

"Just this one time, I let you go. For the little girl. You and me, we're even then. No more owed. You understand?"

and

"You better run now, Girl on Fire."

I mean, he doesn't speak formally or anything but it sounds like typical informal English to me. I haven't seen the movie yet so I can't attest to that though.

[dustbunny105]

It's definitely down to interpretation, because that first bit gives me the impression of someone who's ESL. I wouldn't exactly call it broken, though.

[thepuddingcook]

As an ESL teacher, not necessarily.

[dustbunny105]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that ESL speakers necessarily do speak like that. It's just that the word choice and cadence remind me enough of some of the ESL speakers I've known/spoken to that it's my first impression of the text.

[thepuddingcook]

Yeah, didn't get the broken English either, he just seemed to talk "big guy talk" (stereotypically)--short clipped phrases. Also that theory doesn't seem to hold since Rue's English was fine.

[capitol_barbie]

Yeah, plus I don't think anyone would be verbose after doing what he did to Clove. Also, Seeder and Chaff didn't have any problems in Catching Fire.

[quizzicalsphinx]

I sort of recall Thresh as speaking in an odd sort of dialect in the books, because I was listening for it in the movie. All in all I couldn't tell if they'd done away with the dialect for the film. He spoke in very short sentences, but then again, he was also very upset during his one speaking scene.

[13chapters]

I just read Catching Fire over the weekend and I don't think it states the location of District 11. (I haven't finished Mockingjay yet, so maybe it's in there?)