The Hunger Games -- race and representation

[bronnyelsp]

I'm looking forward to seeing this but I didn't go on opening night because I decided I wanted to read all the books and watch the existing films first. Last week I re-read The Hunger Games and watched the film. Now I'm re-reading Catching Fire. Then I'll watch the film, then re-read Mockingjay and then go to the cinema. Now I just need to find

Comments

[tediousandbrief]

I hate it when I write long entries and no one responds to them.

I read this and wrote out some things Saturday, but I'm not sure if they add anything to the discussion (especially considering how I was feeling over this weekend) and am hesitant to post it. I found this rather interesting and brought up a number of things I really hadn't thought about before.

[bronnyelsp]

Aw, you've got enough going on. But if it interests you feel free to come back to it whenever you're feeling better. Or post a Hunger Games thing in your journal and I'll reply.

It got a lot longer than I had intended. If I had realised at the beginning how long it would get, I'd have LJ-cut!

[voxsjournal]

I hadn't thought of the "black savage" aspect before, but I'm not really convinced by it. I suppose Collins could have made him white, but I don't think there's a question that he had to be a big guy in order to fulfill his function in the story, and I think she wanted him and Rue to be from the same district, which provides for a stronger moment in the book when Katniss is on the Victory Tour, so, since it's clear in the books that the segregation which we have today exists in the future, then Rue would have most likely been white, too

[bronnyelsp]

This is the difficulty. The story being written the way it is, there's not much to object to about Thresh and Rue. But there's a deeper meta-conversation to be had about why the story is written the way it is.