Why is There a Race Controversy over the Hunger Games?

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have not, nor do I plan to, read the Hunger Games. It might be a great book, but the concept doesn’t interest me. I will eventually see the movie because I want to see what all the hoopla is about, but I’m not in a rush so I may not see it until it comes to my local Red Box.


Yesterday, I saw several Twitter comments about racist reactions to Cinna, Thresh and Rue in the Hunger Games movie. Some people were genuinely outraged because of the actors who played the parts. Lenny Kravitz played Cinna. I don’t know how anyone could object to seeing him on screen, but whatever. I want to focus on the youngest person targeted by online ignorance. Rue was played by a black actress. I did a little research and found that the book describes Rue as having dark brown skin. I hate to burst people’s bubbles, but a black actress would definitely qualify as “dark brown.” I’m sorry that Rue wasn’t portrayed by a white actress. I guess we should say shame on the director and the casting agent for actually selecting someone who was dark brown. Why couldn’t they pick someone who was beige or tan? Well for starters, the character was described as dark brown and um, beige and tan are not dark brown. Of course there are other minority groups that contain members who could fill the shoes of a “dark brown” character, but they picked a black actress. Get over it!

It infuriates me that people are so ignorant. It’s bad enough that people were disgusted by the fact that Rue was black, but it became worse when racial epithets were used. I wish people would wake up and accept the fact that we are living in a multicultural society. We have to find a way to respect each other. Judgment of a movie shouldn’t be based on the race of a character. Movies should be evaluated based on the acting, the plot, the filming, etc. Brandy and Whitney Houston’s version of Cinderella might not have had the best acting or the best story, but I loved the movie because of the message that it sent. The movie had a hodgepodge of different races playing family members and Brandy played Cinderella, which was a far cry from the blonde hair blue eyed Cinderella of the past. It was a movie that said: it doesn’t matter how you look because we are all people. The racist tweets about the Hunger Games definitely point to a few people who missed the memo.