Like many adult nerds who should probably be doing something better with their time, I've been following the casting news for the film adaptation of The Hunger Games. On the plus side, they've cast two really talented young actors and also that dude who dated Miley Cyrus. On the minus side, they took what could have been a minority lead in one of the biggest upcoming films and cast a white, blond actress. It's hard to argue too much with this casting; from what I've heard about Winter's Bone, Jennifer Lawrence has basically already played Katniss Everdeen, the main character in the books. She's been nominated for an Academy Award. In the realm of adaptations of children's books, she's a real catch. On the other hand, how many major motion pictures have people of color as main characters?
In the first book of the series, Katniss and Gale, her studly longtime friend, are described as having "straight black hair", "olive skin", and "gray eyes." In an otherwise softball interview that features questions like "How invigorating has this been for you Suzanne after several years of writing alone" (so invigorating, obviously), Entertainment Weekly did raise the issue of the race of the main character to the author, Suzanne Collins. Collins says, "They were not particularly intended to be biracial. It is a time period where hundreds of years have passed from now. There’s been a lot of ethnic mixing." So, we'll say "mixed race" rather than specifically biracial, as the interviewer put it. Collins goes on to say "I think I describe them as having dark hair, grey eyes, and sort of olive skin." Did we need the qualifier there? Instead of olive skin, they have "sort of" olive skin. Not to worry, though, because "You know, we have hair and makeup."
Can we all agree that using "hair and makeup" to make white actors less white is a bad idea? Of course, I can't pretend to know these characters as well as Collins does. They're her creation and as such, if she says they're white, then they are. I also understand that it's not exactly to anyone's benefit at this point for Collins to say that she disapproves of the casting. However, I do think her response in the interview came across as her backing off of her own description of these characters. I also don't think it's too surprising that a lot of people read the characters as being people of color.
In the weeks leading up the casting announcement, virtually every actress between the ages of 14 and 25 was suggested. Not a single one (that I saw in my very extensive research, obviously) was not white. Are there really no young actresses of color in Hollywood who could have been considered for the part? Bella Swan is white. Harry Potter is white. Percy Jackson is white. Katniss Everdeen is the only one who could easily have been cast differently.
As my esteemed friend Andrew pointed out, the term "olive skin" is often used to describe someone most of us would call Caucasian. It can mean Greek or Spanish. It can also mean Middle Eastern or South American. What rankles me is the opportunity lost more than anything else. How great would it have been for a young woman of color to portray someone this heroic? I don't think it's terribly controversial to say that we could do with some positive representations of people of color in these times of "anchor babies" and people claiming the president is a practicing Muslim.
