formerlybarbreyryswells:

foxxandthefeline:

Unlike most of the people I see on Tumblr, I am not still in school and have a full time job to deal with so this is the last time I’m going to bother trying to dispute those of you who seem to think you know better than the person who CREATED the character.

Suzanne Collins herself was not only present for the casting process, but actively participated in choosing who played the characters that SHE WROTE. So if she had pictured Katniss as a POC, I HIGHLY DOUBT she would have allowed them to ask for Caucasian females when they released the audition/casting details. Not to say it wasn’t racist for them to ask for Caucasian females specifically, but that was how Suzanne and the casting directors phrased it. 

To those of you who think Suzanne was pressured into it, do you honestly think Suzanne would have allowed herself to bend to that sort of pressure? She would have at least asked them to ALLOW girls of color to try out had she imagined Katniss that way. She is a strong woman who could have easily defended her choice of character’s race.

Not to mention, as I stated in the last post I wrote on the matter, she specifically said she never intended them to be bi-racial. 

Also “It’s in the future and things were moved around” while it may not have the same name, District 12 IS in the Appalachian Region, the region I currently live in. We simply do NOT have a lot of POC here. Racism is still very rampant is this area and it is not uncommon to hear foul terms like “nigger” spewed often. Even if this is futuristic, I can’t imagine an excess of POC moving here and producing a whole group of biracial people (The Seam people, who again, Suzanne said she never intended for them to be biracial)

Also, while yes, it is POSSIBLE for POC to produce offspring with grey eyes, it is not common. You can argue this point and tell me I don’t know anything about genetics (when in fact I made great grades in that particular section of all my biology classes throughout high school and college) all you want but the fact of the matter is brown eyes are dominant, and MOST POC (from ANY part of the world) tend to have brown eyes. In order to have blue or grey eyes (Prim & Katniss respectively) they would both have to have both recessive genes. With just them you can argue that since their father was similar to Katniss (and therefore had recessive traits himself) that this is possible, but for the WHOLE GROUP of seam people to look similar to them and still be considered POC, it just is not at all likely. Not to mention the fact that Suzanne herself said that she had never intended them to be that way. She was there and an active participant while Gale, Haymitch, and Katniss were all cast. All of them Caucasian. She still to this day say they did a wonderful job portraying HER characters.

So that is what it comes down to. Regardless of how you feel on the subject, the woman who wrote the books, and everyone who brought the books to life, imagined Katniss as Jennifer Lawrence portrayed her. The thought she was the best so they cast her in the role. A role which most of us out there seem to think she did an absolutely wonderful job with. Whether you like it or not she will continue to portray Katniss all through the series.

But hey, if you think you know better than the author herself and the casting directors, please continue with your ignorance. It really must be blissful. I’m going back to reblogging pictures of animals, beautiful women, awesome nature scenes, and user-made graphics from my respective fandoms (including the mostly white cast of THG) now. Feel free to keep whining about a cast that has already made MILLIONS with these movies. I’m sure they’re all real concerned about your opinions.

(Edited side note: The Hunger Games is NOT about the oppression of POC. If you notice, there were plenty of POC in the capitol. The Hunger Games is about the oppression of ALL people, and the rebellion that should ensue when we have our liberties taken away from us. It is, in it’s own way, a political statement about abuse of power. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE. STOP TWISTING IT INTO SOMETHING IT IS NOT. Also, yes, some of the other nameless tributes could, and possibly should have been POC, but the fact of the matter is, we have no idea why those particular people were chosen and there is nothing we can do to change the movie now that it has been made and released.) 

I don’t even know how to deal with this kind of bullshit in my tags anymore.

Suzanne said that they were mixed. She said that there has been ethnic mixing in the Seam and District 12. You know what she also said? She said that they can use makeup to show that ethnic mixing. That is blackface. This is not a woman to trust with racial affairs especially considering that she is white and thus privileged. [x]

Moreover, authorial intent is moot when interpreting a text. It is fucking moot. The text tells us that Katniss is a woman of color, what Collins says outside of the text to the otherwise does not matter.

Uncommon for PoC of gray eyes to exist, you say? Go to the Middle East. Go to Afghanistan and see the Pashtun people. Go to Turkey. Look at any light-skinned Latin@—or even medium to dark skinned for that matter—peoples and see how diverse their features are. The idea of PoC being solely dark-skinnned, dark-haired, dark-eyed people comes from a place of ignorance and inexperience with PoC themselves.

“The Hunger Games is NOT about the oppression of POC.” Delete your blog. Delete it now. District 11 serves as a metaphor for slavery. The people there are canonically black, canonically African American. They work in the fields. They work under merciless conditions. They are subjected to punishments of historical weight such as whipping. They are victim to police brutality. Moreover, there are unmistakable patterns of color in the books. Gale and Thresh are compared in text to each other in the first book. There’s a sense of owing respective to the Seam that the District 11 tributes also understand. Seeder who is explicitly African American is described as having the same olive skin as people of the Seam, so much so that she could fit in the Seam. Haymitch and Chaff are best friends. As a matter of fact, Haymitch introduces Katniss foremost to Chaff and Seeder in Catching Fire.

Now let’s go to District 12 itself. There’s a racial disparity there between merchants and miners. Only poverty, you say? Then why the fuck is it reinforced by physical appearance? Why the fuck do Prim and her mother look out of place in the Seam with their—get this—blonde hair and blue eyes, the whitest features that anybody could have? The racial narrative is fucking blatant. Stop trying to deny it.

You live in Appalachia and you think that no PoC would move there of their free will? You make me laugh. Since when did any of the characters in The Hunger Games have free will as to where they can move? They can’t leave their districts. They can’t travel between districts upon penalty of beng shot. The fact that District 11 and District 12 are so near each other only proves that PoC were grouped into specific districts, hence the institutional racism.

Moreover, you really may not know much aout the region in which you live because Melungeon Native Americans live in Appalachia.  They have even mixed with people of European descent. From Wikipedia

[Melungeon] is a term traditionally applied to one of a number of “tri-racial isolate” groups of the Southeastern United States, mainly in the Cumberland Gap area of central Appalachia, which includes portions of East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and East Kentucky. Tri-racial describes populations thought to be of mixed European, sub-Saharan African and Native American ancestry. Although there is no consensus on how many such groups exist, estimates range as high as 200.^[1][2] Melungeons were often referred to as of Portuguese or Native American origin. [x]

This ethnic mixing that is so outrageous and far-fetched to you has already occurred!

Are there PoC in the Capitol? Perhaps. Most of the Capitol residents are racially ambiguous and some explicitly white. I odn’t know where you’re getting your information from. It’s certainly not from the books. Most Capitol residents have Roman names. People in District 2 have Greek names. European culture pervades their societies and is a reference to the Capitol’s gladiatorial Hunger Games and Two’s Spartan warlike culture.

In short, people of color exist. They exist in these books. There’s an undeniable racial narrative in these books. Katniss is not ambiguous. She sure as fuck is not white. The only person who is twisting the text is you with half-assed and superficial arguments.

And you know what’s really sad? No, the filmmakers are NOT concerned with our opinions. They never will be. Whitewashing is excruciatingly commonplace in Hollywood. It’s no big deal for them. Whenever I meet a person who has seen the film, they have no idea that Katniss and Co. were PoC. The only place where I can discuss this is on blogging websites and in fandom. We are sick and tired of your derailing bullshit and don’t need it anymore. I went into my Haymitch tag to find stuff for my fyeah. I had no fucking idea that I would have to spend so much time replying to this bullshit post.