I was happily reading Facebook this morning, as per usual, and noticed a disturbing link that one of my friends had posted. It was about some Hunger Games fans being upset over the fact that Rue, the youngest player in the Hunger Games, was portrayed by Amandla Stenberg, 13...who also happens to be black. The Twitter outrage over this fact is insane! Have these people never actually read the book? Rue was clearly described by author Suzanne Collins as having "dark brown skin and eyes." Um, hello? That clearly shows she might not be a little blond girl with big blue eyes (like these people were expecting??). Little Amandla does an excellent job playing Rue. If you've read the book, you'd know that Rue is supposed to be the child of the Hunger Games. Innocent. Small. Wide eyed. She represents how horrific the Hunger Games are and how children are forced into an arena to fight to the death. We all love little Rue. We cheer her on and want nothing bad to happen to her. In the movie Amandla played this character to a tee. She was adorable and so cute that I wanted to pinch her little cheeks. My friend looked at me during the movie and whispered, "Maybe it'll be different for the movie." Of course, most of us know what happens to Rue...and let's just say I was sniffling and sniffling when it finally happened.
So the reaction of some fans on Twitter is disturbing to say the least. Calling her names (which I refuse to repost here because they are downright mean and just plain racist) and describing their shock that the character is portrayed by a black actress is just uncalled for. One person tweets that finding out this news "ruined the movie" for her. Well boo-flippin-hoo. I just don't get it.
But alas, there's a lesson to be learned here. Not everyone on Twitter is all bad. The outrage of this racism casually being thrown around on Twitter became louder and louder. Soon these racist tweets were being retweeted. Like wildfire, word spread. Soon, these Twitter users had to delete their accounts because of the harassment from others. I can't say I'm sorry to hear this. You can't simply tweet about something and then expect no repercussion. Twitter is a very public domain. When you talk about something, especially something as popular as The Hunger Games, it has the potential to reach a global level. Even Suzanne Collins herself tweeted her thanks to the real fans of the book for supporting the casting choice for Rue.
I'm actually quite shocked this level of racism still exists....and that people are just so willing to blast it online. Most recently I was shocked by an episode of Survivor (um, yes, I still watch this!). One of the survivors, Colton, described how he disliked his fellow tribe member, Bill, for being "ghetto". Survivor host, Jeff Probst looked shocked and asked him about his background, and if he personally knew any black people at home. Colton replied that yes, he did indeed....his house keeper. I think my jaw hit the floor when I heard that one. Again, the backlash on Twitter from these comments has hit Colton hard. But still, it makes me wonder about how people think.
There may be a forum where people can display their hatred, but on that same forum comes people who can fight it. There may be some hope after all in the Twitterverse.
P.S. If you haven't read The Hunger Games yet, what are you waiting for?? It's a really great book.
