Hunger Games/Harry Potter

[ghoti_mhic_uait]

Now, I haven't read Hunger Games (although B has and says he thinks I might like it), but I have been reading some of the hype about the movie. This morning's offering, in which so called fans are shocked by the way the casting director chose black actors to play black characters, had me thinking.

It took me an astonishingly long time, as I believe I've mentioned, to work out what was wrong with Emma Watson as Hermione. Her acting's fine, she fits theoretically, but in my head Hermione was black. There's nothing in the books to contradict that impression (I went back and checked).

Do you think it was anticipation of the same sort of outburst that led to Watson, rather than a black actor, being cast? Or do you think the casting director merely had a different mental image? I'm hoping the latter, but even that's a problem, when the immediate mental image of a hero is white.

Oh, and just to make Martha relevant, I'd just like to say, I'm still hoping for a non-white Doctor. It could happen, we've been told it could.

Comments

[arosoff.livejournal.com]

Yes - JKR is pretty explicit when characters are not white, which of course leads to the assumption that if she doesn't say, they're not.

There were also people upset that Dean Thomas was black.

Mind you I did read a blog post yesterday from someone upset that non-white actresses were explicitly excluded from the part of Katniss (I have encountered people who thought she might be mixed race but I think it's a reach). They argued that just because a character is portrayed one way in one form doesn't obligate you to maintain that portrayal, but the argument as a whole was a real reach, particularly as it applied to this book and movie. Someone like Jessica Alba maybe, but it had to be plausible that her mother and sister were blonde, unless they wanted to change the entire family. In addition, I am sure the same blogger would've objected to whitewashing Rue and Thresh--so it opens it to accusations that changing race is okay in the service of one goal only, and not as an artistic decision in general.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

This is an area where I think I'd need to have read the books to have a reasonable opinion, so I bow to your superior knowledge.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I think an argument that non-white actors should be allowed to audition for Katniss who is described as white might not carry a lot of weight. But I think the 'Katniss isn't white' argument has a lot of milage - all we get in the books is "straight black hair" and "olive skin", which fits mediterranean, or perhaps native american - she's not described as white at all. Her mother, yes, is pale and blonde, but that's all.

[arosoff.livejournal.com]

This is really dicey and the comments went into that--despite the whole 'one drop' rule, it's way more complicated than that. One of the commenters argued that a call for Caucasian actresses (how the call was worded, BTW, nto my wording) would exclude people who felt they had "too much" NA blood. I don't know about that. District 12 is pretty clearly characterized as Appalachian--which means predominantly white with maybe some NA blood mixed in. West Virginia is one of the whitest states in the US (Census stats, so self identification). Of course, I'm coming at it from a perspective that would identify those features as "white"--it would describe both of my sisters.

When it comes down to it, though, I think the producers/casting agents landed on Jennifer Lawrence because of Winter's Bone and that's the end of the story. She would have beaten out less identifiably white actresses on that basis alone.