Marshall and the Movies

Because two days of social issues factoid-ing weren’t enough, here come another two days of it. According to Shelf Life, the film adaptation of the novel “Hunger Games” is casting right now and encountering the issue of race.

“Rue would be a difficult role for any pre-teen actress. Adding some complexity: the fact that Rue is clearly described as having “satiny brown skin” on page 98. Don’t worry if you didn’t know that Rue and her fellow District 11 tribute Thresh were black. I didn’t either after my first read … It wouldn’t radically alter the structure of THG if Rue were played by, say, Chloe Moretz.”

I haven’t read the book (or heard anything about it, for that matter), but ethnic casting has been a prevalent issue recently given the release of “The Last Airbender,” which drew ire from Indians after the movie was white-ified by casting Caucasians in the three lead roles.  I personally think that we are in a progressive enough world where casting should be race-blind UNLESS of course the role requires a certain ethnicity.  We can see interracial marriages now and not think twice about it; we can see a racially mixed room and not instantly cry “this is just for diversity.”  If the role in the “Hunger Games” alludes to the race of Rue only once and a casual reader can go through the entire book without delegating the character a certain race, the ethnicity shouldn’t matter.