There has been much buzz online recently about “The Hunger Games” movie series, and understandably so because of its popularity. This buzz, however, isn’t completely positive. Although the series has its good points, namely showing poor people as capable, many are upset with the movie’s decision to cast a White actress as Katniss. In the book series Katniss, who is the main character, is described as having “olive” toned skin. Olive skin tone is traditionally thought of as a non-White skin tone, and definitely doesn’t match actress Jennifer Lawrence’s skin tone. As a result of this casting choice, many fans of the series have taken to the internet to express their frustration, throughout the production of the series.
The fan’s reaction aside, why has Hollywood favored a White actor over one that would fit the description of the books? Often times the argument by studios is that audiences find White actors and actresses easier to identify with, therefore drawing a larger crowd to the theater. This is just an excuse. The reason that Hollywood puts White actors into roles that should be held by people of color is because being White is seen as the norm. Studios don’t want to put people of color in leading role because they don’t want to run the risk of their film being seen as a “special interest”. Although the character may act, talk, and walk like any other American, Hollywood is afraid that if they put a person of color into that role audiences will see them as too different from themselves and will not see the movie. This enforces the idea that to be White is to be normal, and that to be anything else is different and foreign. It is important for our media to people of color as normal if America is to accept people of color as normal and to treat everyone equitably. If Hollywood continues this trend of the White Katniss, then America will continue to see White as normal.
“The Hunger Games” is not an isolated incident. Hollywood cast Katniss as White because of a history of preferring White characters in movies that has persisted in the movie industry. This historical preference for White characters and been fostered and encouraged by racism, and in turn helps keep the wheels of racism turning. Part of working toward a less racially stratified society, as well as hopefully removing racial stratification, is increasing representations of people of color in our movies as well as our books. Portrayal of people of color is important to the people of color who consume the media because of the need for positive representations as well as for White people who benefit from seeing people of color depicted as part of the norm. In other words, it’s time to start letting our Katniss’s be people of color.
thekpopwannabes 
This blog post poses an interesting and controversial argument. It is not myth that white people dominate the media and people of color are still categorized as a minority in casting. Although I agree that there is a lack of representation for people of color, what if the casting for the Hunger Games was unable to find an individual with “olive-skin” to perfectly and appropriately play the part described in the book. In terms of commercial viability, the concept of talent is a gray line in which if media casts those of privilege or general talent. Jennifer Lawrence may have had advantage of landing the character of Katniss due to white privilege but her talent has been overlooked. Does privilege always overpower talent?
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This blog post brought up many issues that takes place with Hollywood. It is quite obvious how Hollywood does not want people of color taking the white roles. I had heard some controversy when they had casted Jennifer Lawrence for the Hunger games. To now know that the character in the book had been described with different features, it is disappointing that Hollywood thought the movie would do better with a white woman. You brought up many true points how if nothing is done white people on TV will always be normal, and minority groups will look like the others.
-Catya Molina
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This so true that they white white are consider normal in the hollywood film. They even have to find white american to act Asian. I mean this lead to point the professor said in Asian American 100 class. “If today the main character was black, then when people talk about this film they going to say, oh have you seen that black movie. In other hand, if today the main character was white people just going to say have you seen the whatever the movies name”.
By Yu-Cheng Shih (Luke)
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This so true that they white are consider normal in the Hollywood film. They even have to find white American to act Asian. I mean this lead to point the professor said in Asian American 100 class. “If today the main character was black, then when people talk about this film they going to say, oh have you seen that black movie. In other hand, if today the main character was white people just going to say have you seen the whatever the movies name”. This problem is usually from the media sending the wrong information to the audience. If we going to stop this the first step is start with the social media.
By Yu-Cheng Shih (Luke)
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I have also heard about this and I agree with you. Today media, we see mostly Whites and little minority just because of that you have said which it’s for being seen as the “norms”. The nation will probably continue to see White as normal until we deal with how the media see other minority; for example, Asian Americans are either seen as desexualized for men and hypersexualized for women so they can only pay a certain role in films. So they becomes the bad guy while the whites become the hero of the film. From what I took from this is that the film industry are trying to target a certain audience which are the “norms”.
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I do not read a book and watch this movie. I was surprised that Hollywood ignored to author. You have great argument and provided a one very good example that Media did ignored races/ethnicity. I like how you gave good argument; I like how you gave one the best example for media how Hollywood discriminate races/ethnicity. Overall, you did great.
-Koila Ahumada
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I agree with everything said here and it is odd for the casting people to ignore a detail like that especially with the main character. The film industry does have a history of changing critical details of stories in order to make it into an interesting movie. Let’s take The Last Samurai for example.
Was there a military officer who fought for Japan? Yes.
Did he train to become a Samurai? No.
Did he stay in Japan and marry a Japanese woman? …No.
Was it a cool action movie? Yes, Tom Cruise was in it.
But accurate from the original it was inspired by? Absolutely not.
Of course the story with the hunger games and Jennifer Lawrence is more concerned with the change to making Katniss white. And that should not be ignored.
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I think picking white actors and actresses over any other of them with different colors show how America is not really diverse when in movie industry. If you’ve watched recent movies such as Star Wars, Hunger Games, Mission Impossible, and Mad Max, you will noticed that they are consistent with leading white actors or actresses. Directors don’t even care about the story of a novel because in order to grab attention, they need white people. Sure tan makes it look sexy, but white tops over that. Jennifer Lawrence is now really popular because of her skin, her “beautiful” skin that made the Hunger Games series a success.
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