Let’s be real

If ‘The Hunger Games’ was accurately cast, with POC filling the lead roles, the metaphor of struggle and violence and the ugliness of oppression would be decidedly too powerful, too real, too close to the home of racism and classism in the United States today. The viciousness and brutality facing THG characters is but the reality of many, many kids of color across the United States as well as globally who’re struggling to breathe under the boot-heel of Western imperialism and white supremacy. These are the kids whose reality we’re taught to ignore, the kids whom media degrades as innately violent and thuggish, and therefore unworthy of help or attention.

If THG starred kids who look like the ones we’re only too happy to ignore, the metaphor of the Games would carry meaning and weight and gritty truth. As it stands, by whitewashing the cast, TPTB have effectively neutralized the powerful message embedded in the text, and turned it into yet another white-kids-are-heroes-watch-them-save-the-world franchise.

Because the alternative is too much for privileged folks to handle.