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Kim Voynar

By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com

Posted Monday, March 26th, 2012 - 5 Comments »
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Racism: Alive and Well in America

SPOILER ALERT: Major spoiler for the film The Hunger Games contained herein. You have been duly warned, so no whining if you choose to read more.

News flash: Racism is alive and well in America.

Not that this is shocking news, I know. I may be a socialist liberal white girl living in Seattle, but I grew up in Oklahoma, where racism is much more out in the open than it is in these parts. Even here in Seattle, where we pride ourselves on our lauded diversity, we still tend to prefer most of our diversity to keep to its own neighborhoods. But hey, apparently there are people out there who are way more racist than that.

Take, for instance, this Jezebel story this morning about a Tumblr blog that’s collecting the stupid racist remarks people have been making about The Hunger Games. Specifically, apparently some people have their white sheets panties in a twist because they were shocked — in spite of it being very clear in the book that these characters have dark skin — that Rue and Thresh were, wait for it — Black. I’m not making this up: It is shocking – and offensive! – to these people that characters clearly described as dark skinned in the book would be cast with African-American actors. Or, maybe that there are any Black actors in the film at all, hard to say.

What really boggles the mind about these Tweets are the people describe feeling “betrayed” by this revelation that Rue was Black. Does it make you an asshole if you feel less sad about a character’s death when you learn she was a Black girl? Why yes, it does. Some of these people are pissed that they were “tricked” into feeling sad about a Black girl dying. I mean, are you kidding me? I really don’t know what to say to or about these people other than: You are a huge part of what is wrong not only with America, but with the world. I feel sad for you, and for the rest of us who have to deal with the consequences of your racist bullshit on our ability to live as a peaceful society; not sad that you exist as fellow humans, but sad for you that you were either raised with these values or came to acquire them on your own and become … this.

See, this is why this kind of dystopian world isn’t that far of a stretch, folks. Sad but true. Welcome to The Hunger Games, where class, race and religious warfare are alive and well. Somewhere between The Hunger Games and The Road lies the probable future of the human race.

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5 Comments »

5 Responses to “Racism: Alive and Well in America”

  1. Crystal says:
    March 26, 2012 at 11:28 pm

    well said

  2. JohnB says:
    March 27, 2012 at 5:08 am

    I agree, but I hope someone thinks to throw this into the proper perspective. Consider that about 15 million people saw this film over the weekend. Even if there were hundreds of people who were dissappointed by the race of the district 11 tributes (and Cinna), there were also nearly 15 million who didn’t think twice about it. A small but vocal group of people making thoughtless, or even downright stupid, comments should not incriminate the entire audience. Yes Kim, there are racists out there… There are even some who were just surprised because they didn’t read the books very well. But check your percentages before you believe that a significant portion of the audience was displeased by what they saw, or even that a large percentage are racist. Within the limitations of a two and a half hour movie, I thought it was a great god’s-eye-view summary of the book, and took few liberties with the source material. But your point is well taken, some people are just stupid…

  3. Gus says:
    March 27, 2012 at 8:58 am

    Why has no one seemed to notice that these twitter pages they posted don’t actually exist? I could only find one account that was real of all the ones they posted pictures of.

  4. JohnB says:
    March 27, 2012 at 11:39 am

    Gus, great point… Since I never visit Twitter I assumed that someone had fact-checked this information. “Never assume” is the motto of the day…

  5. Carla says:
    March 27, 2012 at 7:57 pm

    If you checked sooner you would have found the twitter accounts. Most have been turned off or set to private for obvious reason.
    They should think before they post. People (especially young folks) need to realize this before posting stupid and hateful things online.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon