Hunger Games: Readers Racism

3113

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You've likely heard about this as it's all over the internet. You can read about it here, but the deal is essentially this: in the hugely popular book (the first one at least) there are two characters who are black. They are described that way. However, certain readers apparently missed or skimmed over this fact. Now the movie has come out and, faithful to the book, those two characters are black. Some readers tweeted their outrage over this (i.e. "Why is this n----- playing this character?"). When others pointed out to them that the character in the book was black, these readers decided this "ruined" it for them.

Obviously, such racism is pretty dismaying if, sadly, not all that surprising or shocking. What I wonder, however, is what it means to us as writers in regards to what our readers read. Most of the time when new authors ask about describing characters the advice is to be minimal. To leave it up to the reader's imagination. But what if a character's looks really do matter? I haven't read the "Hunger Game" books and I don't know if these characters had to be black, but it is science-fiction and the two come from the same district. The author might have been pointing something out about segregation in districts, etc. It might be relevant. Of course, even if it wasn't, it's the author's call if she wants to describe the characters.

But, obviously, the description didn't matter to these particular readers. They missed or outright ignored how these two characters were described on the page. So what happens if we write a story where it does matter what the character looks like, I mean there is something essential there to the story, but readers skip over it? How do we get them to see the character as described? Or do we assume certain readers' are going to have bad reading comprehension and/or biases that blind them to such words and we're just going to have to write them (such readers) off? :confused:
 
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You've likely heard about this as it's all over the internet. You can read about it here, but the deal is essentially this: in the hugely popular book (the first one at least) there are two characters who are black. They are described that way. However, certain readers apparently missed or skimmed over this fact. Now the movie has come out and, faithful to the book, those two characters are black. Some readers tweeted their outrage over this (i.e. "Why is this n----- playing this character?"). When others pointed out to them that the character in the book was black, these readers decided this "ruined" it for them.

Obviously, such racism is pretty dismaying if, sadly, not all that surprising or shocking. What I wonder, however, is what it means to us as writers in regards to what our readers read. Most of the time when new authors ask about describing characters the advice is to be minimal. To leave it up to the reader's imagination. But what if a character's looks really do matter? I haven't read the "Hunger Game" books and I don't know if these characters had to be black, but it is science-fiction and the two come from the same district. The author might have been pointing something out about segregation in districts, etc. It might be relevant. Of course, even if it wasn't, it's the author's call if she wants to describe the characters.

But, obviously, the description didn't matter to these particular readers. They missed or outright ignored how these two characters were described on the page. So what happens if we write a story where it does matter what the character looks like, I mean there is something essential there to the story, but readers skip over it? How do we get them to see the character as described? Or do we assume certain readers' are going to have bad reading comprehension and/or biases that blind them to such words and we're just going to have to write them off? :confused:

No, I think you shoul write them off because they are goobers that think the color of a person's skin makes a damn difference.
 
I am describing past my normal habits to make it clear that Despina, her brother, and other characters in the stories, are black. I refer to visual clues every few pages to make sure that reader's can't forget that.

Moreover, I'm treating the white characters as the "others." Despina refers to her girlfriend's light skin, and when a blond Norwegian man undresses she's surprised that his skin is ruddy instead of pasty pink the way so many white folk look to her...
 
But, obviously, the description didn't matter to these particular readers. They missed or outright ignored how these two characters were described on the page. So what happens if we write a story where it does matter what the character looks like, I mean there is something essential there to the story, but readers skip over it? How do we get them to see the character as described? Or do we assume certain readers' are going to have bad reading comprehension and/or biases that blind them to such words and we're just going to have to write them (such readers) off? :confused:

I haven't read the books, either, but I've been reading a lot about them, and the movie. I saw the racist reaction stuff via a friend's link on FB. The article was from Jezebel.com. This article actually quotes the book's description of the characters, and while they don't say "black" or "African-American" (which wouldn't be accurate in Panem anyway), they do say "dark brown skin" and "dark skin."

The article also notes that Katniss, the main character, was described as "olive-skinned."

How these imbeciles could be upset at dark-skinned people playing dark-skinned characters is beyond me.
 
America's feral Democrats in the mood to go apeshit, so excuses to do it are plentiful.
 
Sometimes the race of a character in a story IS important, which is one reason we have an Interracial category here. There are some characters in stories to whom race is relevant, one way or another. I have a story in progress about a white woman who works as a nude cocktail waitress at a mostly black nightclub, and how she likes to pick up black patrons for sex.
 
America's feral Democrats in the mood to go apeshit, so excuses to do it are plentiful.

Thanks, JBJ. You were starting to sound sensible in the last week or two; it's reassuring to find that lovable, incomprehensible, ranting old codger is back.
 
Thanks, JBJ. You were starting to sound sensible in the last week or two; it's reassuring to find that lovable, incomprehensible, ranting old codger is back.

Its true. Democrats wanna have their usual fun minus the facts.
 
Sometimes the race of a character in a story IS important, which is one reason we have an Interracial category here. There are some characters in stories to whom race is relevant, one way or another. I have a story in progress about a white woman who works as a nude cocktail waitress at a mostly black nightclub, and how she likes to pick up black patrons for sex.
This might surprise you, but black folk don't exist solely to fuck white women for the titillation of skin fetishists.
 
Some African-American people don't want anything sexual to do with Caucasians, at all. Personally, I try to make it not matter one way or another, but have to admit that I don't always succeed.
 
Some African-American people don't want anything sexual to do with Caucasians, at all.

This might surprise you, but black folk don't exist solely to fuck white women for the titillation of skin fetishists.

Sometimes the race of a character in a story IS important, which is one reason we have an Interracial category here. There are some characters in stories to whom race is relevant, one way or another. I have a story in progress about a white woman who works as a nude cocktail waitress at a mostly black nightclub, and how she likes to pick up black patrons for sex.

On this one, all three of you are correct. There are some people who would never consider having sex with someone outside their own race; there are some who are obsessed with interracial sex; and there are some for whom race is just another irrelevant detail. I know people in all three categories.
 
Some African-American people don't want anything sexual to do with Caucasians, at all. Personally, I try to make it not matter one way or another, but have to admit that I don't always succeed.
The issue that 3113 is bringing up here is this; when most people imagine characters, we imagine white by default. Unless the writer really hammers the description and forces the reader to remember what we said, white folk-- as we see in the Hunger Games reactions-- will often forget all about a character's black skin and go back to an assumption of whiteness.

I've had black friends say that they will do the same thing, and assume that the writer isn't talking about a black character.

The message for writers is to reiterate descriptions of any character who isn't white-- even though their color might not have much to do with the plot, if you want that character to be black, or brown, or oriental, or even crippled-- in any way non-normative-- you have to keep on reminding your readers over and over and over again.
 
The issue that 3113 is bringing up here is this; when most people imagine characters, we imagine white by default. Unless the writer really hammers the description and forces the reader to remember what we said, white folk-- as we see in the Hunger Games reactions-- will often forget all about a character's black skin and go back to an assumption of whiteness.

I've had black friends say that they will do the same thing, and assume that the writer isn't talking about a black character.

The message for writers is to reiterate descriptions of any character who isn't white-- even though their color might not have much to do with the plot, if you want that character to be black, or brown, or oriental, or even crippled-- in any way non-normative-- you have to keep on reminding your readers over and over and over again.

I don't know if that is necessary if you do it well the first time. But that is one of the reasons why I will use very specific names in my stories to get across the fact that people have different races or ethnic backgrounds without stating the fact over and over.
 
I don't know if that is necessary if you do it well the first time. But that is one of the reasons why I will use very specific names in my stories to get across the fact that people have different races or ethnic backgrounds without stating the fact over and over.
Well, sure-- ethnic names is one way of keeping the fact in the forefront of the reader's minds. :)
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxlicker101
Sometimes the race of a character in a story IS important, which is one reason we have an Interracial category here. There are some characters in stories to whom race is relevant, one way or another. I have a story in progress about a white woman who works as a nude cocktail waitress at a mostly black nightclub, and how she likes to pick up black patrons for sex.

This might surprise you, but black folk don't exist solely to fuck white women for the titillation of skin fetishists.

Well, duh, I know that. At the same time, there are white women who limit themselves sexually to black men and there are black men who love to fuck white women and do so at every opportunity. The story I mentioned is about one of those women and one of those men.

Most of the stories I write and most that others write here are about people who are outside the norm. Most people don't attend orgies either, or commit incest or seduce 18 year old students in their high school classes, but the people I write about do.

I don't believe I have ever hear or read about somebody being referred to as a "skin fetishist." :confused:
 
Several of the characters in my stories have been non-Caucasian and I have tried with both name and physical description to show that. However, there are always the 10% who never get the message. Those are the ones who tweet in indignation about the dark-skinned characters. Well, the novels were written for the immature, after all . . .
 
I don't know if that is necessary if you do it well the first time. But that is one of the reasons why I will use very specific names in my stories to get across the fact that people have different races or ethnic backgrounds without stating the fact over and over.


Well, okay... I think that's what Stella was saying (yeah, I'm mind reading again).

If you name a character a sterotypical name like Jamal, Guido or Jose, and you use his name repeatedly, you ARE hitting them over their boney little heads. Not a whole lotta white guys named Jamal running around, ya know?
 
Well, okay... I think that's what Stella was saying (yeah, I'm mind reading again).

If you name a character a sterotypical name like Jamal, Guido or Jose, and you use his name repeatedly, you ARE hitting them over their boney little heads. Not a whole lotta white guys named Jamal running around, ya know?

I think it's a more subtle way of doing it. BTW, my last story had a Jamal, a Yesenia, and a Sergio. I never mentioned Jamal's ethnic background, and only one time each for Sergio and Yesenia.
 
A good story jolt hook would be to switch ethnic names and reveal that only in a twist at the end. (Most of the Jamals I know are Middle Eastern--and classified as Caucasian, by the way.)
 
I think it's a more subtle way of doing it. BTW, my last story had a Jamal, a Yesenia, and a Sergio. I never mentioned Jamal's ethnic background, and only one time each for Sergio and Yesenia.
Subtle is always better craft-wise, but you still have to find a way to do it.
Despina mocks her brother's "stupid Afro like a balloon" very once in a while. And she fiddles with her dreadlocks. And she frets about her skin looking grey from drying out, and demands lotion.
 
I've only ever had one black character. He wasn't a 'skin fetish' and I didn't have him unnaturally endowed. One of my biggest pet peeves is when black characters in lit are caricatures, with 'ghetto' slang and gold chains and pants hanging off their ass. I tried to have a black character with none of the stereotypes.

Thad was a former cop. He was muscular, tall,, he was intelligent, protective, and somewhat jealous. and he had a seven-inch cock. seven is my cutoff in most stories. Because seven is still pretty much in the 'normal' range, but not unrealistically big.
 
Thad was a former cop. He was muscular, tall,, he was intelligent, protective, and somewhat jealous. and he had a seven-inch cock. seven is my cutoff in most stories. Because seven is still pretty much in the 'normal' range, but not unrealistically big.
From this description, it would be very easy for me to visualise a white man, because there's nothing that says otherwise-- dick size doesn't mean anything to me. How did you make sure your readers saw him as black?
 
From this description, it would be very easy for me to visualise a white man, because there's nothing that says otherwise-- dick size doesn't mean anything to me. How did you make sure your readers saw him as black?

Description. The story was told in omniscient third-person, so I could flip from perspective to perspective easily enough. Jonah was afraid of him at first, because of the situation they were in. (post-apocalyptic, with zombies) He had already been badly abused by a member of the group he had been with before, and was frightened that Thad was going to hurt or exploit him, even though Thad was the one that had saved him.

When I wrote from Thad's point of view, I made sure to keep having him think of Jonah as 'white'. (i.e., the poor white boy looked as if he had been to hell and back) When I wrote from Jonah's point of view, Jonah developed a crush on Thad, and he thought that Thad's skin was beautiful. He liked to compare the skin tones by putting his hand on Thad's arm or chest.

It's easy to remind the audience if a character is a different ethnicity.
 
Subtle is always better craft-wise, but you still have to find a way to do it.
Despina mocks her brother's "stupid Afro like a balloon" very once in a while. And she fiddles with her dreadlocks. And she frets about her skin looking grey from drying out, and demands lotion.

From this description, it would be very easy for me to visualise a white man, because there's nothing that says otherwise-- dick size doesn't mean anything to me. How did you make sure your readers saw him as black?


Same thing could be said for "fiddling with her dreads". My Suzy had dreads FFS and she was as blonde/blue eyed/white girl as they come. I also know a few toe headed Pplush guys who sported 'fros. So I think you need to be a bit heavier handed than THAT.

On the other hand, unless you're SR, when you hear Jamal or Tyrone (gawd I hate that one!) most people ain't thinking "Caucasian" (at least the ones who read porn stories).
 
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