[ SECRET POST #1612 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1612 ⌋


Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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TRIGGER WARNING FOR RAPE

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #230.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 0 - hit/ship/spiration ], [ 0 - omgiknowthem ], [ 0 - take it to comments ], [ 0 - repeats ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I honestly don't understand the race wank about this movie. When I read the book, I never really thought of Katniss as mixed, probably because both her mother and sister have blond hair and are obviously white. It has says she had olive skin, yeah, but not every white person is as pale as a bedsheet.

[columbuscrab.livejournal.com]

But why not at least let minorities audition for the effing roll, then? It's entirely possible (and more than likely) that Katniss WAS a mixed race. People are pissed because this was a big opportunity for a minority to have a lead role in a huge franchise, and yet again, the character is defaulted to a white actress.

[(Anonymous)]

How exactly was it "more than likely" that Katniss was mixed race?

[columbuscrab.livejournal.com]

"It is a time period where hundreds of years have passed from now. There’s been a lot of ethnic mixing." ~Suzanne Collins

[(Anonymous)]

There was really no open audition?

[imnotasquirrel.livejournal.com]

Nope! The casting call asked for Caucasian actresses only.

I know that Hailee Steinfeld was in the running, and she happens to be hapa, but I imagine that she got a pass because she could reasonably 'code' as white to a lot of people.

[(Anonymous)]

Are you Hawaiian?

[imnotasquirrel.livejournal.com]

Er, no, why? "Hapa" is a term used to denote someone who has either white/Asian or white/Pacific Islander heritage. I know the word originated as part of a more derogatory phrase (google tells me it was "hapa haole"), but the word no longer has derogatory connotations, at least as far as I'm aware. I know a lot of mixed people who prefer referring to themselves as hapa instead of mixed. Then again... I know Latina people who call themselves chola, which is still considered a slur, so if hapa still retains its negative associations, then I apologize and won't use it again. ETA: Although if that's the case, then it wouldn't necessarily matter if I'm Hawaiian or not, what would matter if I'm mixed myself. (Which I'm not, so it's a moot point.)

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't mean it like that - I ask because it's something I've generally only seen Hawaiians (as in people from Hawaii, not necessarily native Hawaiians) use, or people who've lived there (like myself) and I see you toss it around a lot. I don't think it's derogatory, I just find it odd that someone would use it when they didn't have any Hawaiian background, that's all.

[imnotasquirrel.livejournal.com]

Haha, okay, sorry for misinterpreting your comment then. Your question initially confused me so I googled the term and the first hit talked about how it originated as a derogatory phrase, so I thought you were hinting at that.

I've heard biracial friends of mine complain about terms like "mixed" and they seem to really like "hapa", so I guess that's why I've started using that. It's not something that I've been doing for years though. (I'll add that these friends are white/Asian - I heard that there was some debate over Tyra Banks apparently deciding to use hapa to mean ANYONE who was mixed, even though the term is specifically meant for people with Pacific Islander or Asian heritage? I haven't really been using it for people who are black/white, for example.)

[(Anonymous)]

Well, hapa really just means 'part' or 'half' (hapa haole means, for instance, half white) and there is a term for half black (hapa popolo) so technically it's not just referring to Pacific Islanders or Asians.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, if her mother was white and her sister was white, Katniss would also LOGICALLY be white, unless she had a different father, which there was no mention of.

[imnotasquirrel.livejournal.com]

No, it's not true that that is the logical course. All that shows (for sure) is that Katniss' father had a recessive gene somewhere for blond hair and blue eyes. Which could just as easily be taken to show that he is also mixed.

If you're the sort to believe in the Word of God, then Suzanne Collins' own words imply that Katniss would more than likely be multiracial.

[columbuscrab.livejournal.com]

Clearly you have never seen any biracial families.

[(Anonymous)]

is her sister a half-sister? Cuz if not, it'd be really damn hard for a mixed-race kid to be blonde. Ergo, the lead character is white.
Case solved.

[ariseishirou.livejournal.com]

...I hate to say it, but yeah. Pretty much. It would be awesome if they cast her as bi-racial anyway, but blonde is recessive to the point that it almost never crops up in bi-racial kids. (Contrary to what anime might tell you.)

[kallanda-lee.livejournal.com]

I'm re-reading this thread, and while yes, blonde is recessive, that does not mean it does not pop up in mixed families, especially if there had been a lot of mixing in the past. I do, sadly, not know the exact details of my family history as there was a lot of migration. But I do know that my great-grandfather was visibly non-white (with both Asian and African characteristics), but he married a blond woman. My grandfather then in turn looked like a Spaniard or Israeli with very curly hair, but he could with some good will (and without context) code as white. He again married a blond woman, and my father was born blond (though his hair did darken up later in life, and he did have somewhat of a 'fro). That's only 3 generations in which you go from visibly non-white to looking visibly white, unless you know where to look. I see the same in my aunt: who is olive-skinned and dark-haired, and married a man with the same characteristics. They have two kids who look exactly like that, but have one son who is blue-eyed and blond (and is the spitting image of my grandmother.) It's not a one-way street. You can go from light to dark and back again in only a few generations, depending on your genepool.

[ariseishirou.livejournal.com]

But the people you're referring to are, at that point, mostly white and would probably code as white to just about everyone, and therefore have access to white privilege. What I'm saying is more that I've never seen anyone who would code as bi-racial to the majority of people who was blond (plenty of them blue-eyed, sure, but not blond); only people who would code as white - who may or may not happen to have some ancestors of another ethnicity.

[kallanda-lee.livejournal.com]

I must say I have definitely seen people who code as bi-racial who are blonde, or even redheads (this is not uncommon for the Berber people, for example). They are rare, but they are out there.

But I meant more that the argument could go both ways. You can be olive-skinned (or Mediterranean-looking if you will), both from solely Caucasian descendance, and you can have that look from being mixed, too.

To claim a character is one or the other based on the looks of her family members is not exactly science, and since the author didn't state it one way or the other, we will never know.

The fact that there are blondes in your family does not wipe out the possibility for having a mixed heritage, and doesn't mean that other members of that family might not look mixed.
Also see this article, and it's not the only case out there: http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2009/01/05/biracial-twins-is-one-quot-black-quot-and-one-quot-white-quot.aspx
The article also makes some interesting points.

Phenotypical differences in siblings from mixed race origin can be large enough to make on code as white, and the other as non-white.

So if you play all things fair, the casting should have been open both to darker skinned Caucasians, and lighter skin mixed race people. Which it wasn't.

[columbuscrab.livejournal.com]

It's hard, but definitely not genetically impossible. Ergo, the lead character is not necessarily white.

[dark-branwen.livejournal.com]

I've seen it. Twice actually. Latino father, blond monther, two super caucasian-looking blond kids. Genes are fickle little fuckers.