[ SECRET POST #2023 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2023 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 066 secrets from Secret Submission Post #289.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[morieris]

So tell me, where in the book did it say Finnick was white? Considering it's the future, more POC wouldn't be out of the question...oh. They're in the background, I see.

[(Anonymous)]

The books do describe Finnick as "tan" with light hair and green eyes, which to me implies white dude who gets a lot of sun, but ymmv. Katniss and Gale, on the other hand, are described as having olive skin and black hair, so casting them as white is pretty sketch.

[morieris]

The whole debacle with Katniss' casting annoys me to this day. I couldn't even will myself to watch the movie besides...impalement #1.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Impalement #1?

I actually saw the movie before reading the books or hearing about any of the casting bullshit, and I really liked it. Then I read the books and was like "uh..." And then I heard about the casting calls and the shit people were giving Amandla Stenberg and Lenny Kravitz for having major roles in the movie while being black, and oh my god, fuck that shit, yo.

[(Anonymous)]

Since when is olive skin not white?

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Since always, where I'm from. The only people around here I've ever heard called or call themselves "olive skinned" have been Latino or biracial.

[nagaina]

This. My husband is part Italian -- he's naturally olive skinned and tans pretty dark in the summer. Our kids have inherited a somewhat lighter version of his skin tone, and both tan pretty dark in the summer. My youngest? Black hair, olive skin, gray-hazel eyes -- when I picture Katniss, I see an older, more female version of his coloring.

[(Anonymous)]

It can be white, but POC can also have olive skin which is why only allowing white actresses to audition for Katniss is pretty damn sketchy.

(And there's plenty of white adventure heroes and heroines, so casting an olive-skinned, black-haired POC actress probably wouldn't be that horrible towards olive-skinned white people.)

[cleverthylacine]

Not sure what else they would be! The district that Katniss and Gale are from is meant to be Appalachia, which is one of the whitest parts of the USA (particularly WV). I'm from there, and while there are a fair number of people with some degree of Native American ancestry, there aren't many full-on Native Americans (a lot more people claim Native ancestry than actually have any). Outside of Charleston (the capital), and the university towns Huntington and Morgantown, there are very, very few black people, and there are so few Hispanic folks that I didn't even know there was anti-Hispanic prejudice until I left the area (though that was before the Internet, and I'm sure I would have figured it out if I'd been able to be online then).

It always freaks me way out when I go back to visit family and I hardly see anyone but white people and nobody ever speaks another language than English.

[(Anonymous)]

Someone with olive skin and black hair being white is not sketch.

[anonymouslyyours]

I definitely would love more diverse casting but um, yeah. Hi from a white person with olive skin and black hair. ...Though a lot of people have asked me what ethnicity I am and then refuse to believe my dad is British and my mom is blonde & blue eyed. I've had people try and let me know I'm probably adopted. X(

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I picture someone with Mediterranean heritage when I hear olive skin. That's still "white", right?

[(Anonymous)]

"Pretty sketch"? They shouldn't have restricted the casting to white based on that description, but...I don't think that is in any way implying 'definitely shouldn't be white.'

[majorshipper]

I have seen very few POC with green eyes and copper hair(I know I have limited exposure) so to me, he always seemed, as described in the book, white.

However, they obviously aren't very particular about hair/eye color, considering the main leads, so they could have cone with something different for Finnick.

[childings.livejournal.com]

Katniss and Gale, on the other hand, are described as having olive skin and black hair, so casting them as white is pretty sketch.

Not really, plenty of white people have medium complexions. I'm getting pretty damn sick of hearing this shit from people. Either people of Mediterranean European descent* get to be white, or they don't. MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND, WORLD.

* Yes I know I know there are other white people out there with darker skin, they're not all Mediterranean but I'm trying to make a point here

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, suddenly I'm not white!

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn't entirely blame the studio for changing Katniss. Both her mother and her sister were blond and blue eyed so they would have had to go into more detail to explain why she looked different compared to them (I think it was her father she looked like more? Been a while since I read the book). I mean they barely mentioned the father at all as is and without that explanation people would have been confused and think she had been adopted or something since she wouldn't look very much like either of her surviving family members.

[(Anonymous)]

Firstly, yes, olive-skinned white people exist. Absolutely. Katniss and Gale could very well be white. But they could also not be white. The issue here is that POC actresses couldn't even audition for Katniss's role, and the casting is overall very white.

Both this discussion and the one about the suggestion that the main character in Brave is a lesbian because she has tomboyish tendencies and isn't interested in marriage (being a teenager) are suddenly all about things like, "But what about olive-skinned white people!" and "What about me, I'm a tomboy and I'm straight!" when the flipside is that POC actors don't even get a chance to compete with white actors for the roles whose descriptions they could well fit, and that lesbians are still defined as girls who aren't like 'regular' girls and who are into 'boy' things (and whose sexuality thus is just a product of being 'like a man'). It just seems something's kind of... off.

[(Anonymous)]

I think people jump to the conclusion that Finnick was white because his description is almost exactly like Edward Cullen's - bronze hair, and green eyes. The only thing that is different is the tan skin, but that can be explained by him living by the sea and not being a vampire.

There is a lot of overlap between the readership of Twilight and THG so I can where the assumption comes from. There was even a push to get Robert Pattinson to play him for awhile.

[(Anonymous)]

Bronze hair, green eyes, seafaring district? Sounds an awful lot like a Scottish dude (RED HAIR!) in the northeast seafaring districts. Doesn't explain the tan, since I doubt you get much sunning time there, but if he spent all his time swimming in the water when the weather was warm, I can see it.

I'm pale as fuck normally and redheaded. Right now, I'm tanned, because I've been swimming a lot this summer.

[fuchsiascreams]

LOL ROBERT PATTIMIH8y9g8rt oauKJBGHIONADgsdf98g9GSA DF

[(Anonymous)]

Unless it's very explicitly stated otherwise, every fictional book character's default race is white, didn't you know? That's the logic of most people I've encountered, anyways.

I mean poc can have tanned skin, etc. too, ffs.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. This attitude is exactly the problem. It's not that Finnick was definitely, unquestionably a POC, it's that we need to stop seeing white as the default.

[cloud_riven]

Of course you have to go out of your way to let readers know there's a non- white broseph running around. Duh! Everyone is assumed lily white until mentioned otherwise :U

Pssh. Only white people tan. My big sister happens to be secretly white you see? Everyone else is permanently smooched by the sun \8U/

[(Anonymous)]

huh, just realized I'd probably assume that too.

Which made me think because around where I live white is kinda the default around where I live (and I live in a big, european city). We have a lot of turkish people around here and some arabs as well as a lot of asian people, there are black people too but really not so many.

The turkish, arabic and asian people that I personally know all have foreign names. And everyone who has names like David, Lisa etc. was either white or tanned so I suppose that's probably why for me not-foreign names (for the lack of a better word) always mean the person is white/tanned.

Not that that makes it any better to always imagine white as a default but not everyone is deliberately racist.