NoJoMo 3 in Those Public Entries

If you could have played any role in any movie, what would you pick?

Little known fact about me: I wanted to be an actor from the time I was a little kid, to about college. I still get an urge to try my hand at it, and being that I live only a few hours from NYC now, it wouldn’t really be difficult.

That said, to answer today’s question: The only role I can remember really thinking, “I could have done that,” is Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games. Except…

There’s a debate online about whether Katniss is Melungeon. For those who didn’t click the link, Melungeons are a multiracial people native to Appalachia. They’re the descendants of Scots-Irish settlers, free Black people or escaped slaves, and Portugese or Italian immigrants, sometimes with Native American or Indian ancestry. One of the most famous pictures of a Melungeon person shows him with dark skin and blue eyes, though anyone with any skin tone can have Melungeon heritage. I also do want to note that the term “Melungeon” is contentious; though it has been reclaimed, it was used as a racial slur for a long time.

In the book, Katniss is described as having black hair, olive skin, and gray eyes, which she gets from her father, who grew up in the Seam (basically, the poor part of District 12). Her sister Prim, on the other hand, takes after their mother, who is fair-skinned, blonde, and blue-eyed. Katniss being a woman of color plays a significant role in the first book, especially as it pertains to her backstory with Peeta, and how it echoes her own parents’ mixed marriage. Also, District 12 is implied to be in Appalachia, as its business is mining coal for the rest of Panem, and far enough in the future that the miners have to go at least a mile underground to find coal. So, given that District 12 is likely in West Virginia/western Virginia/eastern Kentucky, I think it’s at least possible that Katniss is a Southerner of color.

However, it’s not spelled out in the book if Katniss is Melungeon, specifically. It’s not even really spelled out if the Seam residents are considered POC in District 12 or Panem writ large; it’s implied, but not certain. And, of course, the movie cast Jennifer Lawrence, who is white, as Katniss. So when The Hunger Games is remade (because we know it will be, Hollywood is positively allergic to new ideas and original stories now), I think it would be awesome for the movie to cast a dark-skinned Melungeon actor as Katniss.

That said, I had one other, entirely superficial, problem with J.Law playing Katniss, which is that she’s on the taller side (IMDb says 5‘9”). Whereas once Katniss gets to the Capitol and sees the other tributes, she mentions how most of them are a foot taller, and a hundred pounds heavier, than her. So, like… Are we supposed to believe that everyone in Panem is basically Shaq? Unlikely: Katniss is able to climb trees a lot higher than the tributes who tried to kill her at the start of the Games, so I’m guessing she’s probably supposed to be around my height, but maybe 50 lbs lighter. (If she is of Italian or Portuguese heritage, or both, that wouldn’t be terribly unlikely; I’ve met more Italians who are under 5‘4” than basically any other European-descended people. I should also mention that I’m about 40% southern Italian, so I come by my lack of height honestly.)

All that said, I do like J.Law’s portrayal of Katniss. She’s originally from Kentucky, so it’s not like she was some LA native trying to play hillbilly princess (not that J.Law is, but again, she’s at least from the right part of the country), and I feel like she played the character and her frustrations, and later trauma, really well. I just wish she looked more like the book described her. Then again, considering how the “fans” reacted to Rue being played by a Black girl, after she was described as Black in the books, I can understand why the casting director avoided it. People suck.