A White American director produces a movie for an international audience. The movie places the future fate of the world in the hands of a White American protagonist. The movie is about some other issue treated in a superficial way (it’s a YA dystopia, after all). Therefore, the movie is not about race.
It’s kind of hard to avoid the subject in present day America. So well-meaning mostly-white mostly-privileged Americans complain that the movie is mostly about White People and largely ignores an important issue in present-day America.
Coming from a European country that was exclusively white until immigration from outside the region started changing that quite recently, there are different “missing issues” that I see. There are no recent immigrants who don’t know the local language yet, or who still follow traditions that aren’t accepted by the majority. THAT is an important issue.
Oh, and there is no other country besides Panem/America, or at least no other place matters. Neither the rebellion nor the government has ties to supporters outside the country. America is all that matters. No need to think about the rest of the world. That might be seen as American privilege.
Or maybe this is exactly what the movie is about? If America is supposed to remind us of District One, then Europe is District Two. We grumble a bit, but we gladly send our two volunteers, and we enjoy lots of privileges.
Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just a dumb movie that starts with the idea of a “rich” country ruthlessly oppressing “poor” countries or provinces, and goes from there with whatever seems “cool” at the moment. It’s a simple story, and it has a right to be simple. It does not need to tackle, deal with, or give lip-service to every issue that is important on this planet.
Though if a show/movie is about day to day life in prison (or the show is about something else but a particular episode is about that) they do tend to represent how racially divided it is, if it’s about a ragtag group breaking OUT, they usually do find a way to cross lines and become a colorfully mixed team working together.
The most thoroughly chilling science fiction dystopia I’ve ever seen was the terrifying motion picture called Idiocracy. Oh, I can laugh at it now, but I got flop sweats watching it the first time.
There is one sort of “dystopia” that I hate more. I spend 90% of the book wishing the system would finally change, wishing there would finally be a successful revolution against the status quo. And at the climax, one of bad guys actually gets to explain their thinking. And… they are right. Either the dystopian society is stuck deep in a Nash equilibrium, or it actually is the best of all possible ways to live. Either way, no matter how bad things are, it would be positively evil to try to change things.
Huxley did that to me. I didn’t enjoy Brave New World all that much, but the ending is pure genius.
What are you talking about? Only one of them’s white. One’s got black and white fur. Another one’s green. One’s gray, and one’s greyish with red streaks.
That’s about as diverse as you can get!
But yeah, I get you, it’s not the most diverse set, but it does involve crossing the traditionally racially segregated lines of prison.
