When the hit series, The Hunger Games, first came out it was an immediate best seller. What started as a book series turned into a 3 movie series. When the first movie was released, a large number of fans started sharing their racist opinions on characters in the show. They were claiming that they didn’t realize while reading the series that a character called Rue was black. This backlash was not expected by producers at all. The character Rue is portrayed as a 12-year old girl who is a “tribute” in the murderous yearly games. The main character, Katniss Everdeen, befriends Rue as they enter their first games.

Amanda Stenberg, at 13, plays Rue. She is also in the well known film, The Hate You Give. When the hate was coming in after the first Hunger Games was released, Twitter blew up. According to NBC news, the most hateful comments were being found on Twitter. Comments such as “Why does Rue have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined the movie” were showing the true colors of a large amount of the Hunger Games fandom. To say the actors and producers were shocked would be an understatement. Collins has stated that Rue’s skin color was never a secret in the books. Another editor wrote, “People disgust me. Rue was great, whatever race you thought she was supposed to be” ( NBC News). That comment made by Michelle Juett, really sums up the reaction that these racist comments got. A person’s skin color doesn’t affect their overall talent! If interested in reading more about this check out, https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/some-hunger-games-fans-upset-character-rue-black-flna560267.