#get it right
Going off script for a little rant: I usually ignore grammar mistakes, but sometimes I have to go off….
Its BEAR with me, not BARE with me. No, I don’t want to ‘bare’ with you or anybody else for that matter.
It’s CAST, not CASTED.
Now back to your regularly scheduled business…..
onemustalwaysbecarefulofbooks:
I honestly don’t even come on this website much anymore but I am breaking my silence to shout this from the rooftops. I don’t care what the reaction to this is, I stand by it 10000000000% and you’re not changing my mind.
Is it okay to be excited about the casting? Yes!!! Of course!! Is it also okay to wish there had been a different outcome? ALSO YES.
(And for those of you who are ready to click away, or turn into a furious keyboard warrior before going any further, I sincerely challenge you to read till the end. A weak-minded person refuses to examine things from anything other than their own perspective. Prove me wrong!!!!)
Here’s the real talk most of you aren’t ready to hear. If Rick Riordan collaborated with Disney+ to develop an original show with original characters, with a totally new plot and story and everything, and this girl was cast as the main female lead and people said “Ugh, this is so disappointing, why is she black????” THAT WOULD BE RACIST. If, in our current scenario someone said “I really wish she wasn’t black, black people are ugly/stupid/bad actors/etc.” THAT WOULD BE RACIST. Saying “Annabeth was a white girl with blonde hair in the books so I wish she was being portrayed as a white girl with blonde hair in the show” IS NOT RACIST.
We live in a society that preys on the majority of the population’s desire to be good. And I really and truly do believe that–most people are GOOD!! No normal sane person wants to be labeled as a racist. Unfortunately, people with nefarious intentions know this and have begun using this word as a weapon. Don’t agree with me?? You’re a racist!!!!!! In that person’s eyes, they are on superior moral ground, therefore they have already won the “argument”. All productive conversation is shut down. This word has become so normalized that it downplays actual REAL HARMFUL racism that is hurting people around the world on a daily basis. RACISM IS REAL. It exists anywhere that humans look different from each other. It can have devastating consequences. And I find it incredibly disrespectful to the victims of it to throw this word around as loosely as we do now.
All it takes is about five seconds of critical thinking to realize that maybe the majority of people who are expressing disappointment about this are not all evil white supremacists. Guys. Annabeth Chase is one of the most well-known middle grade/YA literary characters of all time. She has been a main character and/or featured in The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, The Last Olympian, The Lost Hero, The Mark of Athena, The House of Hades, The Blood of Olympus, The Sword of Summer, The Hammer of Thor, The Ship of the Dead, The Tower of Nero, and several short stories and novellas: The Demigod Diaries, The Demigod Files, The Staff of Serapis, The Crown of Ptolemy. Her first appearance was in The Lightning Thief, which was published in 2005. This is a character who has been living in people’s minds for damn near twenty years. She has been depicted by both fan artists AND professional artists alike for that entire time as a white girl with blonde hair. She is smack dab in the middle of the cover of House of Hades as a white girl with blonde hair. We have been staring at her in beloved fan arts as a white girl with blonde hair for YEARS (those of you as ancient as I am will remember the heyday of Burdge and Viria. Shout out to both of them, I LIVED for their work back in the day!). Saying that someone is racist for wanting a beloved and well-known character they have been visualizing for seventeen years to look the way they were DEPICTED for seventeen years RACISTS for doing so is just SILLY.
Saying a character’s physical appearance means nothing is equally as silly. Apparently everyone is too young to remember or has conveniently forgotten the uproar that was heard and felt when Alexandra Daddario portrayed Annabeth as a brunette. If you talked to a PJO fan about the movie back in 2010, I can ASSURE you, one of the first things out of their mouths was: “Annabeth is supposed to have blonde hair!!!!!!!” People did not like that choice of actress and it was simply because she did not resemble the physical description of Annabeth in the books. Anyone else remember the fuss that was made over Daniel Radcliffe not having green eyes as Harry Potter?? Or the bad dye job they gave Josh Hutcherson to play Peeta?? None of those things involved race. Book fans STILL complained about them. The bottom line is this: die-hard fans want the actors on screen to look like the characters they imagined in their minds. AND THAT IS OKAY!!!!!!!
Guess what??? I would be JUST as pissed if they cast Percy as a redhead (and for those of you saying he was cast as a blonde, mark my words…they’ll still dye his hair black. And if they don’t at this point, it’ll just be to try and prove a point). I would be JUST as pissed if, down the road, they cast Hazel as a white girl, Leo as a blonde white kid, Piper and Frank as ANYTHING other than Cherokee and Chinese. What they are in the book is what I want to see on the screen. I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH BLACK PEOPLE. I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THIS GIRL AS A HUMAN BEING OR AN ACTRESS. DIVERSITY SHOULD BE CELEBRATED. I JUST WANT ANNABETH TO LOOK LIKE SHE LOOKS IN THE BOOKS. THAT’S REALLY IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s honestly not that deep!!!!!!!!!!!
It has nothing to do with white people vs black people, it just simply has to do with book fans wanting to see what they saw in their minds for nearly two decades play out on a screen in front of them. That’s it!!!!!!!!!
Calling people racists over this is immature and cheap, you guys. People on this site (and in life in general) really need to learn how to disagree without becoming hostile and dramatic. If you’re happy and excited about the casting, that’s great! I’m happy you’re happy. There is so much negative bad shit in the world, anything you can find to be happy about is great. Leah Sava Jeffries is a beautiful little girl. I’m sure she’s sweet and intelligent and an extremely talented actress. I would never ever want to see her bullied or harassed for any of this and anyone who does so should be condemned. (Honestly though, 99.9% of internet “haters” have the intellectual and emotional maturity of the mountain troll from the first Harry Potter so trying to explain to them that this is not only pointless, but morally wrong, is a waste of time and effort). I can say all of this AND also say that she is not who I would have liked to see play Annabeth. That does not make me a racist. It makes me a book purist. Learn to recognize the difference, guys.
SAYING THAT YOU’RE “DISAPPOINTED SHE ISN’T WHITE LIKE SHE IS IN THE BOOKS” IS JUST AS RACIST AS SAYING “DISAPPOINTED THAT ANNABETH IS BLACK”
JUST CUZ YOU AREN’T USING THE WORD BLACK IN YOUR SENTENCE DOESNT MEAN YOU AREN’T BEING RACIST.
Don’t get it confused.
ANNABETH IS BLACK AND SHE IS PERFECT.
stop calling bi/pan characters anything but bi/pan 2k16 :))))))))))))))
