The release of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the franchise’s latest release, has sparked many conversations about the descent in popularity of teen dystopian movies and books in the late 2000s. The genre was at the forefront of the teenage mind, and then suddenly, it vanished from bestseller lists and cinema screens.
But, while these conversations spiral into which boy was better for the effortlessly gorgeous main character or critiques of which weapon is the most effective in a fictional apocalyptic world, the thoughts, feelings, and lived experiences of teens of colour are often forgotten.
While many dystopian authors loosely centre their novels’ conflicts on real-world struggles of people of colour across the world — for instance, TV news clips of the Iraq war inspiring Suzanne Collins to write The Hunger Games series — these stories frequently do not include an accurate depiction of people of colour or, in the worst cases, don’t include people of colour at all.
White authors often write novels that fail to represent teenagers of all races, instead catering to teens that look like them and delegating any characters of colour to snarky side characters or tools to propel the white protagonist on their journey.
One of the clearest examples of a character of colour used to further the narrative and character development of a white main character is shown through Rue’s (Amandla Stenberg) character in The Hunger Games. The main purpose of Rue’s character is for Katniss to save her, and her death is used to further the movie’s revolution — a movement predominantly centring the white characters. This is an example of tokenism, a concept frequently used in dystopian fiction.
Instead of authors using the dystopian genre to explore real-world concepts and issues, warning young audiences of ideas authors deem dangerous, or creating an imaginary world to allow teens to imagine what they would do, these books often become self-indulgent ways for authors to play saviour and hero. They use people of colour’s identities and lived experiences as pawns without considering if their stories accurately portray the people they get some of their inspiration from.
While this genre has had several issues surrounding race and inclusion, there are exceptions. Countless authors and directors have gone the extra mile to tell diverse stories accurately representing marginalized communities and taking inspiration from real-world stories with care.
Audiences have praised The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes movie for its diversity and storytelling. Meanwhile, Rebecca Roanhorse and Nalo Hopkinson create beautiful apocalyptic worlds in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy and The Salt Roads, respectively, while still incorporating characters that reflect real people without tokenization.