The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to The Hunger Games

I know I'm not alone when I say that the post-COVID world has me drowning in virtual professional development opportunities. Don't get me wrong, I do love it and appreciate the ease with which I can consume great amounts of information from the comfort of my office but it can be a bit overwhelming. On to my point, which is that I heard about this book, The Dark Fantastic​​​​​​, very briefly during a webinar that I attended at some point in the last six months (don't ask me which one because I have no idea) and after the brief description I knew I just had to read it.  

One of the hot topics for which this book is pretty popular is the issue of Rue's race in the Hunger Games books and movies. As a lover of young adult literature, I have OF COURSE read that series. Not counting The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes which I'll get around to *soon*. The issue explained in this book was that of Rue's race, which became a very heated subject online once the cast of the movies became public knowledge. Apparently, book/movie fandom on internet fan sites and Twitter can get pretty ugly and abruptly racist. I have not participated in book fandom online so I had no idea what a truly ugly place it could be until reading this book. Although, I have recently gotten more of a taste of this behavior having delved into #booktok on the app everyone loves to hate- TikTok. 

This book addresses the treatment of race and dark-skinned characters from a variety of media, including books and television. Some of the issues were completely new to me and others I only had cursory knowledge about. I was fascinated to read more about the issues addressed in this book but particularly how the author reframed the experience of dark characters in media to highlight the reflection of our social norms. I was also blown away by the information she provided about internet fandom. I had no idea how toxic and influential that scene could be. I'm very glad I never got involved! 

On a positive note, the author does explain how fan fiction can be used to break free from the dark fantastic cycle and our collective imagination gap allowing readers of color access to fantasy and power within it. I appreciate this book for opening my eyes, not only to the issues discussed but also to an assortment of new authors to read. Octavia Butler is now on my TBR. 

Now, I'll mention that this is a book written by an academic scholar and it absolutely reads that way. Consider this your warning that this is by no means a "leisure read". It's a book that explores race in our imaginations and fantasy worlds. 

-Brittnee

The Dark Fantastic by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas

Call Number: Palatka Circulation PS374.F27 T475 2019

ISBN: 9781479800650

Publication Date: 2019-05-21

Winner, 2020 World Fantasy Awards Finalist, Creative Nonfiction IGNYTE Award, given by FIYACON for BIPOC+ in Speculative Fiction Reveals the diversity crisis in children's and young adult media as not only a lack of representation, but a lack of imagination Stories provide portals into other worlds, both real and imagined. The promise of escape draws people from all backgrounds to speculative fiction, but when people of color seek passageways into the fantastic, the doors are often barred. This problem lies not only with children's publishing but also with the television and film executives tasked with adapting these stories into a visual world. When characters of color do appear, they are often marginalized or subjected to violence, reinforcing for audiences that not all lives matter. The Dark Fantastic is an engaging and provocative exploration of race in popular youth and young adult speculative fiction. Grounded in her experiences as YA novelist, fanfiction writer, and scholar of education, Thomas considers four black girl protagonists from some of the most popular stories of the early 21st century: Bonnie Bennett from the CW's The Vampire Diaries, Rue from Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, Gwen from the BBC's Merlin, and Angelina Johnson from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter. Analyzing their narratives and audience reactions to them reveals how these characters mirror the violence against black and brown people in our own world. In response, Thomas uncovers and builds upon a tradition of fantasy and radical imagination in Black feminism and Afrofuturism to reveal new possibilities. Through fanfiction and other modes of counter-storytelling, young people of color have reinvisioned fantastic worlds that reflect their own experiences, their own lives. As Thomas powerfully asserts, "we dark girls deserve more because we are more."