After JK Rowling, another great writer “spoiled” when author Percy Jackson – Rick Riordan called the wave of protests against black Annabeth “racist”.
Author Percy Jackson calls protests against black Annabeth ‘racist’
Previously, Game4V reported that the cast of the reboot work Percy Jackson and The Olympians was officially announced. Walker Scobell, 13, will play Percy Jackson, Grover Underwood, played by Aryan Simhadri, 15, and Annabeth Chase, played by Leah Jeffries, 12.
As soon as information about the “quality” cast selected by the author Rick Riordan himself was announced, a very strong wave of objections emerged about the fact that the character Annabeth is completely opposite to the original. as well as Rick trying to please Disney by “blackening” the characters.
Percy Jackson’s Annabeth Chase was described as having “blonde hair and tan” but was changed to black (played by Leah Jeffries) when it was turned into a movie – which caused controversy. After being criticized in the fan community, the story’s author Rick Riordan himself recently defended the casting decision and called the above wave of protests against black Annabeth “racism”.
According to Rick Riordan, the casting process of Percy Jackson this time was very carefully organized with the principle of putting talent first, appearance is only a secondary criterion and Leah Jeffries is a perfect Annabeth Chase according to the criteria. In his vision, the content of the story wants to convey is to respect differences, so those who claim to be fans of the story who oppose black Annabeth do not understand the message of the story.
Many fans congratulated Rick Riordan when he turned in the “self-destruct” box for Percy Jackson
As for the context of the story, the demigod Annabeth Chase (daughter of the goddess Athena) is built as a girl with intentionally “blonde” hair (“blond hair” = white skin + blonde), whereby “blonde” girls in the west are always seen as the stupid type, so Annabeth always has to work twice as hard as normal people to break that prejudice, Annabeth’s tanned skin due to outdoor activities, in addition, she also wished she had dark hair so that people around her wouldn’t look at her with half their eyes because she was a “blonde”.
And of course, Rick Riordan’s response to “whisper with chopsticks” and lack of sophistication has successfully added fuel to the fire and only made the fan community more angry. In general, after JK Rowling, we have another famous author who “self-destructs” when changing his own principles and transforming his brainchild to please the trend. How ironic that before, Rick Riordan himself was an extremely difficult author, even he was extremely annoyed when the character in the adaptation was a little different from the original series, but now the person who has changed is Rick.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians (English: Percy Jackson & the Olympians, or Percy Jackson for short), is a series of fantasy adventure novels written by Rick Riordan. The series has sold more than 45 million copies across 35 countries.
On October 28, 2011, the series was on The New York Times Best Seller list for children’s books for 223 weeks. The first episode was adapted into the movie Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief in 2010. The second episode was also adapted into the movie Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, which premiered in 2013 and both. The film was “smashed” by both critics and fans. Not long ago, Disney announced the adaptation of Percy Jackson again, but this time on the small screen and instead of shortening the story to create a movie, Disney will respect the original and adapt it. Rick Riordan’s entire book series into a Disney+ TV series.
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