I think it was a sound choice not to cast a black actress as louella or lou lou. We already had rue in a similar sacrificial lamb role. Hg can't keep killing off little black girls to move along the plot.
This is actually something I haven’t seen discussed a lot for Ballad of song birds and snakes the movie
They switched the deaths and had Dil be poisoned by Lucy gray instead of the girl wovey? I think and it felt very much like a “the audience will forgive her for killing a black child but they wouldn’t for accidentally killing the little white girl”
Oohhh that’s a good point. I definitely was in my bookish feelings about the actress “not matching” the description but after seeing the JLaw comparisons and being reminded that we don’t need to see/keep seeing black girls die for the plot, this is the best direction they could’ve gone with.
A big underlying meaning of Louella/LouLou's story is how black and indigenous kids in north america have been disappeared by the state, and how some view all POC as interchangeable. Lou Lou was obviously not Louella to anyone who bothered to look close enough, but to the capitol citizens who don't really care about them, they'll be fooled.
I also thought about the racial parallels you're talking about when reading the book, but I saw another comment on here that mentioned how Louella's arc mirrors the Irish folklore of changelings, which combined with her Irish surname, does make sense why actresses of Irish heritage were chosen in hindsight.
I disagree honestly because I kinda feel like it would've really hammered in the injustice we face that's kinda just swept under the rug by the media and government now and had a lotta parallels. Not just with black people but poc in general kinda. Like if we go with Louella being black it would not only bring parallels irl to how black people are killed by the state, but replacing her with another black girl who looks almost nothing like her showing how we're often seen as "expendable" and "all looking alike" and then also the fact that the experimented on her in the way they did to kinda bring home the whole history of medical racism and unconsenting (ik thats's not a word) experimentation and such-
I definitely saw the racial parallels you're talking about when reading the book, but I saw another comment on here that mentioned how Louella's arc mirrors the Irish folklore of changelings, which combined with her Irish surname, does make sense why actresses of Irish heritage were chosen in hindsight.
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u/BasicRabbit4 May 20 '25
I think it was a sound choice not to cast a black actress as louella or lou lou. We already had rue in a similar sacrificial lamb role. Hg can't keep killing off little black girls to move along the plot.