Racism isn’t ok, even when it’s disguising itself as lovable dorky quirkiness.
In the clip above, which begins with Jamie Oliver talking about a controversial paella recipe, Lawrence shares an horrifying anecdote from filming The Hunger Games in Hawaii. Specifically, she talks about scratching her butt on sacred rocks in Hawaii, which angered locals, and jokes that she was cursed because it knocked a boulder that almost killed their sound guy. The story circulated for some time around 2013, but the way she recounts the event on Graham Norton demonstrates that the star’s attitude towards the event is as culturally insensitive as it was then.
She reduces the cultural site to “sacred rocks, and they were, I don’t know, ancestors, who knows” before laughing and saying, “They were so good for butt-itching.” Lawrence presents herself as largely unapologetic and dismissive. The framing of this encounter as a lovable-goof moment rather than one of disrespect and offense is indicative of the tendency within our society to write off Hawaiian beliefs as laughable, less serious, or superstitious nonsense. Cue “White people are terrified of curses.”
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