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Movie Takes
The Hunger Games
A Diana-like Jennifer Lawrence almost redeems this blockbuster.
Artemis, also known as Diana the Huntress, lives on in The Hunger Games — a movie which, perhaps not coincidentally, has been setting box office records. The most evocative of the film’s publicity photos features the film’s star, the lovely but tough Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) in the role of Katniss Everdeen, got up a la Robin Hood in rustic costume and drawing back her bow to shoot at an unseen target. Even if that image in itself were not an inescapable reminder that Artemis was the goddess of virginity, the movie spells it out for us. Once, when the classical Diana and her attendant nymphs were spotted skinny-dipping in a woodland stream by a young hunter named Actaeon, she grew so cross with him that she turned the unfortunate fellow into a stag and had him torn to pieces by his own hounds. The supposedly 16-year-old Katniss proves her equal in savagery, repelling the sloppy lusts of peacetime even as she slaughters her coevals in the eponymous “games” for the amusement of the grown-ups of the future watching her on television.
Generally speaking, if I lived in the future I’m pretty sure I would be a bit more squeamish than these futuristic guys, who are sort-of-but-not-really modeled on ancient Romans, when it comes to watching children kill each other for sport on reality TV. I hope I would also have a better fashion sense than they do. But I can totally see what they find fascinating about the killing spree of the clean-limbed, athletic Katniss, whose Amazonian magnificence so much resembles that of Miss Joan Hunter Dunn and other 1930s tennis girls immortalized by the late Poet Laureate of Britain, Sir John Betjeman. Another model might have been found in a recent obituary in the British press of a young American swimmer, Shirley May France, who electrified the nation by failing to swim the channel in 1948:
Shirley May not only had a slender figure (though newspapers waxed lyrical about her “ample bosom”), she was also extremely pretty, with deep blue eyes, an upturned nose and a charming dimpled smile. It later emerged that her cross-Channel bid owed less to her own desire to break a record than to her father’s ambitions and the machinations of a press agent who could see a good story. As photographs of her swimsuit-clad figure appeared in every newspaper in America and Europe, there was talk of a Hollywood contract. The frenzy was heightened by a rumour (incorrect, to the disappointment of her admirers) that she intended to complete the swim in the nude. In the run-up to the great event, a sailor who fell off the flight deck of his aircraft carrier into the Mediterranean claimed that he had managed to stay afloat for 12 hours by thinking of Shirley May.
There’s something like reality TV, and you don’t have to go back to ancient Rome to get it! Like The Hunger Games, it even has a malevolent older generation in the person of an exploitative parent and press agent stage-managing the thing, though in 1948, apparently, they were less prudish about the sex.
That’s because the movie bears the stamp of its origins in the “young adult” fiction of Suzanne Collins, who collaborated on the screenplay. Anything like adult sexuality would have blurred the necessarily sharp line the movie draws between the tyrannical parent figures who sponsor and cheer on the child-killing game and their absurdly innocent victims. Of course, like most “dystopian” fantasies, the thing is a mess — and one which is not made any less messy by assurances that it all makes more sense in Ms. Collins’s novels. There is a rather awkward account near the beginning of a primordial cataclysm and civil war — or maybe the cataclysm was the civil war — which resulted in the virtual enslavement by the winners of large numbers of the losers, from the youthful descendants of whom the contestants in the Hunger Games are still being chosen, as they have been for the previous seventy-four years, in order that their “sacrifice” may be the means for the whole society “to remember the past and protect the future.” Right. Whatever.
But if the fantastical drama doesn’t make any kind of naturalistic sense, there is a symbolic side to it, summed up in the Diana Huntress figure, and a child’s lively sense of the intersection of sex and danger is an inevitable subtext to this story of children being victimized by adults — as it is, too, in Katniss’s rather disturbingly chaste relationship with the ultimate in non-threatening boyfriends, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). Even Peeta’s name is feminine. He escapes the hounds of Actaeon by turning himself into Katniss’s obedient puppy dog as the two of them are being hunted down by some very scary big kids with murder on their minds. As this is plainly intended as wish-fulfillment fantasy, however, not least in the politically correct pretense that girls — at least the girls of the future – are to be as good at fighting as boys, it’s pretty hard for the movie to generate very much suspense about the outcome. Yet somehow, unlike Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, Katniss manages to rise above the preposterousness of the drama into which she has been set and resemble something almost too real.
Gary Ross, a former Clinton speechwriter who also made the progressive parable, Pleasantville (1998), directs, and he misses few opportunities to diminish even further the picture’s already tenuous connections to reality — doubtless in the well-placed confidence that this is what his audience demands. Yet there is something rather splendid about the Diana-like Miss Lawrence that almost redeems it. Almost. In an era when it makes sense, if sense of an inevitably dubious and disagreeable kind, to talk of a “War Against Youth,” this almost mythological image of savage innocence could be a worthy representative of her oppressed generational cohort, helpless under the burden of debt their baby-boomer parents have piled on their shoulders. And even if such a grotesque indulgence in adolescent paranoia as the Hunger Games fantasy of being forced to hunt each other with lethal force partially discredits the young folks’ just resentment of what their elders have done to them, it may nevertheless be a step in the right direction towards their recognition of their real grievance.
About the Author
James Bowman, our movie and culture critic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A History and Media Madness: The Corruption of Our Political Culture, both published by Encounter Books.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (79) | Leave a comment
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Teaghan| 4.9.12 @ 7:59AM
So you didn't like the movie James. I loved it and if today's 20 something young people are watching and reading this kind of literature AND are seeing the parallels between then and today's gov. , it gives me hope for our nation. There were morals in it, a strong UNSEXUALIZED female lead who could feed her family and beat the tar of of anyone to protect herself. This is what young girls and women need to see if they are watching movies. Not the likes of Miley Cyrus or other hollywood trash who are so over sexualized, stupid and silly.
I look forward to reading all three books and seeing the sequels.
Stuart Koehl| 4.9.12 @ 8:29AM
Bowman really doesn't like anything except depressing, hyper-realistic European art films.
Alan Brooks| 4.9.12 @ 4:53PM
Yeah, she's cute, Bowman, a fine actress-- the cuter the better, right?
Roy| 4.9.12 @ 11:01PM
Actually, this is about as close as Bowman ever comes to praising a popular movie. I think I'll be watching this one.
squalis| 4.9.12 @ 7:59AM
It's very early on the west coast as I write this (4:00 AM), but I could not sleep tonight. It seems I am not comforted by the recently reported drop in unemployment. So, maybe it's a bit too early, but in reference to the above review, what did it say?
Appleby| 4.9.12 @ 8:11AM
It's pretty clear that this tiresome tantrum of a movie is an attempt to make Generation Whine the goodies against their (allegedly) Boomer Parents baddies. The Boomers are probably their grandparents, in actual historical fact, and the silly costumes of their adult oppressors clearly demonstrate that TheKids don't really know much of anything about the increasingly tiresome remnant of the Hippie Scum that represents adulthood to two whole generations. The interesting thing to me is that the authoress has dismissed the slacker parents who desperately want to be their children's "BFF" and not their parents. Although, come to think of it, the kind of parents who passively send their kids off to be sacrificed for 74 years, appaently without anything but a shrug and the Canadian whine, "What can you doooooooooooooo?" are probably worth nothing but dismissal.
As for the "iconic photo" I am already tired of it and ready to the Trendies to embrace something else just to get this movie off the stage.
Stuart Koehl| 4.9.12 @ 8:28AM
I take it then, that you didn't find it to be the neat little Girardian parable of mimetic violence and its uses that I did? Or that it was an outstanding discusis on war and its effects upon the human psyche? Or even an allegory about modern society's fixation with celebrity, faux realism, and perpetual entertainment (hint: the name of the oppressive new state is "Panem").
In actuality, the persons throwing a tantrum here seem to be you and Mr. Bowman.
edo| 4.9.12 @ 10:16AM
Oh come on. A negative review is not a tantrum. The film is just another spectacle to entertain the herd.
Lawrence D. Cannon| 4.9.12 @ 8:18AM
This movie is an allegory of the Obama Administration, where if he's re-elected we'll all be fighting for food and other basic needs for survival.
Anthony| 4.9.12 @ 10:31AM
Yeah, I think you got it Lawrence, it's the future brought to us by Obozo.
The New Dark Ages, as seen by our post- partisan, post-racial president and his radical enviro-nazi's.
How to hunt squirrels for supper using one's I-Pod.
Alan Brooks| 4.9.12 @ 10:17PM
This movie is an allegory of the Obama Administration, where if he's re-elected we'll all be fighting for food and other basic needs..."
But that means the Welfare State will end, so you will be pleased in the final analysis.
Stuart Koehl| 4.9.12 @ 8:25AM
I'll reiterate, Bowman: reality is a crutch for people who can't handle fantasy. I find your mania with "realism" to be a major impediment to your ability to review films with anything bearing even a faint resemblance to objectivity.
Louis Jenkins| 4.9.12 @ 9:37AM
So this a a movie review? Set in the future, kids killing kids, people starving, people watching it on tv, insects that have been bred to deliver hallucinagenic stings, etc. Move along folks, it's already being done. As Mr. Cannon states above, sounds like the Obama administration, so get yourself ready, it ain't going to be pretty.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.9.12 @ 9:59AM
This one was just another movie with a lead character who is a man inside a woman's body. Considering that the movie is based on a book by a woman, I had hoped for a story in which the brutal, fatal games are something a feminine character learns how to deal with, but of course that was too optimistic of me. She starts out as a male and finishes as a male, at least a male as a woman imagines men.
I would have been happier with the movie if she had started out as a young woman coming to terms with a masculinized, Roman-style, game, in which warrior values bring about victory, but I guess that was too much to hope for.
Just another movie about guys, with a main figure being a guy with a vagina and breasts.
Stuart Koehl| 4.9.12 @ 10:40AM
Father of two females begs to disagree.
Chalkdust| 4.9.12 @ 11:55AM
Really...N.S.O.B has it right I am among many guys who have had it up to here with so-call female hero's role in our culture and their "Ring Around the Collar" crap. Let's choose up sides and settle this national lie once and for-all. One of you "women are top dogs" believers pick 10 finely trained women and I'll pick 10 ordinary guys from any bar and we'll go at it and see who comes out on top (so to speak).
Mike 3/505| 4.9.12 @ 3:28PM
I find it interesting, the choice of weaponry is a bow, a weapon not readily used by females, as it requires an inordinant amount of upper body strength for accuracy...especially at a distance.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.9.12 @ 4:39PM
The use of a bow by a woman is also, due to physiological differences, painful in uniquely feminine ways.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.9.12 @ 4:44PM
There's a reason why, when the classical Greeks invented Amazon women, they envisioned them with their right breast cut off.
Riff Raff| 4.10.12 @ 2:04AM
I'm sure Victoria's Secret makes a product that renders such drastic actions unnecessary.
Stuart Koehl| 4.9.12 @ 4:46PM
My niece, who is about 5'5" and 110 pounds, is contending for a spot on the U.S. Olympic Archery Team. She shoots a 60-lb bow at a 70 meter target. You're welcome to try your luck against her.
In bow hunting, most shots take place at 20 meters or less. Back in the heyday of the longbow (unsophisticated bent sticks with a draw of up to 120 pounds), the lethal range was about 100 meters.
In medieval times, aristocratic women hunted game with a bow. In the Victorian era, with its antiquarian bent, the longbow saw a revival, and women became enthusiastic archers.
Thom| 4.9.12 @ 8:13PM
60 lb compound or recurve? Hunting arrow or target weight? Fingers or release?
Stuart Koehl| 4.9.12 @ 9:09PM
Recurve. She shoots both target and hunting arrows. Fingers. Videos of her in action are on You Tube. Look up Heather Koehl.
Le Cracquere| 4.9.12 @ 9:46PM
Good luck to your niece! I'll be looking for her name this summer.
Mike 3/505| 4.9.12 @ 10:33PM
Good Luck to her. I mean that sincerely.
Regards,
Mike
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.10.12 @ 10:14AM
That's why weapons like bows and guns are good. They help to equalize natural disparities.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.10.12 @ 10:26AM
Do you have any reason to believe that your niece is anything other than an anomaly among women?
Do you have any conception of how many men are attracted to archery in comparison to the number of women who are so attracted?
Stuart Koehl| 4.10.12 @ 11:51AM
She's an anomaly among men, too, most of whom couldn't hit a 70-meter target if you gave their arrows laser guidance. To compete at that level is by definition to be anomalous.
I would say that men outnumber women in competitive archery by about two or three to one; however, the number of women in the sport is growing more rapidly. I imagine the success of Hunger Games will see a real spike of interest.
KyMouse| 4.9.12 @ 10:26AM
Jennifer Lawrence grew up in my parents' neighborhood, and everybody I've talked to about her is delighted that she has blossomed into a good actress. I haven't seen "The Hunger Games," but I thought she gave a fine and natural performance in "Winter's Bone."
Speaking of actors with Louisville connections, a friend of mine taught Tom Cruise (Mapother) how to swim at Scout camp. He said that Tom told everybody that he was going to be a movie star someday.
I hope Jennifer doesn't become a Scientologist.
Buckeyeman| 4.9.12 @ 1:50PM
If Jennifer Lewis is a good actress you couldn't prove it by this mukluk of a movie.
Eric Rasmusen| 4.9.12 @ 11:06AM
I just finished the book, worrying about it being so popular with kids. It has some merits, but as the review noted, it's not real science fiction because the future world doesn't hang together or make sense (unlike, say, the Harry Potter novels, which do). And the commenter is right that it's another Strong Masculine Girl story. One thing in the novel, tho, is that the author clearly intends us to see that the girl is suppressing her soft side, and she only directly kills one person with her arrows, and that's a boy, in defense of another girl.
Anommynous| 4.9.12 @ 12:01PM
Why is there no religion in the books? None whatsoever? I find it hard to believe that nobody in such an oppressed society would ever pray. People keep mentioning the parallels to the Roman Colosseum, and it just reminds me that Christians were martyred for Roman entertainment, yet the faith flourished and eventually triumphed. When Japan lifted their two century ban on Christianity, it was found that there was a small group of Christians who worshipped in secret and maintainted their faith the entire time.
Am I supposed to believe that religion has been completely exterminated from the world of The Hunger Games? I find it to be a conspicuous omission.
Stuart Koehl| 4.9.12 @ 9:11PM
The religious themes are there (did you miss them--it's an implicitly Christian movie; the books are implicitly Christian, too). Making religion an explicit theme would have muddied the waters. Besides, it's quite clear that the Hunger Games have subsumed and subverted the traditional role of religion in this particular society--an extension of what is happening right now in our society.
Anommynous| 4.9.12 @ 10:44PM
Well, which is it? Do any people in that society believe in God, or is their God now the Hunger Games?
Again, look at the two examples I listed. The Romans watched Christians die in the Colosseum for entertainment, just like people (and moviegoers) watch children die in The Hunger Games. But despite this, Christianity prevailed, was never replaced by any false God.
My other example I just find truly inspirational. Japan in the Edo period became extremely anti-Western and isolationist, and Christianity was banned. Suspected Christians were asked to stomp over a fumi-e, generally an engraved image of Christ or Mary, to prove that they weren't Christian. And yet despite this, a pocket of Christians, called the Hidden Christians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakure_Kirishitan), continued to worship in secret for over 200 years.
What I'm saying is that I think faith is resilient, not so easily stamped out. I can't believe that the entire population of an oppressed society would make their oppressors their gods. And no, I don't need the books to become "explicitly" Christian, but I don't think it would be inappropriate, for example, to show *somebody* say a prayer for a fallen comrade. If anything, I think that would be more realistic. But in the fiction of our age, it is almost becoming taboo for any characters to outwardly show any sign of faith, and that bugs the hell out of me.
Stuart Koehl| 4.10.12 @ 12:15AM
To some extent both, just like today. Understand that more background can be given in the books than in a film--that's the nature of the different media. But it is clear that there has been a truly apocalyptic war in which large chunks of the country were rendered uninhabitable, and that what is left is ruled with an iron hand from a high-tech region called Capital, which lords it over the outlying "Districts" and keeps them in line with a combination of brutal police tactics (only vaguely alluded to in the movie, but much more explicit in the book) and the distraction of the Hunger Games. The name of the rump American state is "Panem", as in "Panem et Circenses", a phrase which ought to ring a bell if anything like classical education still exists. The purpose of the games is mimetic: the Tributes offered (drafted) by the Districts (a) remind the Districts of their "sin" of rebellion; (b) spur inter-District competition that keeps them from uniting against the Capital ("divide et impera"); and (c) provides an outlet for aggressive emotions.
There may be pockets of Christians still around; it just isn't mentioned. It may be that, after a prolonged period of persecution, religion has simply vanished from the public square along with all other forms of non-conformity. In which case, the remaining Christians (and probably Jews) would have become quite pietistic, trying to live quiet lives of personal holiness while maintaining a low profile--which is how the Christians in Japan managed to live through the Tokogawa Shogunate, or the Christians in the Soviet Union through the Communist years. Those being a little too overt in their faith, let alone opposing the regime because of their faith, would quickly disappear from the scene (I imagine you'll see more of the iron glove side of Capital in the second and third movies).
As for saying a prayer for a fallen comrade, Katniss does just that--and it changes everything. But also try to remember the nature of the Games themselves mitigates against the very concept of "comradeship"--it's an all against all competition, and even those who form temporary alliances know that, in the end, there can be only one winner--or survivor. Until, of course, Katniss changes everything again, through an act of kenotic self-sacrifice.
There is more in these books and movies than a lot of people--including Jim Bowman--are seeing. I think they need to go back and either re-read or watch again, this time looking below the superfices.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.10.12 @ 10:16AM
So why are they called "The Hunger Games?"
Stuart Koehl| 4.10.12 @ 10:28AM
It's not explicitly explained in the movie, but in the books, it's made clear that Capital takes most of the food raised in the districts, leaving behind barely enough for subsistence--think Ukraine and the Holodomor, except that Capital doesn't want to exterminate the residents of the Districts, just keep them so impoverished that they are too busy trying to find food to be able to rebel.
They are called the Hunger Games for several reasons. The most direct is because, for the Tributes (the kids drafted into fighting them), they are literally an escape from hunger. Like the ancient Celtic and Aztec sacrifices, from the time they are selected, until the games begin, they are treated like royalty and given as much food as they want--more than they have ever seen, in fact.
At a metaphorical level, the Games answer the hunger the people of the Districts for something better than what they have, while at the same time satiating the hunger residents of Capital have for spectacle and blood (Panem et circuses, again).
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.10.12 @ 1:21PM
So why aren't they called the All You Can Eat Games?
Anommynous| 4.10.12 @ 12:22PM
"Those being a little too overt in their faith, let alone opposing the regime because of their faith, would quickly disappear from the scene"
It would be interesting if the books actually showed this crackdown on faith, not necessarily Christian faith, but any faith at all. It would make the story more believable.
"As for saying a prayer for a fallen comrade, Katniss does just that--and it changes everything."
Whom does she pray to?
Stuart Koehl| 4.10.12 @ 8:48PM
Is it necessary to know?
Stuart Koehl| 4.9.12 @ 4:47PM
Same in the movie, too.
Petronius| 4.9.12 @ 11:54AM
When will Hollywood start calling her Jen Wayne? If films like this are supposed to be a social statement, it's so overdone. American manhood of half a century gone isn't just dead. It's now dead meat. The end of civilization will witness the return of the American Man or his disappearance forever. Hollywood is telling us what they want to see by offering what they want us to believe. But that's for later. Right now we're on the verge of becoming an ant hill.
Ed| 4.9.12 @ 12:48PM
Several other film reviews (American Thinker for one) have emphasized the Libertarian roots of the original books and this movie. Considering the usual dreck coming from Hollywood these days, be thankful for small favors. It might become the Animal Farm for a new generation of kids.
Ed| 4.9.12 @ 7:48PM
I posted the first message, but I did not post the second one. Both messages have the same time stamp, perhaps the system got confused.
Ed| 4.9.12 @ 12:48PM
The premise is pretty tired and has been filmed many times. Heck, Jean Claude Van Damme did at least one that was close, and that ignores Arnold in Running Man. Second, it's another of the fantasies telling 100 lb. girls they can trade shots with guys twice their size. Here's a clue-they can't.
Star Tripper| 4.9.12 @ 1:39PM
Haven't seen the movie but listened to the book on tape during my commute. Given that the books have become young adult novels targetting the same group that reads the Twilight series, they work. As libertarians and conservatives, we want our ideas in the culture, especially the youth culture. This does it even with the politically correct baggage.
Skippy| 4.9.12 @ 5:26PM
My litle girl needn't trade punches with men twice her size.
As a soldier and proven killer, she has other more effective tactics at her disposal.
I'll take that bet, Ed.
Thom| 4.9.12 @ 8:06PM
And if your little girl is up against a man twice her weight with the same skills?
Stuart Koehl| 4.9.12 @ 9:13PM
Then she'll have to fight dirty, won't she? This is not a movie about fighting, nor are the books; they are books about war, written for teenagers. As such, I find they are a lot more honest about the moral and psychological costs of killing than most books written for adults.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.10.12 @ 10:17AM
What happens if the man fights dirty against the girl first? That's more likely what will happen in such a circumstance, striking from behind, striking the most disabling blow possible without a moment's hestitation, preferably from behind.
Stuart Koehl| 4.10.12 @ 10:34AM
Then she dies. This is also made clear in both the books and the movie: there are no fair fights. Most of the girls who survive to the final few in the Game are the ones who avoid direct confrontations. They hide and wait for the strong ones to bump off each other. Katniss hides in trees, in a cave, in deep brush; another girl also hides in trees, and befriends Katniss (their friendship becomes a catalyst for Katniss to deny the Game Masters victory on their terms), and the third long-term female survivor stalks the other players and scavenges food from them (she only slips up when she accidentally eats some poisonous berries that Katniss' District XII teammate has picked by mistake). So both the books and the movie take a very reasonable approach to what the physically weak need to do to survive against an array of stronger opponents.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.10.12 @ 1:16PM
Yes, all true. The unmentioned fact is that most women do not take well to the idea of fighting dirty. Not that they aren't capable of it, but that they aren't raised with that as a potentiality. Girls are raised not to expect violent behavior, that's why it's such an outrage when they become victims of it.
It's also part of the reason why it's absurd to continue telling the lie that the average woman can take on the average man. Most men will hesitate too, but they will have less hesitation, will tend to freeze less often in the face of violence, and they will have fewer inhibitions about using violence themselves. The movie has Katniss climbing up a tree and shooting arrows into an obliging target who attacks her directly without dodging in order avoid threats. The fight on the top of the cornucopia is like those chop socky flicks where the bad guys always attack the hero one at a time.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.10.12 @ 1:20PM
I have no doubt that the contestant who spent the last year training for the games would be the winner if by some magic this absurd story became reality. But of course, Katniss had to win, else the story would go in an unacceptable direction, wouldn't it?
Stuart Koehl| 4.11.12 @ 10:12AM
As is noted in the movie--and developed more in the book--certain districts have "career" Tributes, raised from an early age to be warriors, and who are chosen to represent their districts in each years Game.
The careerists usually--but not always--win, first, because they are trained killers, second because they tend to form alliances with each other, bumping off the other (non-career) Tributes until only they are left, at which point it's no-holds-barred.
This is seen in the movie, where the Tributes from Districts 1 and 2 form a pack which goes hunting for Katniss and the other Tributes. They hang together until Katniss' "asymmetrical" tactics thin their ranks. Note that a careerist is the last man standing, aside from Katniss and Peeta.
Stuart Koehl| 4.10.12 @ 8:50PM
The Bible presents a couple of anecdotes about women fighting very dirty, indeed. They just need suitable motivation--threats to their lives, or even moreso, to their families and children, can bring out the wild beast in any woman. Special Ops Bill would remember the lesson they taught in counter-terrorism and hostage rescue classes: shoot the female terrorists first, because they are far more likely to open fire on hostages than their male counterparts.
Gr0w1er601| 4.9.12 @ 5:10PM
Wonder if they shot the other two book story lines (a la "Lord of the Rings" trilogy) concurrently with this production? The ending begs for the inevitable sequel.
Thom| 4.9.12 @ 8:07PM
There are pilot vids out there that come from the second book....
Joe Doaks| 4.9.12 @ 6:38PM
The MSM seems to be ignoring Donald Sutherland's cynical observation that 'Hope' is essential, but letting it be fulfilled is not to be desired. Too real. Also, when Katniss separates herself from the other 'Tributes' to get some rest, the gamemasters start a forest fire to herd her back into action - I heard in the back of my head: 'Barack's not going to let you sit comfortably...'
Teaghan| 4.9.12 @ 6:55PM
Good God, the male jealousy is running deep here today.
Stuart Koehl| 4.9.12 @ 9:14PM
Ain't it, though?
Mike 3/505| 4.9.12 @ 10:38PM
Stu,
With due regard for your daughter's stellar perfomance and achievements, this ain't about "male jealousy." It's about being tired of having a false-to- fact meme, thrust upon us day in and day out...that being "the average female is just as physically adept as the average male." It just ain't so.
Regards,
Mike
Stuart Koehl| 4.10.12 @ 12:22AM
That's the point all along--Katniss is not average. Perhaps the movie could have stressed that more; the book certainly does. And, inter alia, there have always been a few women, here and there, with both the skills, the instinct and the strength to be warriors. Not many, but a statistically significant minority.
That said, real war isn't waged by warriors, but by soldiers, and soldiers fight in armies, and armies require solidarity and cohesion, which (as I have written many, many, many times) cannot exist when women and men fight side by side. Only two armies in modern history have ever tried to do that (the Red Army in World War II, and the Israeli Palmach in 1948). Both ended the experiment almost immediately, despite a strong sexual egalitarian ideology, because of that overriding military rationale: it didn't work. Look up some of my articles for details of why.
That's why the Hunger Games is set up as it is--an artificial combat under controlled conditions in an artificial environment. Under such conditions, given the all-against-all nature of the games, individual skill and perseverance, and not strength or solidarity, can be the key to winning. As the trainer Haymitch noted, two thirds of the players get killed by Mother Nature, not other players.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.10.12 @ 10:19AM
Yes, Haymitch says that, and then the movie depicts just the opposite. Are any of the contestants in this particular competition killed by natural causes?
Stuart Koehl| 4.10.12 @ 10:39AM
The fox-faced girl learns that not all blue berries are blueberries. And a few of the District 1 and 2 "careerists" learn not to kick over a hornet's nest. But we don't see all of the deaths, so we have no way of knowing. After eleven are killed off in the bloodbath of the Cornucopia, we only see those who are killed or die in proximity to Katniss. The books are told in a very direct, first person narrative, from Katniss' perspective, and the movie sticks to that. When Tributes die, their pictures are projected on the roof of the Arena--the mode of their death is withheld from the players to avoid giving them an advantage. Katniss only knows how they died if she actually saw them die.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.10.12 @ 1:08PM
Oh yeah, the hornets killed the girl, I forgot about that one. I guess the production staff decided to forget about showing the high percentage of deaths caused by natural causes as we in the audience were so pointedly told.
Stuart Koehl| 4.10.12 @ 8:52PM
Actually, the movie cut back on the graphic descriptions of the book a great deal, which I thought was a very good idea, indeed. Never show what you can suggest. Jaws was a great movie because you didn't see the shark until the very end, so you could only imagine what was happening below the surface.
wnmc| 4.9.12 @ 11:12PM
I took my children to the movie (girl 15, boy 12). I enjoyed it as they did. It is a good movie- well acted and scored though the editing could have been a little sharper. But folks it is just a movie. It is not about your dreadful president. It is entertainment and nothing else and on that score it does very well. Conflating movies with our current life or politics is lazy thinking. Donald Sutherland is a great actor but hardly a a serious thinker- none of them are. Any parent or reviewer who thinks movies should a source of role models is not doing their job. Sit down, lay back, smile at your kids and try not to rattle those goddamn bags of candy too much and enjoy. Then go home and encourage them to read something. Movies are eye candy.
Stuart Koehl| 4.10.12 @ 12:23AM
" It is entertainment and nothing else and on that score it does very well. "
And Lord of the Rings was just a fairy tale about little guys with hairy feet.
Hangman | 4.10.12 @ 3:32AM
I had read this story but didn't watch in movie, is it different?
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.10.12 @ 10:21AM
It was OK. It's a teener flick without the coming-of-age stuff. If you miss it in the movies, be assured that there's very little to be missed if you see it on TV later. It doesn't have any subject-matter that is uniquely suited to a large-screen treatment.
casque by dr dre | 4.10.12 @ 6:29AM
i like it
afvallenineenweek | 4.10.12 @ 2:34PM
I'm curious about this Movie especially Jennifer Lawrence :)
Stefan Stackhouse| 4.10.12 @ 4:05PM
I get the social and political commentary, I really do. Nevertheless, children killing entertainment? (Both per the plot, and for those watching in the audience.) Come on! That's just SICK, SICK, SICK!
What does it say about us as a nation that the only types of future we can imagine any more are these horrible dystopian nightmares?
Stefan Stackhouse| 4.10.12 @ 4:05PM
Meant to say "children killing children"
Stuart Koehl| 4.10.12 @ 8:53PM
Isn't children killing children a common paradigm in many parts of the world, and even in the United States? Or am I just imagining all those murders committed by teenage kids against other teenage kids?
DRA2010| 4.16.12 @ 5:24PM
You are certainly correct, SK - even in the US Army, the majority of the foot soldiers are teenagers.
In the bad parts of the world (the Middle East & Africa), warlords routinely use 14-18 year old gunmen, and I have read accounts of regular army troops being forced to return fire from 8-year olds!
This kids have little education, and less future - what difference do you think will it make to them if pulling a trigger makes the "enemy" fall down?
girl with mockingjay pin | 4.10.12 @ 5:11PM
These are really cool worksheets, I know I had a little compare/contrast in my head of the Peeta from the movie versus the Peeta from the books.
Having read the books first I went in with a lot of expectations about the movie, but I think they did a lot better with the Hunger Games than other book series in keeping close to the storyline even though part of me cringed when I saw where Katniss picked up her mockingjay pin.
Thanks for the food for thought! I love analyzing my favorites!
POST American| 4.18.12 @ 11:57PM
---With NDAA 1021 standing unchallenged
-----with RIO+20 and the deadly, deadly
capstone program for FINAL EUGENICS
about to be given 'hard' power
---------with NDAA 1021 still standing unchallenged --indeed, unmentioned
-------in this, the 11th hour of the CFR-RED
China handover, sellout, TREASON and
FINAL EUGENICS OP
'Hunger Games' is nothing more than routine
torture porn meets predictive programming.
----------------HUAC/ Nuremberg 2012---------------