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Because the Odds are Not in Their Favor (Potential Hunger Games Spoilers Within)

Kj — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:19:03 +0000

I’ve avoided writing about The Hunger Games on my blog because I’ve assigned the text for a class I’m teaching this summer, and didn’t want all my salient lecture points (or student paper topics) just sitting here willy nilly on my blog, but I’m breaking my rule because of an outstanding intertextual experience I had, which clarified some lingering questions.

You might know that I’ve seen the film adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ book 8 times in the theatre (so far?). I’ve read the first book 4 times. As any good adaptation should, the film raised new and different questions for me than did the original text. Reading the series, most of my questions dealt with my identity as a consumer. It doesn’t take much self-knowledge or cultural awareness as a reader to know that you are not Katniss or Peeta; you are the Capitol. You are the person wearing shoes made by an impoverished person somewhere distant you’ll likely never see and eating food you played no role in harvesting. As Katniss implicitly invites you to be horrified by the Capitol citizens’ egregious oppression through ignorance, she implicates our participation in a similarly convenenient incognizance.

What the film allows that the book does not is an insider’s perspective of the Game Makers and Game technicians. The books give no details of the people who push the buttons that lead children to their deaths, but now the film does. What’s brilliant about the film’s protrayal is that the button-pushers are not the bloated beardy men drinking cocktails above the Training Center so clearly coded as “Old School Evil Boys Club.” No, the button pushers are genial, hard-working folk who take pride in their specialized skills and participation in a finely honed team of magic-makers. The nerdy blonde smiles coyly when she sees that Katniss has noticed one of the cameras embedded in a tree. The booming voice behind the final countdown is a baby-faced fellow who can’t be older than twenty. And the top dog of the button pushers, the creator of the mutations that kill Thresh and ravage Cato, is the lovely and amiable Lucia, who most greatly resembles the woman you would choose to sit next to on the bus if the seats were filling up. These are the people literally smiling as they steer teenagers toward violent deaths.

As I watched I had to ask myself, in what area of my life might I be as benignly comfortable with people’s deaths. The question didn’t have time to fully form before “The Military” lit up my brain. While I certainly don’t smile cheerfully while hearing troop casualty reports, there certainly exists in my mind an attitude of “you know what you’re signing up for.” Now I’d like to qualify my remarks by explaining all the ways that my attitude is totally different than the game techs and that of course I respect the people who serve in the armed forces, but the point I’m trying to make is that the film showed me my own attitudes extrapolated to their not-too-far-reaching extremities. The films takes my subtle reduction of “soldiers die” and makes it visible. Lucia smiles as she prepares a canon to announce Katniss’ death because Katniss isn’t a real person to her. Katniss is a tribute, and “tributes die.” “That’s what they [get] sign[ed] up for.”

That observation had been floating in the back of my mind until the other night when, after seeing The Hunger Games again, I watched Winter’s Bone, the film that garnered Jennifer Lawrence an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Watching the film now, its not hard to see why Lawrence was Suzanne Collins’ ideal Katniss. Ree Dolly is a modern-day Katniss, roaming the Ozarks in search of her meth-cooking father so she can keep her siblings and clinically depressed/catatonic mother fed and safe. It would have been hard not to read these two films intertextually for narrative reasons, setting, score, regardless of Jennifer Lawrence’s presence, but her performance made me watch more closely.

What jumped out most to me in Winter’s Bone was the issue of entering the armed forces. We see Ree watching admiringly as her former classmates practice drills either for the color guard or ROTC (she’s clearly dropped out of high school to care for her family). As she enters neighbors’ homes, its common to see a soldier’s portrait on the mantel: decorated as a memorial or just decorated with pride? And most significantly, 17 year-old Ree tries to enroll in the army for the $40,000 signing pay. She is unapologetic about wanting to join just for the money, which she needs in order to keep her family alive.

The American flags, eagles, and patriotic symbols that adorn the homes and bodies of the characters throughout this poverty stricken tale finally connected the dots that The Hunger Games film had drawn. Who are our present day teenagers that submit themselves to danger and violence because poverty makes it appear as their best option? And why is it that patriotism for the country that propagates this system seems highest in the very communities who are paying the greatest cost? The parallels to Distict 1 and 2 [and beyond] are not hard to see. If you’re going to be forced through poverty to fight a battle so a wealthy population that doesn’t know your name can keep their cars running on the resources your life is paying for, then might not it be easier to accept the propaganda and embrace the ideology that what you’re doing is noble and for the greater good, rather than the alternative? In The Hunger Games the Career Tributes have adopted the Capitol’s view of The Games being a field in which to gain glory through being the boldest, strongest, most fearless warrior. And this is the Capitol’s brilliance- as long as some of the oppressed believe the propaganda surrounding the vehicle of oppression, the system will keep running smoothly.

What is it that Donald Sutherland’s President Snow says as he greats the 24 reaped teenagers at the Tribute Parade?:

“We salute your courage and your sacrifice.”

In the dystopian future-world of Panem, the poorest residents die publicly for the sake of maintaining wealth and convenience for the privileged. Today the deaths are overseas and harder to see.

Me!

Kj — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 08:30:52 +0000

Kj — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 07:03:07 +0000

Rescinding and Revising My Notes From the Depths of Woman-Geared Christian Publishing

Kj — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:49:03 +0000

The Young Lady in Waiting: Developing the Heart of a Princess by Jackie Kendall

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

***see updated review below***

a) For my research, I purchased both “Young Lady in Waiting” and “Lady in Waiting” assuming this “young” version would be directed toward adolescent girls as opposed to adult or even young adult women. But from what I can tell, “Young Lady in Waiting” is literally the same text as “Lady in Waiting” with a pink cover and pocket-sized shape. While hypothetically written to “young” readers, the text references the fact that the reader may be a divorcee or in their 40′s. How is that different than just plain “Lady in Waiting”? is there somewhere “a Teeny Tiny Lady in Waiting” book I need to refer to?

b) Shockingly, despite the fact that the book patronizes its readers (however young or old they may be) with trite devotional questions and horrifically simplified life application examples, the advice—wait for it—is not tremendously terrible. It’s incomplete and over-generalized, but in the sea of Christian publishing geared towards women’s participation in male/female relationships, this may be the least offensive I’ve found. I don’t like the medium AT ALL, but much of the message appears more helpful than detrimental, even if it is grossly over-simplified.

*******Update*************
Okay, I take that all back. I think my original “it’s not the worst there is” response was because I wrote much less in the margins than in the other books I’m reading in this genre. But less notes does not equal less dysfunction. As I type up my notes from the book, I’m seeing more clearly the theme of disconnecting women/girls from their physical selves, particularly their experience of pleasure. The assumption (and sometimes explicit message) is that physical expression of sensuality or sexuality will automatically mean loss of relationship/intimacy with the guy you want to be closer to- thus playing into the paradigm of women only understanding their bodies and sexuality as something they give over to men because men want it- but that it will mean a loss of self. You give sex to men because they want it (and you as a woman will never want it except as a way to keep a man interested in you) but sex is scary because you lose intimacy even as you give it. This is the message the book conveys about premarital sex, but if girls follow the book’s logic (as the patronizingly persuasive text is designed to make you do) then girls will fear sex in marriage as loss of friendship just as they’ve been told about before marriage.

I’m not advocating that books should teach girls to chase after sexual experiences before marriage, but I definitely don’t want girls in my life to be taught that their sexuality belongs to men and comes at the cost of their relational self.

View all my reviews >>

This Made Me Laugh Heartily

Kj — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:10:48 +0000

Staff chat during tonight’s performance of Black Nativity, Intiman’s annual Christmas production.

William: It sounded like they just said “Sanjaya”.

Me: They did. He’s in the show this year.

William: WHAT???!!!! Are you serious?

Madeline: Does that mean you’re gonna see the show, William?

William: No. But if Sanjaya had done the one person Joan Didion play, I would have been all over that.

Dialogical Film Club Run Down

Kj — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:50:05 +0000

I wanted to give each Dialogical Film Club gathering its own post, but as they stretch back to June, there’s just no way I can do honor to each individual film or the dialogue we had throughout it. So here’s an insufficient run down.

June: He’s Just Not that Into You
Chosen Because: We were interested in films that were hugely popular in the culture, so we could identify some of what our culture is consuming and wonder about why.
Our Dialogue: Mostly about how the film came entirely from white privilege, and the only characters of color of diversity were comedic side characters or guru advice givers, aka helpers to the white protagonists. We talked a lot about how male and female relationships were defined in the film, but I can’t remember what we landed on, other than that we groaned and screamed a fair bit.

July: Fireproof
Chosen Because: It was the most successful evangelical film widely released in theaters and we were curious about it.
Our Dialogue: Categories of sexual violence, domestic abuse and contempt. Issues of what the woman is held accountable for versus the man- (its a movie about a marriage in trouble). Also- we were disturbed by the lack of communication or accountability of the main couple. Everything was done through symbolic gestures rather than honest engagement with the other person.

August: Save Me
Chosen Because: Well, we’d watched a teen sex drama (Twilight), a hetero sex comedy and a Christian sex drama, it was time for a gay sex drama.
Our Dialogue: In some ways, this was our richest gathering as people shared their own stories of growing up gay, coming out to family members, and how church rhetoric and influence affected that journey. Our conversation dealt a lot with what compassion and integrity can look like.

September: 2 Days in Paris
Chosen Because: We were gonna watch a “Bromantic Comedy” along the Judd Apatow genre, but when it came down to it, no one wanted to go there. Instead, we voted on some suggestions from my collection- the first of our “curated” DFC’s.
Our Dialogue:We talked a lot about power plays in relationships, self-delusion, avoidance of conflict, and how honesty can sometimes be a weapon. And about how amazing Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg are.

October: Gone Baby Gone
Chosen Because: It was Shannon’s turn to curate and he brought the movie because he wanted to hear other’s response to the film’s ambivalent ending.
Our Dialogue: Much of our dialogue was about predicting the plot and who was lying. We discussed the cost of making the “moral” choice when the “un-moral” choice seems to bring about the most good.

November: Hell House
Chosen Because: We had yet to watch a documentary, and we seem to lean towards issues of Evangelical culture.
Our Dialogue: Lots of shock, lots of sadness. Honestly, I can’t remember what we talked about. There was so much. I know some of what came up was about ways people avoid grief, as well as the things that naturally come from fear-based theology.

December: Christmas Specials-coming soon.

My Brother’s Little Marx Brother

Kj — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:24:58 +0000

Abby Swanson, age 6, chose to be Harpo Marx for Halloween.

Those eyes full of impish mischief…

…The belligerent foolishness…

…Irrepressible delight

Under Construction

Kj — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 09:15:40 +0000

Hello friends.

Though all my Bulletin Board of the Brain posts from Blogspot have been imported to this new site, it’s still under construction. Don’t be afraid. It will all be shiny soon.

Things That Make Me Smile

Kj — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:40:00 +0000

On June 5, my housemate Johny and I borrowed our other housemate’s car to drop off the rent check at the landlord’s (we have till the 5th of the month at midnight). We used the car time as an opportunity to pick up some house supplies, ie: toilet paper. Now, we all know there are two kinds of people in the world: those who like teeny tiny rolls of super fluffy toilet paper, and those who prefer endless, budget-friendly rolls of simple 2-ply. Johny and I are both big fans of the latter, Scott Brand to be specific. Well, since we had the car, we thought, why just buy 1 pack of 12 rolls when we could buy two packs? So we purchased 24 rolls of Scott basic 2-ply and decided to track how long it lasted (and thus prove our point that even when using copious amounts of 2-ply, it lasts so much longer than stupid quilted brands.

Well, as of yesterday’s roll replacement, we found ourselves about a week shy of going 4 months without having to purchase toilet paper. For anyone living in NYC or any car-less apartment dweller anywhere, you know what amazing news this is. We’re thinking of throwing a party for the fact that as long as we buy 24 rolls at a time, we will only be purchasing toilet paper 3 times a year. That is truly reason to celebrate.

The Kindness of Friends…

Kj — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:59:00 +0000

…Way better than the kindness of strangers.

Here’s Holly’s response to her scarf.

I love ya mama