The Hunger Games: What's Not to Love

Since I just did a knock-down-drag-out about Watchmen and adaptation, I'm going to take a more emotional turn in this exploration of The Hunger Games.  Yes, it's adapted from a book, but I came away from this action flick aimed at teenaged girls feeling so damn sad that I figured there was more gold in them thar hills than in the dry flats of critical analysis.

Is the Past Tense of "Snit" Snoot or Snot?

I caught the preview for The Hunger Games when it was in the second-run theater I frequent and was most intrigued. Then I missed it because I "frequent" the movies only in comparison to the dentist. I got in a snit about how I'd heard it was a rip-off of Battle Royale, which it isn't. Then I got in a bigger snit about Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. Then I had a lot of laundry to fold, so I checked it out on Netflix. Along the lines of Watchmen, the trailer had looked so good that I was dreading the disappointment, (in this case) of seeing the concept bloated to feature length. That is to say, despite the bunch I'd gotten my snooty panties in for no real reason, I was still invested enough to be concerned as to whether it would be good. So, props to that trailer editing; it truly is an art form in itself.

At the time I saw the film, I hadn't read the book, though I have since. I haven't read the other two, wanting to enjoy the forthcoming sequel in a situation as close to my viewing of the first as possible. To restate: I don't know what's going to happen in the rest of the series. Possibly, this will result in a number of my points being rendered irrelevant predictive, in which case, I win at stories. And by I, I mean we, since mega-kudos will be due to Suzanne Collins for being equally as perceptive about the potential of her own work. On the other hand, I may actually be exploring the material on another level, in which case there's a little more content in the world to spark conversation and I am again duly fulfilled. Also, snoot-snoot-I'm-smarter-than-the-author/no-you're-not-she-intended-to-do-something-else.

And for those of you to whom this will matter, though I think it should be obvious... Team Peeta.



Working the Crowd

Act one of The Hunger Games situates us with the biggest hurdle in the film, the crux of our relationship with its characters, in the set up of Katniss' strength and the conflict between the two male leads as they pertain to her introduction of Effie Trinket.

Say "what?" again, motherfucker. I dare you. I double dare you.

Wait, Effie Trinket? What? Damn straight, you heard me. While I find discussions of The Hunger Games' commentary on war and reality TV/gladiatorial contest pedestrian at best, the tension of our relationship to the Capitol and its lurid denizens still defines every aspect of our viewership. For the most part, we are Them, and I don't see any reason to deny it. Forget your guilt over the "crisis" that their avid fascination with a theater of child murder mirrors our culture of voyerism and disregard for the plight of strangers. Human beings like watching violence and we like watching sex. A film that attempts to hold these truths up for scrutiny grossed almost seven hundred million USD worldwide, so there's no point in using our self-conscious disgust and self-aware media theory as a point of distance been ourselves and Panem's upperclass. We might side with The Girl on Fire, but we are Them.

From Before the Incal. To call THG's Capitol aesthetic an homage is generous,
considering one might as easily call it outright theft.

The film itself goes all the way to the Jodoverse to try to make a visual distinction between its audience and the one on-screen, but to no avail. But, Viewer Beware: Notice how I said "For the most part"? While we may buck the comparison, and the film's superfice may encourage us to do so by its facile similarities to pop media's grotesques and offering of unappealing avatars, we should be so lucky to be allowed to match the perspective of the Capital's diegetic audience. What we are, in fact, is much, much worse.


What's in a Name?
We'll get to that, though. I find (oh, dear, is my artifice showing?) that it's difficult to establish this sort of argument, the you-are-but-if-only-you-could-be contrast, without coming across as contradictory. So for the moment, let's agree that you/we have everything in common with the lowest common denominator of Western media consumer/the Capitol's chromatically debauched audience. Here you are, ready to root whole-heartedly for Catness Katniss, Dale Gale and Pita Peeta. Wait, come again?

As someone first experiencing the world via audio-only, I was not thrown off by my incorrect assumptions of their names. Catness is sort of cat-like; Dale is a (doofy) boy's name for a left-in-the-Friend-Zone male (I thought they were related, at first); Pita has a "how-fa-to-Nevaland" British quality to it. Then I read the names in print and they struck a nerve. Naming is one of my passions, you see. In my own fantasy setting, I went so far as to have one my characters become obsessed with the names of his country. Names often signify little in Western culture, as Pulp Fiction's Butch so bluntly states. In fiction, however, they present an opportunity, one that was subtly--or, less charitably, subconsciously--accessed here. Katniss, as the novel attests and Wikipedia confirms, is an edible tuber from the lily family. Gale, while androgynous, is trending (see Breaking Bad, despite the effeminacy on display) and is also a natural name, linking the two characters. Besides, doesn't Gale just sound delectably tempestuous? 

Give it to me, Sheldon?

And then there's Peeta, whose name may indeed reflect a transliteration of Peter, but even still: He comes off sounding limp-dicked on the one hand and, slang extrapolation aside, with a "meaningless" go-by ending in a distinctly feminine "a". This association runs the gamut of intention, from unfortunately unintentional to downright insidious. Throw "Prim" in the mix and no one's a sexual agent when you call their name aloud.

But, don't forget! We've decided we are the in-film audience! What we're seeing is nothing more than a factor of class, kids named after storms and plants and, in their pathetic version of a middle class, approximations of proper Christian names. Haymitch--blond like Peeta, named after a crop like Katniss--falls right in line. They all got picked out of Our fickle odds-in-your-favor fishbowl and were sent on a train to Our city/cinema to be dolled up (or, in the case of Woody Harrelson, to play fuck-up-with-a-heart) for our vicarious amusement. One boy, one girl. Just like every other time... You may still be balking--They are going to enjoy watching beautiful teenagers killing each other, you merely paid to witness beautiful adults pretending to be beautiful teenagers killing each other, and anyway you gasped out loud in real shock at the gore. Remember this moment, the one where you said again that you would rather be part of our culture than Theirs.

I didn't write this post to let indignant readers tell me what's what Bear with me for just little longer, please. We are Them. So. Here come Peeta and Katniss, once-scared, but increasingly savvy Tributes from some dirty place far away. She's a badass archer who We can't ignore, even when We try. He's got fx-department quality camouflage skills from working in his family's bakery and is exceptionally  strong.

Don't be scared, Sweetheart. You look fabulous.

These two aren't just protagonist-level competent in the face of the Arena's demand for combat and survival aptitude; she's got a girl-next-door spirit under all that poverty-born toughness and he's got a showman's flair in front of a crowd beneath that humble, boy-next-door exterior. What. A. Treat. It's just as amusing--and simple amusement at their personalities is all We take, so callous--to see her twirl in the pretty clothes We gave her as it is to hear the baker's boy talk to Ceaser like he's one of Us.

Alright, I'll stop there. Because it's true: We aren't Them. Not because we don't thrill to violence or moon after proxies for relief from our frustrated sex; our mundane lives, so glamor-less. We aren't Them because, while I may have just corroborated the general view of Katniss, at once delicate and fierce, I have not echoed what we thought about Peeta in the least.

No Meat, No Wax
The butcher cuts up meat like a kitchen warrior. The candlestick-maker wields a phallic flame. And the baker...well, he bakes bread. That's neutral, anyway. But, his son, the kindly, square-faced boy we see getting his ears boxed by his mother?

Blue makes it for boys, right?

He decorates the cakes. Frequently, one must assume, because damn. The Capitol audience sees a skill, one that makes Peeta a capable contender in the Games. A skill that comes quite in handy, as it turns out. We see a skill, too: A skill that's coded as being for girls. They read threat, we read... feminine. He can throw a 100-lb. bag of flowers flour over his head? Wow! What other baking-related feats can he perform? Well, you should see him spoon cookie dough onto a tray, and crimping pie crust? Forget about it! Okay, okay, what else can he really do? Peeta can work a room. He can flatter and kid and play the version of himself people want to see. Katniss, our "true" viewpoint in the film, immediately disdains and mistrusts this behavior, and we have no choice but to do the same. Is he faking it, like some oh-so-sweet windbag, sucking up to the powerful in a bid for sponsorship? No one likes sycophants... and no one likes to be made to feel inferior. Katniss, as the plot goes nigh-painfully out of its way to demonstrate, is out of her depth. Peeta is not. We root for the underdog, who has never needed such useless abilities as charm and social ease. Who needs charisma when you can boast feeding your family on a combination of archery and elbow grease? No one ever flattered a rabbit into the supper pot. Only soft people have time for that sort of dilly-dally. You know, town people. Rich people. The kind of people we wish we could be dressed up like, but want to look down on as indolent leeches who would be helpless to feed themselves in District 12, let alone Mom and Prim. We are not them. We are Katniss, and when the audience cheers for Peeta and laughs with him, we doubt. This is when my heart started breaking.

 As the book highlights better than the film, Peeta isn't rich. Just because you aren't starving to death doesn't mean you get to eat the cakes you bake. Naming comes back into play here, reminding us in the metatext that pita is just bread, and its namesake is a tradesman's son who will never go beyond the same school and town as Katniss, Gale or anyone. He's a slave to those ovens. and if he has children that don't die or get sent to be killed, they'll be bakers, too. But on those cakes, meant for the better-off, he doesn't just decorate: He paints. I could decorate cakes every day for the rest of my life and movie magic aside, I would never come close to a life-saving mastery. Peeta is an artist. Yet, only for the pleasure of those above him has been permitted to be an one even that small way. When he's thrust in amongst Panem's elite, he is permitted further, encouraged by them you might say. So he takes the opportunity, like a last gasp of air before he drowns forever. It's cruel, a crumb thrown to a poor boy who could be a painter or a statesman, but who is only allowed to ape these higher forms at the whim of the rich.

He wears a dress to work every day?
Oh it's an apron. Well, that's better.

I found myself thinking about how unfair it was, and how moving was the subversion in his acts: Just as he wouldn't let them make him someone he wasn't, they couldn't stop him from being, just for a few days, the man he could have been. Best of all, they eat it up, cheering and applauding, weighing his ability against the other Tributes'. But that's not what we do. We suspect and we sneer. I mean, come on, cakes? He almost seems sort of--Time out, let's not be silly. If there's one thing Peeta is, it is in love with Katniss. And he has to be for the plot to work. It's what defines him as male, when you get right down to it;  not any masculinity in theme, code or act, but mere straightness.

Maybe size does matter...

Gale on the other hand, matches Katniss step for step. They complement each other perfectly, cast to match physically, plotted to have that exquisite we're-just-best-friends relationship that serves to remind even the most jaded or settled-down gal of the sweetest teenage romance. "Such agency!" a friend of mine raved about the rougher, taller Gale, with his suggestion of stubble and rebellious (if extremely brief) presence in the story.
Even he is subjected to an odd effeminization, though. Google "nice guy gale meme" to find him hoisting Katniss' little sister like some stoic bastion of domestic protectorship. If Peeta's the Boy Next Door, Gale's the Girl Back Home. I would argue that Haymitch's abrupt recovery from the buffoonery of alcoholism is as much a factor of plot as it was of Woody Harrelson's star power. His emasculation is the most rooted in reality, and the most deserved, while being the most short-lived, almost as though the script doesn't know what to do with a character the audience might actually dislike and mistrust for a reason. Still, his escape from the bottle in no way precipitates his freedom from the clutch of the Capitol. But he and Gale are just the backdrop, the hometown pairs for our Tributes, relegated to the background (Again, Peeta's character is targeted here: Katniss wins a powerful ally in sober Haymitch in the later story, while earlier on Peeta cleans up his vomit and is the object of her suspicion for having done so.) as the young pair race to meet their destiny.

When the Odds are Never in Your Favor
In a film with a diegetic audience we're meant to be alienated from, regardless of how much of a fallacy our difference is (Would we really have cared if the actress who played Foxface, say, had died during production? Was anyone really surprised to hear their fellow theater-goers cheering on the slaughter?), why bother to insist that we aren't Them? That is, if we aren't supposed to be Them anyway, is our contrary perception of Peeta really such a sin? So what, we don't like girly men. Go, Gale!

Yeah, she's kind of a hero. Just saying.

And besides, he may have opened up his mushy heart and gotten some sponsor sympathy which contributes to their survival, but Katniss still saves his life in the way that really counts. You know, by being smart and killing people. If the star-crossed lovers had never come to light/been trumped up so we could watch some kissing, Peeta would have died and Katniss would have lived. She's a self-sufficient hunter and I didn't see any flour sacks around, umm... Duh. So why go to all the trouble of implicating a real-world audience over a foregone conclusion, snooty Blog Mistress? Why, simply because the most significant departure from the viewpoint of the onscreen audience is more embarrassing and dangerous than any of our similarities to it combined. As I mentioned before, it's practically enough to make you want to join them.

This is our movie in our world about their world. We flocked to go see it. We wrestled with the implications of our culture's desire for the kind of images it displays. The problem with our culture isn't its eschewal of literature for base sensory stimuli. It is this: Katniss and Peeta are the first team to ever win together. That's part of the beauty of the pairing, how they complement each other, even if Peeta's contribution is less tangible and the highly-touted Strong Female Lead gets to be strong by contrast to a man coded as weak. In the seventy-three previous Games, it's always been just one girl or just one boy. But not this time. We are not Them and a fiction is only as fantastical as the imagination of the culture it comes from. There's no reason why they both had to come out alive. No one in Their audience would have batted an eye if Katniss had won on her own. Ours would have. This time, since we were the audience thirsting for entertainment, the girl needed a straight boy in love to help her win.

Oops. Just when we thought we'd made a little headway, there it is. And in a book authored and film co-adapted by a woman, no less. Katniss could have won without Peeta. She could have won without Gale. She could have won if the other Tribute was Batman, just because she's Katniss. And don't get me wrong, I believe in teamwork and partnership: My most fruitful creative relationship is with my husband. The Hunger Games asks our complicity in inserting an outcome unnecessary to the film's world that fits our white- and straight-dominated social norm, beneath the guise of Katniss' strength. It also narrows the possibility for Others to enter the same (fictional) system, and for real-world teens to engage with their roles. What if Peeta wasn't white? What if Prim wasn't Katniss sister, but her "friend" for whom she would die? What if Peeta was strong and Katniss was weak, or he was just as capable as she was? There is no reason that there needs to be a love plot for them to survive, nor for any of the very typical--even typically reversed--things about them to be true. No reason other than that a story operating within these narrow confines is what we expect. Like so many District audience members (no, I didn't forget them) we're clinging to the glimpse of that hope for a relevant female role, just enough of one that we don't get uppish.

Party Like It's 1984
That horse is long since out of the barn, and since we all kind of lead it out there, let's just chalk it up to experience. That's not at all to say that there's nothing can be done about defying heteronormalcy in all its insidious shapes. This very post could be that spark President Snow was so concerned about, which is why I write in the first place. For now, let's talk about something more radical. Like true love, for example.

I make a lot of stories, most of them involving some kind of oppression, and one of them on a scale with The Hunger Games' dystopia. So, it got me thinking: How do the Hunger Games oppress the people of Panem? It seems like it would be through fear, or perhaps through the indoctrination and complacency of those who don't get offered as Tributes. I think, though, that fear of one's government pales in comparison to their true power. Every night when the citizens of the Districts go to bed, snuggling in, none of them can fully trust one another. Not a one. Because only happenstance kept them from facing off in the Arena, and none of them can say for sure that they wouldn't have bashed their husband's head in with a rock.

Not one couple in a century has that chance,
no matter what the storybooks say.

Except one person. Only Peeta can say for sure, as proven, he would never ever hurt the woman he loves. Katniss has the chance at a relationship with the kind of basic foundation most of us take for granted: She can trust the man she's with not to do her bodily harm, not ever, no matter what. Orwell instructs us about the power of love. It is the single-most subversive act a person can make. At the end of the film, Katniss is held up as the danger to the Capitol's rule by making to disobey them. Peeta has already defied them in a capacity infinitely more impactful than by threatening death. He says before the Games begin that he doesn't want them to make him into something he's not. By virtue of his heart, he is already something so utterly anomalous that they don't even recognize what he's become, let alone have the power to unmake it. Gale wants to run away, and I have no reason nor desire to argue which of them "loves her more". All I do know is, he never has to face what Peeta faces, the baker's boy who thwarts the Capitol so craftily that they don't seem to notice.

The Hypothetical Games
What worries me is that Suzanne Collins didn't know what she had on her hands either. Time will tell: I see the second film on Saturday and will read the book soon after. What I would have done with these characters in my first book would have been to have Peeta profess his love and disappear, replaced by another Tribute and his memory publicly defamed. Katniss would win and uncover a mystery, that he was killed by the Gamemakers, and as she becomes more of a celebrity, would find herself torn between the love of an absent person and the doubt fostered in her heart as to whether she can trust Gale, or anyone for that matter, as she fights the Man. But that's just me; I kill characters when they need to die. Then again, I don't write YA fiction. I can also see this tension reduced to a shoving match between The Boys: "I would never hurt her!" "Neither would I!" "You don't know that!" etc. Nothing says maturity of story like characters bickering. Oy.

There's potential, too, that Katniss herself will introduce the why-did-I-need-you notion I raised earlier, possibly resulting in Peeta betraying/being used against her, only to die a redemptive death, etc. Doubtless they will now go on to mentor other Tributes, and one can only imagine that Peeta's use, now-crippled, then-intangible, will be called into question. In a subtler mode, such an accusation would certainly provoke a more gradual existential breakdown. Oh, maybe Catching Fire is from Peeta's perspective! A first-person novel about a puppet-celebrity amputee's crisis of self is my kind of book! I'm kidding of course; this shift seems highly unlikely to me... damn, would I be impressed if that's what happened. The POV writing was handled only too well in the novel. Frequently, I found myself thinking "Yup, that's a sixteen-year-old girl, alright," and none to interestedly either. Probably I'm too far outside the target audience for me to enjoy them much. It was astronomically more appealing to watch twenty-year-olds in the roles, as the casting lent a subliminal adultness to the entire film.

My YA pick for feminist fantasy writing.
I am consistently gobsmacked by the entire Earthsea Cycle.

The Hunger Games outpaces its source material at every turn, and is a fine film for its genre, despite my qualms. The use of flashback in particular is quite cinematic in its flavorful exposition, and the distance from Katniss' own thoughts was a major trade-up for more ambiguity. The was-it-real conundrum took on more life than the tribulations of a teenager's uncertainty, becoming a case study in a deeper kind of psychological trauma. There's nothing I hate more, though, than to see opportunities squandered. Reducing the greater conflicts and implications to fit the do-I-like-him-does-he-really-like-me trivia of the very-much-younger POV we see through in the novel would be boring enough on the page, but intolerable stretched out to feature length, complete with whining and swooning I'll actually have to listen to. The Hunger Games left me melancholy, and it certainly wasn't supposed to. It got me thinking. I'm curious to see what they do with Peeta's character, how they make this boy they think they own try to dance for them. He's got to realize his own power or be damned. There I go again, damning characters in kids' books...

As it stands, I'm seeing Catching Fire with the book's which-will-she-choose mentality in the back of my mind, and frankly it feels cheap. On the record, I'm predicting a Tributes-All-Stars mega-game will take place. Just a hunch. I've got to say I'm not sanguine. But only time will tell. This blog might seem laughable to those who already know the trilogy's outcome. I'm trusting to the odds that it's not.