And Now, More Pictures of Peeta and Gale From the Hunger Games Movie

2012! But where am I going to get my Brownface quota THIS year? C’mon Young Hollywood, slather on that tanner, kink up that hair. I’ve got needs.

Did the casting director not read the part in the book that described Gale? At first I was iffy on both guys but I figured Id give them time. That kid totally could play Peeta, but really? Miley Cyrus’ boyfriend is NOT even slightly what Collins described as Gale. Pffft

I know I should respond seriously. I should talk about how backasswards it was to limit the casting call for Katniss to only Caucasian actors. But I’m too busy laughing.

I figured if they’d given him awesome 90s floppy hair*, I’d forgive them. But…He looks so neatly groomed. 

*I might be too fixated on 90s floppy hair

Look, this is America!  We can’t handle watching age-appropriate actors committing horrific acts of violence, and we can’t be expected to give two shits about people of color.  Can’t you think of the rich Hollywood producers for once?

I am pretty sure the casting director didn’t read any part of the book.

Everyone is so discouraged by the race and age quotient we’ve been given and they haven’t even revealed how they plan to screw up the Capitol yet. Give them time. This is like the tip of the turd iceberg. 

Even if the movies are indeed epic and worth seeing…I found the books to be rather “Twilight”-ish. Katniss *does* manage to stand on her own two feet longer than Bella. And the concept of a butt-kicking futuristic dystopia (while not an original concept) can promise some awesome fighting scenes. But after reading the books I thought they were somewhat overrated. Katniss is a reluctant heroine, all right, but a “chosen one” cannot allow too much time to be whiney. Plus the love-triangle reminds me too much of Edward vs. Jacob.
Maybe it’s just harder making a likeable female protagonist than a male protagonist because I didn’t feel the need to slap Harry Potter even after he lost his loved ones (and his temper) while battling Voldemort. He did his angry-adolescent shtick, picked himself up, and went on to becoming a great fighting wizard. When I read “Hunger Games” I wanted to tell Katniss to “deal with it” regarding her role as a Mockingjay or being sick from the smell of roses.

Rose Jones,

I had some gripes about the books, mostly about pacing and style but also because I’m about ready to bludgeon YA love triangle plots on sight at this point, I give you that. But I think I read a lot of the things you didn’t like as interesting or well done.

Katniss never succeeds in the chosen one role that’s thrust on her. It was entirely a matter of circumstance that she became this iconic hero, and she’s TERRIBLE at it. She just doesn’t have the personality to be a leader, either in military or civilian terms, or a mascot, or a diplomat. None of the people orchestrating her supposed “leadership” even like her. Is this sometimes frustrating? Sure. And it’s dissatisfying to a lot of readers, when the rising-to-greatness-and-giving-prebattle-pep-talks story is such an important cultural motif for us. But it’s also in character, and it’s really a brutally up front look at the most likely results of using teenagers as icons in this kind of fight.

Meanwhle, I was actually a lot more disposed to be sympathetic towards Katniss’s breakdowns than I would a lot of characters, because besides a few sidetrips into pop psychology, it read to me more like legit trauma than a lot of books manage.

Then there’s the romance. Okay, I know reading authorial intent is the road to madness, but I always felt that Collins was kind of trying to dissect the love triangle/shipping mentality thing, with the way the media and the audience react to Peeta and Katniss, and how Katniss gets so invested in her character that she can’t even tell her own feelings anymore. Then in the end she ends up with [Blah blah], but it doesn’t read like True Love and Destiny, it’s because these two people are too screwed up to be with anyone else. The thing is, IF that’s what Collins was going for, she went off the rails in trying to have her romance cake and dissect it too. And the boys, Gale especially, could have been a lot more developed, and both end up defined by their interest in Katniss, hence the Twilight vibe. The love stories were definitely what fell the most flat for me.

But what really interested me about your post is when you say “Maybe it’s just harder making a likeable female protagonist than a male protagonist….”

I think this is true to an extent, not because it’s harder to write cool/interesting/sympathetic female characters, but because we’re culturally programmed to say “WHAT? She’s cool, interesting, sympathetic AND female? WHAT IS THIS NONESENSE.”

And it’s a catch-22, because writers have to a lot of effort to make female protagonists “worth reading about,” as opposed to boys who can pretty much slink in with some snarky dialogue, a good upper cut and a lonely Saturday night and be considered both badass and sympathetic, but if they pile it on too thick, the characters are accused of being too perfect, overpowered, or Mary Sues.

Take Brienne of Tarth, as one fandom example. She gets a lot of flack for not being attractive, and for DARING to be attracted to super hot guys when she herself isn’t beautiful. But if she were were a knockout, as well as being honorable and determined and killer with a sword, people would still say nasty things about her. Just different nasty things.

Here’s a link from a while back: http://sarahtales.livejournal.com/151335.html?thread=15196455

I’ve got some quibbles, but it makes a lot of good points, and WOAH BOY should I be getting back to work now.

Not even my love for Jennifer Lawrence, which is great and pure, can offset the frantic motion of my rolling eyeballs over this nonsense.

But I guess you have to think about her career. I mean, how many blockbuster opportunities are open to petite blondes?

Oh, I am. I’ve sent in a proposal for a Frederick Douglass mini-series featuring Channing Tatum. 

Currently drafting a Pat Morita biopic with Jessie Eisenberg. Special guest star: scotch tape.

tinyurl.com/2df4ccp

*looks at pictures, thinks “aren’t these guys kind of big and muscular and square-jaw-ed for kids starving in a coal mining town?”* pause *”wait, are they trying to make Twilight?!”*

“There’s a lot of buzz going on about the upcoming Hunger Games adaptation–some are saying it will be the next Twilight phenomenon;”

Damn. It.

*still needs to read second 2 books*

Everyone looking clean and beautiful just makes it look like they aren’t taking any of it seriously.

Well some of the side and minor characters have already been cast. Some of them are age appropriate and non white actors/actresses. So we will have to see if the main characters look off in comparison.

That’s true. When they released photos of their casting choices for the District kids, I remember that they looked decent. Still hard to imagine Woody Harrelson, though…

Hollywood is going to be Hollywood and try to make the most money possible by targeting the most obvious audience. I will look past the image of the actors if the actors are actually good at the roles. I will look past using the apparent love triangle as the sales pitch if the movie actually  digs into the harsh reality of the story. My ideal wish is to see all the ‘shippers drop their jaws when they realize that Hunger Games is not really a love story at all…

But I’d be surprised if Hollywood allows the movie to have that level of integrity and doesn’t just change things up to ensure Team Gale and Team Peeta is all this movie will be about.