The author makes a really good point by noting that The Hunger Games is a story about what happens to Katniss rather than a story about what Katniss does.
I’ve described the books, very roughly, as:
#1: You Can’t Win [The Hunger Games].
#2: You Can’t Break Even [even if you win the Hunger Games, they make you go back and play again]
#3: You Can’t Get Out Of The [Hunger] Game [since even after they’re done, you’re forced to invade a city that has defenses replicating them, and even when that’s done, your president wants to reinstitute them]
The books are surprisingly hopeless, but that’s a good thing, in my opinion. Katniss shows agency, but she’s no Conan the Barbarian who destroys an entire unjust society through the force of her brawn. Rather, the books believe, very bleakly, that even the best person can’t do a whole lot to make things better, and that struggling against the system is likely to destroy the person who does it, even though struggling against the system is the only moral choice.
I completely agree with Left Hand of Dorkness. That review struck me as really stupid, and clearly written by someone who was watching with the sole purpose of writing a “feminist” critique, regardless of what the content of the story actually turned out to be.
There are problems with the series. There are problems with Katniss. In the final book, I found both her and the story incredibly tiresome. But in the original book and movie, she makes all kinds of decisions, many of which never occurred to or seemed too dangerous to her predecessors. Part of the point is that some of her natural inclinations and her personality help her immensely (the hunting and woodcraft, the steel backbone), while others undermine her (her sourness and lack of understanding of playing a crowd in any way, shape, or form), and others still have potential to undermine her, but make her more successful or sympathetic (her acting out in the trials, her devotion to Prim, her “fuck this world” attitude). She’s interesting and complex, sympathetic but far from perfect, and she makes a lot of decisions that have far-reaching results.
But the reviewer only notices things that support their thesis, and even expressly, arbitrarily discounts counterexamples. “She never kills anyone - except the 2-3 people she killed, but they don’t really count.” “She never makes a decision - except for the earth-shattering, jaw-dropping decisions she makes at the very beginning, during the middle and at the end. Those don’t qualify, because, er . . . patriarchy or something.” It’s rather a pathetic article. (Which btw also offers apologetics for the illiterate racists decrying Rue’s casting, which is both classless and reveals that this person too never notices that Rue is explicitly written as black!)
Consider Kat’s final decision in the last book.[spoiler] Her happy ending is that she chooses peace over war: she decides to marry the baker, not the soldier. She abandons her struggle to make a better world, deciding that a military dictatorship is about the best they can do right now. She becomes a mom with a garden.
Those are some very deliberate choices she makes. Other women in the trilogy make different choices, and the best man in the series–Peeta–makes the same choices as her (well, except for the “becomes a mom” part), so there’s no implication that she does these things because she’s a girl. Instead, there’s the implication that Bruce Springsteen was right about war all along.[/spoiler]
^^
Lol. My mutant superpower is not only to detect spoilers but if I read a little too far before going " AHH AHH STOP READING DALE!"…I can erase what I read from my memory.
In case you guys missed it, there’s a follow-up to the review.
I think my favorite part in the second is when the writer wonders why Alice from the Resident Evil movies isn’t considered a feminist icon. Unsurprisingly, she thinks it’s because of sexism. I’m more inclined to think that it’s because the Resident Evil movies aren’t very good.
uhh - you opened the thread with ‘spoilers’ - don’t blame others for not hiding them.
D’oh! Sorry about that–I was figuring that there’d be spoilers for the trilogy, but since the thread is primarily about the movies, of course you don’t want spoilers for the third installation.
Nothing to be sorry about at all. Others in this thread have posted hints and such. I’m not bothered at all because of my Spoiler Super-Power.
Your own summary of the movie includes examples of Katniss helping others, acting on her own ideas, and even acting contrary to the advice she’s been given:
(Emphasis added.)
I also don’t understand what your problem is with Katniss getting advice or help from others. It’s Haymitch/Woody’s job to give advice to Katniss and Peeta, and her relationships with Peeta and Rue are an essential part of the plot. Maybe you’d prefer a movie about a character who singlehandedly saves the day, but that’s not what The Hunger Games is about.
I don’t remember Bella making any significant choices in Twilight (I’ve seen the movie but read only as much of the book as I could tolerate, which wasn’t much), and she’s certainly far more passive than Katniss. It’s my recollection that Bella repeatedly says that she has no choice about falling in love with Edward, and spends the rest of the book/movie stumbling into peril and being rescued by him. The Hunger Games certainly isn’t perfect, but if it’s a question of which book/movie has the stronger, more active, and more competent heroine then Katniss wipes the floor with Bella.
Yeah, I’ve only seen one of the Twilight movies and read none of the books, but doesn’t Bella just sit in her room staring out the window while several seasons go by outside, because she just can’t bear to do anything without Edward by her side?
Now there’s a strong female protagonist. :rolleyes:
Well put. To people who’d rather see movies where the hero does something, well, there are plenty of Rambo movies already.
Those reviews are stupid.
Katniss is responsible for all the deaths in the game because she didn’t kill herself? Refuse to participate, by what, making a speech that wouldn’t be broadcast and getting stabbed by one of the careers? How exactly is that defying the system and making a difference?
What she did do was not pursue killing others and purposely make alliances and help the other weak players. She grieved at the death of Rue, for all to see. Is that not deliberate defiance to the nature of the games?
Yes, she’s manipulated and controlled and forced to fit other people’s agendas. That is her position as a powerless peon. She couldn’t convince all the other tributes to not participate - certainly not in the first round. She did what she could.
Is she a feminist ideal? It’s all in interpretation. Pick out the message you wish to see and point out the elements that frame that message.
This is the Internet being stupid and controversial to get eyeballs.
The book starts out with Katniss as a very strong character: she’s defying the Capitol by hunting and providing for her family; she and Gale hunt together and she has the “masculine” archery skill while Gale is the trapper. It’s obvious that she’s the one who’s holding the family together. Then she volunteers to protect her sister. She decides that she must win the HG to protect her sister and mother and she wins, and wins on her own terms. If anything she shows that women can be strong providers (a stereotypical male role) while also being a mother-hen protector.
As I mentioned, Katniss is making the decision to survive so she can come back and take care of her sister. At the end she takes the gamble that the Games would rather have two winners than none and wins.
As a general rule, a review that uses the term “Denies agency” is probably a steaming pile. I agree the reviewer set out to find something and was willing to dig through a lot of countervaling evidence to find it.
I’m not a huge “Hunger Games” fan but the reaction of the character of Katniss to her situation was… well, I found it refreshing. I expected Collins to go in one of two directions; one was to make Katniss an invincible killer picking off kids at will, the other was to make her a ridiculously inspiring Spartacus. Instead, Collins chose to make a realistic character who reacted realistically… which is the true genius of fantasy and sci-fi.
Collins sets up the situation brilliantly not by creating a fight-to-the-death competition involving teenagers; that’s been done before. Battle Royale was cited, and King’s The Long Walk is a passive-agressive Hunger Games… a Really Tired Games, if you will. Collins’s magnificent addition was, of course, Peeta. The strategy of letting everyone else kill each other makes perfect sense, but with a sort-of-partner, Katniss gets stuck in the end and has to connive a way out. What was the line she says to herself? “If I win, I’ll never escape?”
Painting the story as anti-feminist because Katniss has few palatable choices is to miss the point so utterly that it’s hard to believe the reviewer really read the book. The book is ABOUT having no good choices.
Oh, I get that. It just seems premature when A) she can’t actually ‘leave’ the arena, B) a team of people actively looking for her were maybe a mile away from her location before she even started running, C) the game had only been on for a few hours, and D) playing the ‘long game’ was said to be a legitimate strategy.
If I bet on the Katniss, knowing she was good with a bow and smart enough to set up traps, I’d be pissed when the gamemaster screws her out of her location into a melee situation with melee-capable foes. That’s all I’m saying!
I know, that’s dumb. And even if you accept that idea morally, all but one of her opponents will die anyway, so she’s killed exactly one other person, whoever came in second.
And actually, she saves Peeta’s life, so even that isn’t true.
No, he isn’t. Or he would have said “It would have been more believable if she had camouflaged her face.” You do see the difference, don’t you?
Remember, those who bet were able to send useful items to the Tributes, also affecting the outcome. I thought it was played as an example of how corrupt the culture is.
I disagree; I think the movies do exactly what they intend to, but medium in which the character was created did not actively seek a female audience at the time.
I honesty do not see what in my post - intended as a rough point by point refutation of the OP’s - leads you to that conclusion.
For example, what is the difference between “she’s outsmarting [the games/gamemaker” and “[she] manages to manipulate the game to her advantage”?
(And why would you assume I haven’t read the book when I supported an argument with, “(But that may be more clearly demonstrated in the book than the movie.)”)
If we want to discuss rational critiques of the film vis-a-vis the novel, I will submit that Jennifer Lawrence really is too healthy and fair for the part. She is too tall, too well nourished, and not all convincing as a dark skinned brunette. She also just cannot do sullen and sulky, which, I think, the character Katniss is.
Then again, Greer Garson was the least appropriate Elizabeth Bennet ever filmed - for similar reasons - so maybe that is not a bad thing.
agreed - but the gamemaster is not interested in the ‘long game’ - its interested in ratings and bloodshed - and since Kat is the favorite, having her effectively on the sidelines is no good for either - they (the folks running the game) fully expected her to die then (‘I’ll get a canon ready’) - secondly, for her to ‘win’, at some point she has to face people from the other districts.
Wow. I saw the ending of the series differently.
She chooses Peeta because he understands and is similar in his suffering. It was a very good description of PTSD, at least very similar to what I felt when I was deep in it.
She’ll never leave the Games, neither will he - they understand each other.