N.D. Wilson, an author more of us should be reading, explains the fundamental flaws in The Hunger Games. Self-sacrifice? Not hardly. “Revolutions,” he says, “are not started by teen girls suicide-pacting with cute baker boys. Oppressive regimes are not threatened by people who do what they are told.”
George Eliot writes, “And when we stood at length and parted amid that columnar circuit of the forest trees, beneath the last twilight of starless skies, I seemed to be gazing … on a sanctuary with no Presence to hallow it, and heaven left lonely of a God.” She is being quoted in this brief post on art without God and what that means for morality.
A father of boys and girls talks about their roles in the world as informed by Star Wars and other movies. There are many problems with his brief presention, which I’m sure a worldview class could pick apart for a month, but I think he asks some good questions and makes a fair point. What is a girl to take away from watching Star Wars? Hope the boys fight well so she can reward them in the end? What should a boy take away from that movie? That he must fight to win and get the girl in the end? (And to touch on one problem with this presentation, may I ask why I should assume patriarchy is wrong? Is it that men are mostly wrong?)
0 thoughts on “'The Hunger Games' Is Flawed and Other Stories”
I didn’t watch the SW link (being slightly allergic to video clips), but I can guess just how badly Star Wars fails the Bechdel Test. It’s an illuminating metric, worth thinking through. But sometimes it’s okay to tell a male-dominated story.
The classic Star Wars trilogy doesn’t have a lot of female characters, but the one it has is really good. Princess Leia might need rescuing, but once they spring her from the Death Star, she’s just as brave and proactive as anyone else. (There is no excuse for Queen Amidala in the prequels and I refuse to offer one.) A girl can do worse than emulate Leia. I mean, she personally saved the Rebel Alliance.
I think it’s possible for a really fabulous female character – or a real live woman, for that matter – be be brave and admirable and very interesting without ever becoming a ninja or x-wing pilot or kicking anyone at all in the physical posterior. (I think that’s one weakness of Joss Whedon – he makes these phenomenal female characters, and they’re fun to watch, but they’re all awesome IN BATTLE.) Being a woman, I object to the idea that women have to master all the feminine virtues (whatever those are) and all the masculine ones, too. Most unfair. Hopefully this isn’t too far off what you were getting at.
That’s good. Thank you. I think the speaker was holding to the first movie only. He doesn’t reference the others. I completely agree with your last paragraph, and the speaker went that way too, at least a bit. He pointed to The Wizard of Oz as a movie with three lead female characters and the problem being solved without fighting. When he refers to Katniss and Hermione as recent leading women, they are still fighters.
I mentioned the speaker had problems in his presentation, so your point on male-dominated stories is right. In fact, our chafing at these stories may show a weakness in popular perception, but part of the context for movies is that women are not cast in leading roles anymore.
I saw a recent story from the director of Gravity. He said his original script was well-received but studios said he needed to change Sandra Bullock’s role to be male. Why? And why did half of the #1 movies in the 1930s have leading women and none of #1 movies in the 2000s.
I didn’t watch the SW link (being slightly allergic to video clips), but I can guess just how badly Star Wars fails the Bechdel Test. It’s an illuminating metric, worth thinking through. But sometimes it’s okay to tell a male-dominated story.
The classic Star Wars trilogy doesn’t have a lot of female characters, but the one it has is really good. Princess Leia might need rescuing, but once they spring her from the Death Star, she’s just as brave and proactive as anyone else. (There is no excuse for Queen Amidala in the prequels and I refuse to offer one.) A girl can do worse than emulate Leia. I mean, she personally saved the Rebel Alliance.
I think it’s possible for a really fabulous female character – or a real live woman, for that matter – be be brave and admirable and very interesting without ever becoming a ninja or x-wing pilot or kicking anyone at all in the physical posterior. (I think that’s one weakness of Joss Whedon – he makes these phenomenal female characters, and they’re fun to watch, but they’re all awesome IN BATTLE.) Being a woman, I object to the idea that women have to master all the feminine virtues (whatever those are) and all the masculine ones, too. Most unfair. Hopefully this isn’t too far off what you were getting at.
That’s good. Thank you. I think the speaker was holding to the first movie only. He doesn’t reference the others. I completely agree with your last paragraph, and the speaker went that way too, at least a bit. He pointed to The Wizard of Oz as a movie with three lead female characters and the problem being solved without fighting. When he refers to Katniss and Hermione as recent leading women, they are still fighters.
I mentioned the speaker had problems in his presentation, so your point on male-dominated stories is right. In fact, our chafing at these stories may show a weakness in popular perception, but part of the context for movies is that women are not cast in leading roles anymore.
I saw a recent story from the director of Gravity. He said his original script was well-received but studios said he needed to change Sandra Bullock’s role to be male. Why? And why did half of the #1 movies in the 1930s have leading women and none of #1 movies in the 2000s.