Hunger Games - up to and including Mockingjay so spoiler warnings.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I wondered what others thought of the books/films? I've just finished reading.

I was reading up on all the different points of view on the net. It looks as if some people feel that it's all quite feministy (and I do love that katniss is shown as having body hair and finding it weird and unnatural it's removed in the Capitol, though it pisses me off that Collins doesn't quite follow through and still has a four-year-old whose favourite colour is pink ... for me those two things don't quite match up). Obviously, other people say it's not that feministy, and it's not enough katniss is tough, because she's essentially shown taking over the male role in her family, and interacting primarily with strong men.

I also read this, which I love: www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/11/25/247146164/what-really-makes-katniss-stand-out-peeta-her-movie-girlfriend

I do really like the relationship between Katniss and Peeta right up to Mockingjay. I am pissed off by the ending though and I'm quite disturbed no-one I've read seems to have picked up on it. Loads of people don't like that she ends up with Peeta more or less by default, because he shows up, and loads of people don't like that she ends up with children because he wanted them so much. I've seen a lot of comments it's all appropriately bleak because Collins wanted to show that in war, there are no 'happy' endings, only relatively happy.

But. Katniss ends up with Peeta, who's been the person she can trust not to be remotely patriarchial (cf. movie girlfriend), after he's been brainwashed into seeing her as a threat and wanting to kill her. And there's this disturbingly casual acknowledgement that every now and again, he still wants to kill her but it passes. So, effectively, she is living with the manifestation of the patriarchy in the form of the 'Nice Guy', right? What with all our 'Not all men' threads, it really hit home to me. When we talk about statistics for male violence, people keep asking us if we believe our husbands/partners would be the one man in 27 or whatever it is, who might do that. And of course we say we can't know, but someone is living with that man.

Is that just me? The more I think about it the more I find it really disturbing. I would like to think Collins is making some kind of clever point about not evading the patriarchy, but the fact so many people think it's a happy ending (or happy-ish), bothers me.

(And yes, yes, this is light relief as it's 'only a book', but maybe we could do with it!)

Oh, I agree ... I could have imagined her being both thinner and bigger-muscled than she was, but I didn't really get the big fuss over it and I do think it was just the old 'eugh, let's criticise a woman for her looks', really.

Apparently some people were angry Rue was black, too. Even though she is described that way ..

I know of Battle Royale, I've just not watched it. I should.

(I think Jennifer Lawrence is gorgeous, btw. I know it's not a deeply feminist observation but she really is.)

Maybe the author is acknowledging that in such a dystopia (and this is fantasy fiction) relationships are irrevocably damaged - nothing is healthy or 'normal' and that values have to re asserted, re-conceived from 'the ground up,' and that is partly about getting on with life with the imperfect tools we have available.

Perhaps you are supposed to feel sadness that Katniss chooses this 'damaged' relationship which is a result of the particular extremeties they have endured together.

I think that is the case, and I think that's how a lot of people have seen it.

I guess ... it bugs me, that this is presented as the result of warfare, and it's because they're horribly damaged. Yet, over the last few days, we've been talking on here about the incidence of male violence and someone asked if we're actually afraid of men, because after all it could be our own partners. Statistically, we should be afraid.

So yes, sure, this is a dystopian conclusion about deeply damaged people, but the experience of living with a man who might become violent isn't dystopian - it's the reality for lots of women. I think somehow, the fact that she writes it as if a perfectly 'nice,' loving bloke might just 'turn' unexpectedly is what makes this parallel so insistent to me. Because that is what I was trying to get across on those other debates, that violent men in our own society don't look like monsters - they often seem normal and nice.

So if we say she's writing a dystopian ending, but Katniss is actually living with a man who might or might not turn violent, just like loads of real women ... isn't that uncomfortable?

(I so can't use words today. Sorry.)

It's a little while since I read Mockingjay, but my take was more that Peeta had manageable intrusive thoughts, rather than a real impulse to be violent, if that makes sense. I didn't get the feeling he was a threat to Katniss.

Rue was always described as black. People being upset about it were just racists on twitter.

For me reading the book first, Lawrence fit very well into my image of Katniss. Peeta wasn't at all like I imagined him but I now can't remember how I imagined him.

Yes the pink symbolising luxury and brightness is good. Also it may be relevant that it's Posie's (Gale's sister's name iirc) favourite colour because as a "luxury" in district 12 it would also be considered somewhat precious? Posie is the youngest and only girl in a family of boys and her father died before she was born so I get the impression she is rather precious to her family, like pink things would be precious in District 12.

Perhaps the difficulty is that you are comparing different cultures:

In The Hunger Games the system is set up so girls fight boys as equals. Men and women work. The rich people are equally vain and amoral.

But
In our society, from the beginning, violence against women is normalised. Heterosexual masculinity is defined in ways which contribute to boys and men externalising negative behaviour (thumping people)

So perhaps Katniss 'choice' is viewed differently in that society? I dunno I'm just putting off writing an essay.

(I do get your unease though although I was much more disturbed by all the Twilight shite)

I didn't get the impression that Peeta was a threat to Katniss by the end - more that he had upsetting flashbacks (as she did) and that they ended up together because no one else could possibly understand them the way they understood each other's shared experience.

One thing I do like about the trilogy is that Collins spreads supposedly 'masculne' and supposedly 'feminine' characteristics across the genders - not just in the portrayals of Katniss and Peeta. Male characters are sometimes nuturing, or frivolous or timid; female ones can be harsh and powerful etc.

I thought it was interesting how the sexual abuse of the victors was revealed through Finnick, and not, say, Johanna, and that the gender of his 'lovers' was never specified. More shaking up gender roles.

Yes, Ria, I noticed that as well. There's actually very little outright misogyny in the Hunger Games - even in the Arena, Katniss fears violence and torture, but there is not much implication that male tributes might rape her before killing her, and before she becomes a tribute, the fact that she hunts in the woods doesn't lead to anyone warning her that she might get raped if she doesn't stay at home.

ubik - mmm, see, I want to believe that but I can't. In our society, men and women work and vanity/amorality isn't confined to one sex. We're pushed to believe it is, and we're pushed to believe women don't work, but it's not true.

Admittedly, in the books, it's accepted that Gale's mother might have worked down the mines, but couldn't as she had a newborn. In the films, all the mine workers are men. It's the same erasing of female work as we have here.

So I think (could be wrong) that Katniss is contravening social gender roles even there. And if you look at (eg) Glimmer, who is from a society closer to the Capitol, she is shown as much more stereotypically 'feminine'. As is Johanna Mason.

I admit I prefer this reading as I like to think it's still a sexist society where Katniss is kick-arse ... to me that's more fun.

SGB - oh, you're probably right. My viewpoint is heavily skewed by now. But I agree on the broader point, I love how she writes so that gender characteristics are spread. Someone made the point that Finnick is the only 'pretty' character, which I found convincing. And this gets onto ria's point ... I didn't notice much as I read the books after seeing the films, but apparently loads of people were pissed off as it is heavily suggested he was forced to sleep with men, as it's men who were in power.

Oh, and ... you're right, it's not occurred to me there's no threat of rape but there isn't, and it's refreshing.

Aw, glad you like it!

I love the books, so I'm really glad to discuss it.

I think what bugs me is ... as a feminist, in pop culture, so often I am finding I must either say 'that was a happy ending and it was misogynistic' or 'that was an unhappy ending (as here) but one could draw a feminist message from it about trauma and horror'.

I would love, sometime, to see a happy ending that was also feminist!

I know I am dead soppy and so on, but, y'know, it'd be nice!

I have a feeling Katniss's age was set so they could get more mature actors, which is practical but dull. I do agree Haymitch was too destroyed. I don't like the idea of him with Effie Trinket, either - I see her as someone literally hobbled by the Capitol, but not completely lacking in compassion.

I have found, with other things, that books which are not unfeminist become all of a sudden a lot less feminist when adapted for the screen. There's always some sort of 'good' reason why heroines get an extra scene where they have to be snogged or put on a pretty dress or something, or a male character who was sympathetic and gentle on paper gets turned into either a laughable wuss or suddenly develops superpowers.
THough nothing will ever equal the horrific mess ITV made of Brookmyre's Quite Ugly One Morning. Don't get me started...