Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy zef invest start
Speaker 1: changing it with the Bechdel Cast. Hello, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the Bechtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Torante is Jamie Lofton,
Speaker 1: and we talk about the representation of women in movies. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's our job. It's our job. We're making millions of
Speaker 1: dollars doing this. There's some I play. Sometimes people get
Speaker 1: the wrong idea of how much podcasters make, which is
Speaker 1: zero dollars. It's wild Anyways, those our show at the
Speaker 1: role of the portrayal of women in movies. We use
Speaker 1: the Bechdel test as a starting off point. Becktel test
Speaker 1: being a media metric invented by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes
Speaker 1: called the Bechtel Wallace test UH that requires that a
Speaker 1: scene in a piece of media have two meal identifying
Speaker 1: characters with names that talk to each other about something
Speaker 1: other than man. Sounds simple enough, but most things don't pass.
Speaker 1: It sees Daisy Let's demo it shall we Hey, Jamie,
Speaker 1: what kitle do you you feel that the odds may
Speaker 1: ever be in your favorite Um, you should have would
Speaker 1: say no, I feel like I would have. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know this is true of all survivalist movies. Wh
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I died forty five minutes ago. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, there's no fucking way. But I also
Speaker 1: felt that way about uh many characters. And I won't
Speaker 1: specify the gender so it passes the test. And conclusion
Speaker 1: that passes the test, I'll how about a conversation that
Speaker 1: won't pass the Bechdel test. I hate Josh Hotcherson's hair
Speaker 1: in this movie fair fare um mine was going to
Speaker 1: be Jamie. Did you know that the actor who plays
Speaker 1: the game anchor in Hunger Games is neither Jim Cavizel
Speaker 1: nor Milo Ventimiglia. I thought it was one or the
Speaker 1: other of them. Turns out neither. It's vent Amelia. Shit,
Speaker 1: we need to talk about men more. Uh No, we're
Speaker 1: We're super excited to talk. We're talking about the Hunger
Speaker 1: Games today. Higher games one. So Hunger Games stands slide
Speaker 1: to our mentions asking why we didn't refer to Hunger Game.
Speaker 1: How many were movies? Were? There are nine? Too many?
Speaker 1: There don't ask us about the other three. I am
Speaker 1: not prepared to answer this questions. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: the first movie that came out in two thousand twelve today. Yes,
Speaker 1: and here's to join us in our discussion. We've got
Speaker 1: the hosts of teen Creeps podcasts. It's Kelly Nugent and
Speaker 1: Lindsay Katie Hi. Hi here, sound of a cannon there
Speaker 1: or hopefully not. I'm gonna kill all of you over.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what if by the end of this there
Speaker 1: can be only one Victor left? I wish I had
Speaker 1: known that ahead of time. I don't think I would
Speaker 1: have agreed to do the show. I volunteers tribute to
Speaker 1: be killed first. They're like, that's not what you're like.
Speaker 1: I wanted to make it happen. Yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: be the girl in the crowd that raises her hand
Speaker 1: is like, please kill me. I'm ready to die. That's
Speaker 1: a fun fan fick version. And then that's like galaxy
Speaker 1: brain because if you're like Elizabeth Banks, step on my
Speaker 1: neck and kill me and then she's like no, you're
Speaker 1: gonna live, and you're like, oh no, and then you
Speaker 1: live forever. Dystopian people are so easily confused, So for
Speaker 1: the two of you. What is your history relationship with
Speaker 1: this movie the franchise? Have you read the books? All
Speaker 1: that kind of good stuff. So I did not read
Speaker 1: the books or the movie or read the movie to
Speaker 1: be and I did watch the book. I put it
Speaker 1: on a chair and stared at it for hours. I
Speaker 1: wasn't great. Um. I didn't do the movies or books
Speaker 1: until like later, after they had been out for a while,
Speaker 1: because I was very like and tie at the time.
Speaker 1: I think I was just like, I only like adult fiction.
Speaker 1: This was obviously before Lindsay and I started our podcast,
Speaker 1: because all you guys read stuff for y audience. But
Speaker 1: then I finally gave in and I like watched the
Speaker 1: first movie and I was like, oh dang, I like this.
Speaker 1: And then I went and found the books and read
Speaker 1: the books. But I don't really remember the books. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of where I'm read the books. First. They
Speaker 1: were recommended to me by a friend who thought that
Speaker 1: I would like them, and I did like them. I
Speaker 1: liked them fine, and then I liked them fine, very diplomatic.
Speaker 1: I truly don't have a terribly negative opinion about them
Speaker 1: or like, I'm not super ampt about them either. You
Speaker 1: know solid, I feel like that's a common room towards
Speaker 1: this franchise. Respectable, Yes, Jamie, how about you? This is
Speaker 1: one of the many franchises that I just completely slept on.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I was doing when these books
Speaker 1: were coming out. I don't know. I mean maybe I
Speaker 1: was taking yet another foray into being a guy's gal
Speaker 1: and just missed the entire thing. I just started seeing
Speaker 1: movie three years ago when we started this podcast, so
Speaker 1: I remember the books were popular, and I also felt like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I'm too old for this, because I
Speaker 1: feel like I was just like a teen and wanted
Speaker 1: to be too old for something. Did you think that
Speaker 1: they were similar to like Twilight? Kind of No, but
Speaker 1: they can't. They were like the same era of right,
Speaker 1: Like I think that Twilight might have been the last
Speaker 1: y A fiction I read before I decided, like arbitrarily,
Speaker 1: that I had aged out of it. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think that maybe if I were a few years younger,
Speaker 1: I would have read these books, but I didn't, and
Speaker 1: then I don't. I just like had really no desire
Speaker 1: to see the movie, even though I had a very
Speaker 1: weird formative crush on Josh Hutcherson that I I no
Speaker 1: longer stand by interesting, but he was in this movie
Speaker 1: called Firehouse Dog, and I was there for Firehouse Dog
Speaker 1: for some reason that's familiar, but I can't think what
Speaker 1: it is. I couldn't tell you one thing that happens
Speaker 1: in the movie Firehouse Dog. I was really there for
Speaker 1: Josh Hutcherson and the rest of the people there were
Speaker 1: like nine. Um, yeah, I have no history with this franchise,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. What about you, cait I read
Speaker 1: the books, I want to say, must have been like
Speaker 1: twenty or maybe a little bit late. I think I
Speaker 1: read them in preparation for the first movie coming out,
Speaker 1: so that would have been probably a little bit sometime
Speaker 1: in like twelve, I guess, I don't know in that
Speaker 1: frame of time. And then I since then have seen
Speaker 1: each of the movies in theaters. And that makes me
Speaker 1: sound like I'm a big fan of this franchise, which
Speaker 1: I again would not call myself. I just I just
Speaker 1: tend to see most movies, especially ones that are big
Speaker 1: and that you know people are going to talk about,
Speaker 1: because you know, I like to be a part of
Speaker 1: the conversation. Caitlin's addicted to the discourse. I sure am
Speaker 1: so I love a cultural moment, but I think I've
Speaker 1: only seen each movie once aside from the first one
Speaker 1: to prep for the episode, And I remember thinking the
Speaker 1: movies are better than the books in a rare case
Speaker 1: of me thinking that because I feel like the movies
Speaker 1: are just more streamlined story wise, especially the third one
Speaker 1: gets really sloppy in the book, and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: what is even happening? I heard that. I don't think
Speaker 1: I actually read the third one, but I did hear
Speaker 1: it. It It was very oppy, and the movie was better. Yes,
Speaker 1: wait what happens? Well, yeah, she becomes like Catness becomes
Speaker 1: a symbol for like the revolution of like them trying
Speaker 1: to overthrow this totalitarian government. And then but like she's
Speaker 1: very moody for a lot of the time and doesn't
Speaker 1: really do much. You know what? This is a classic
Speaker 1: Harry Potter book. What is it for? Five? Is it
Speaker 1: the one where he gets really moody and like temper
Speaker 1: in a teacake shop or something where I was I
Speaker 1: remember getting to that part and being like, I don't
Speaker 1: need any part of this, but I I don't think
Speaker 1: I could be there for Katness being that moody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she is always that moody. She's a pretty moody She's
Speaker 1: like mood zero percent personality. Interesting. She I do agree
Speaker 1: that she does not have much of a personality, which
Speaker 1: I don't like. I mean, and again, I haven't read
Speaker 1: the books, and so I'm like, I don't know how
Speaker 1: much of this is just Jennifer Lawrence. May I mean,
Speaker 1: it's Jennifer Lawrence is weird. I feel like she's a
Speaker 1: polarizing actor for many I always kind of like get
Speaker 1: leary around conversations like that because I'm always because you know,
Speaker 1: people are more critical of actresses one of actors, mediocre
Speaker 1: actors flourish all the time. I don't love her performance
Speaker 1: in this movie. I feel like she I don't know
Speaker 1: if the character is written to be kind of like boring,
Speaker 1: but I found Wortten to be boring. Unfortunately. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't think she did a great job. I don't think
Speaker 1: what's her face sat down and went, I'm going to
Speaker 1: write a really boring character. Yeah, but that is what
Speaker 1: ended up being on the page. Um. Yeah, her personality
Speaker 1: is I'm hungry, Yeah, I'm scared. Oh no, what if
Speaker 1: I gotten myself into this time? Like the part. I
Speaker 1: definitely felt that feeling a lot, like right when Lenny
Speaker 1: Kravitz is like thirty seconds and she's like, oh no, right,
Speaker 1: I think this is this is high visibility for strong
Speaker 1: female protagonists that are also boring as fuck. I will
Speaker 1: say she's a little less boring than like the most
Speaker 1: boring female protagonist, which is Bella Swan for sure, because
Speaker 1: she at least like has opinions, which is like I
Speaker 1: don't like that, and a skill like she has. She's
Speaker 1: good at hunting and tracking, and she doesn't trip nearly
Speaker 1: as much Swan. Yeah, yeah, she's not as clumsy, but
Speaker 1: when she does trip, the stakes are high, that's true.
Speaker 1: She falls down a freaking giant hill. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: like very high chat, but it's like right at the beginning,
Speaker 1: so she falls for so long it felt like, what
Speaker 1: is that movie that's supposed to be parodying uh Kung Pal?
Speaker 1: Is that that like karate parody movie where there's like
Speaker 1: there's a scene in that movie where a baby falls
Speaker 1: down the same hill and it's clearly a puppet and
Speaker 1: it falls for like five seconds and it's really funny,
Speaker 1: or it's like Princess Briane, so Catness is just like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it's with yeah, a strong character that I
Speaker 1: was not emotionally compelled by even for a moment, except
Speaker 1: for the stuff with your sister. But we'll get to that. Sure,
Speaker 1: I'll do the recap and then we'll dive into the
Speaker 1: discuss and everyone feel free to talk over her. So
Speaker 1: she gets stuffing out. Yeah, I'll just talk about my day, okay.
Speaker 1: So we open with some like text information about the
Speaker 1: Hunger Games, which Jamie, as you pointed out, is in
Speaker 1: Helvetica font. Oh my gosh, okay, wait at least just
Speaker 1: not Papyrus it miss Well. I was so shocked. I
Speaker 1: was telling Caitlin and Aristotle upstairs and Sophie as well
Speaker 1: that I made I had to stop and make sure
Speaker 1: I was watching the right movie. I'm like, oh, maybe
Speaker 1: this is like some weird, like off brand version of
Speaker 1: The Hunger Games, but like they had a seventy eight
Speaker 1: million dollar budget, and the movie opens with six sides
Speaker 1: of Helvetica literally the same font. I was, let's not
Speaker 1: worry about why. But I was looking for a video
Speaker 1: of someone playing through the fire and flames on expert
Speaker 1: mode on Story and I clicked on it and it
Speaker 1: was like I think I got ric rolled because then
Speaker 1: it was like a picture of a cat and then
Speaker 1: like font over. I was like, thank you for coming
Speaker 1: to my channel. But it was that fun, like that
Speaker 1: is what's happening on Hunger Games. It's a thirteen year
Speaker 1: old please like and subscribe slide. At the beginning, I
Speaker 1: was shaken to my I feel like that is the
Speaker 1: most emotion I felt in the entire movie was how
Speaker 1: viscerally I responded to the hell vtic upon at the
Speaker 1: beginning and the end, because the movie ends on it
Speaker 1: and it fades out and says like directed by Gary Rouse,
Speaker 1: and you're like the heal veticas bat Like it's so jarring,
Speaker 1: true dystopia. Yeah, like this is not making commentary, like
Speaker 1: how Vetical will sort of outlive us all. The last
Speaker 1: I'll say about the font is like, if you've got
Speaker 1: seventy eight million dollars, at least use a seraph like ridiculous,
Speaker 1: kind of fair, unreal anyways, so I hear you. So
Speaker 1: the content of the we learned that there are twelve
Speaker 1: districts of pan Am, which sounds like an airline and
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's the country that used to be
Speaker 1: the United States of America, and each district will offer
Speaker 1: up a male and female between the ages of eighteen,
Speaker 1: twelve and eighteen at a lottery selection ceremony type thing
Speaker 1: called the Reaping, and the children who are selected, also
Speaker 1: called the Tributes, are sent to the capital and then
Speaker 1: transferred to an arena where they will fight to the
Speaker 1: death in what it's called the Hunger Game. And they're like,
Speaker 1: what if The Bachelor plus Survivor plus Apocalypse plus A
Speaker 1: is so so Elizabeth Banks performance This franchise answers that
Speaker 1: because the Hunger Games are televised as a like reality
Speaker 1: TV show for everyone to see, and everyone fights to
Speaker 1: the death until a single victor remains. And I don't
Speaker 1: mean a person named victor, of course, because that would
Speaker 1: not pass the higher games, but will he be the victor?
Speaker 1: That'd be a great Like I kept trying to I
Speaker 1: just got into the Bachelorette, which is my shame, but
Speaker 1: I keep trying to. I kept trying to, like picture
Speaker 1: the contestants doing like talking heads, because that's the only
Speaker 1: element of reality TV they shared for this. It would
Speaker 1: be so fun if Josh Hudgerson were like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: kind of starting to catch fields for or if he's
Speaker 1: like if he's like um, like, so we see him,
Speaker 1: you know he's decided with the bad guys and he's like,
Speaker 1: so I might have been on the wrong side of history. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we meet Catness Eberdeen. That's Jennifer Lawrence's character. She
Speaker 1: is from District twelve, which is like a poor coal
Speaker 1: miner part of the of pan Am, and Catiness is
Speaker 1: a skilled archer. She hunts for food for her and
Speaker 1: her family, which is her mother and sister Prim, who
Speaker 1: she loves dearly and who is stressed out about this
Speaker 1: upcoming reaping. Can I can I just say Prim is fine,
Speaker 1: but like, I just don't see Like from what I
Speaker 1: saw Prim, I would not have volunteered distribute for her.
Speaker 1: I would just let her. But I think you need
Speaker 1: to keep in mind that the person who was like
Speaker 1: I couldn't possibly let her go with Catiness, who's possibly
Speaker 1: even more of a vacuum of personality. True, like Prim
Speaker 1: showed emotion, so she had that going for her, but
Speaker 1: that little I thought that the actress who played Prim
Speaker 1: did a great job with being given nut too much.
Speaker 1: Also the name, I'm wondering, like if Suzanne Collins had like,
Speaker 1: if she's released any like insight into her naming conventions,
Speaker 1: because naming a little girl prim seems weirdly pointed and
Speaker 1: prim Rose it's a shortcut to get to Prim though
Speaker 1: for sure. Yea. Anyways, so her best friend is Gail.
Speaker 1: That's Liam Hemsworth's characters. Fleming's kidding, I get it, um
Speaker 1: and the two of them talked about how fucked up
Speaker 1: the Hunger Games are and how they should just leave,
Speaker 1: and then Catness and Prim go to the reaping and
Speaker 1: Effie Trinkett is there. That's Elizabeth Banks character. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: really quick, what Elizabeth? I possibly? I like Elizabeth Bank.
Speaker 1: I do not like her in this part at all.
Speaker 1: I think she's doing a terrible Helen A. Bottom Carter impression.
Speaker 1: How many times did Helen and bottom Carter turn this
Speaker 1: part down? And then how many times did Parker Posey
Speaker 1: turn it down after before they arrived at letting Elsa
Speaker 1: Banks do a terrible impression of both of them. It
Speaker 1: bothers me. I So I was I was fine on
Speaker 1: her performance. I thought she was like a seven out
Speaker 1: of ten performance wise. Really you mentioned Helena bottom Carter
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, that's what it is. She
Speaker 1: simply wasn't available because Helena would have killed it. That's
Speaker 1: like a role she's born to play. Yeah, that's her
Speaker 1: in her film career. Yes, I needed somebody who can
Speaker 1: actually play like out of it. Yeah, because her character
Speaker 1: is not that forever Elsa thanks isn't isn't really a
Speaker 1: character actor in that way, she was trying something. I
Speaker 1: appreciated the f Ultimately, it did make me just wonder
Speaker 1: what if Parker Posey had gotten she seems to be available.
Speaker 1: She was doing Parker Posey's character from Josie and the Post.
Speaker 1: That is exactly what she was doing. Those are the
Speaker 1: things we see girls. Oh god, great movie anyway. Anyways,
Speaker 1: So Effie Trinkett is from the Capital. She represents the
Speaker 1: Hunger Games essentially, or like she represents District twelve, for
Speaker 1: she is the District twelve Hunger Games like read being
Speaker 1: like representative. She's by far the most dystopian looking of
Speaker 1: everyone besides Stanley Tucci and Stanley Tucci are the only
Speaker 1: ones delivering looks quite that dystopian. And then you've got
Speaker 1: Guy Fieri beard, and then everyone else kind of looks normal.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but except for like the non speaking extras
Speaker 1: that will like occasionally everyone in the capital, but people
Speaker 1: who is yeah speaking right anyway? Sky. So for we're
Speaker 1: at the reaping for the girls, prim gets selected to
Speaker 1: participate in the games, but Ketness can't bear to see
Speaker 1: her little sister compete, so she volunteers as tribute and
Speaker 1: an iconic scene and then it goes like this, I
Speaker 1: vad I volatiers tribute and then like lots of shaky
Speaker 1: camera which urgently scary. I actually I liked this part.
Speaker 1: I thought that I was a little bit moved by it. Sure,
Speaker 1: I like the parts with her and her family. I
Speaker 1: wish there was more of that. And Peter Peter, speaking
Speaker 1: of Peter gets selected for the boys, and that's Josh
Speaker 1: Hutcherson's character. So Catness and Peter Hutcherson. I thought I
Speaker 1: would have be ten Hutchinson. Did I say it? I
Speaker 1: might have said, didn't know. I think you're right. I
Speaker 1: think it is Hutcherson. I feel like Jamie would definitely
Speaker 1: know actually had a sexual awakening as a former stand
Speaker 1: it is Josh Hutcherson. And that is hound spelled in
Speaker 1: firehouse dog. Okay, okay. So they go and meet their
Speaker 1: mentor hay Mitch, which is Woody Harrelson and and his
Speaker 1: four dollar wig feminist icono middle part most and least. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I liked Woody Harrelson in this movie. The wig was wild.
Speaker 1: I didn't see there's a lot of wigs in this
Speaker 1: movie and this is it was like an anime causeplay wig.
Speaker 1: I don't know what was happening, but it was very bad.
Speaker 1: It was like PC could not keep drycause it was why, like,
Speaker 1: just blow some wind on him. I don't understand why
Speaker 1: it was constantly wet and PC it was so bad.
Speaker 1: I like that They're like, he's an alcoholic, therefore he
Speaker 1: has a dirty wig on all the time. This leap
Speaker 1: of logic doesn't quite make sense, but sure a visual language. Well,
Speaker 1: the costume designer is like, look, I know it's kind
Speaker 1: of cliche, but I'm just going to go with a
Speaker 1: cheap wig because he's an alcoholic. It's just like a
Speaker 1: short cut of storytelling, like you know, like that the
Speaker 1: caller is undone and the wigs wet. Every alcoholic I've
Speaker 1: ever known has a soaking wet wig, and that's a
Speaker 1: dead it's a dead giveaway that you need help. So
Speaker 1: he's a previous like victor of the games, which is
Speaker 1: why he's helping them, but he doesn't really have much
Speaker 1: interest in helping him. The main thing that he tells
Speaker 1: Catans is that she needs to be more likable so
Speaker 1: that she'll get sponsors who will send her stuff during
Speaker 1: the games survive, which at least is framed as a
Speaker 1: bad thing because you don't want to hear that from
Speaker 1: someone wearing a soaking wet wig like likable really, right?
Speaker 1: I appreciate I appreciate that the movie went out of
Speaker 1: its way to frame this is like, this is not
Speaker 1: the right thing to be saying to this character. That's important.
Speaker 1: So then they get to the Capitol and Catnist meets Sinna.
Speaker 1: That's Lenny Kravitz hot, what a what an I didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't know the cast of this movie outside of
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lawrence and and the Hudge. I know that my like,
Speaker 1: my best friend from high school, Lois listens to the
Speaker 1: show and she went to Firehouse Dog with me and
Speaker 1: she is losing her minder. I keep thinking it's like
Speaker 1: fire House Dog. That's what I keep thinking too, because
Speaker 1: of the emphasis of how you're saying, my fuse sorry,
Speaker 1: I've been saying it for thirteen years since it was released.
Speaker 1: I just can't step. I have it on DVD, the
Speaker 1: only DVD I own anyway. I watched it every day.
Speaker 1: I love it. I don't have a DVD player, but
Speaker 1: if I ever get when I'm ready, Um there, what
Speaker 1: were we even talking? Oh? I just had no idea
Speaker 1: Lenny Kravitz was in this movie. And what a pleasant
Speaker 1: surprise I know. Yeah. Something my boyfriend said was how
Speaker 1: many steps did it take in the process to get
Speaker 1: to casting Lenny Kravitz's first choice? No idea, but I
Speaker 1: think he adds in this movie. I think casting Lenny
Speaker 1: Kravitz a style icon as a dystopian stylist rules, and
Speaker 1: that was real fun. Yeah. I like that too, and
Speaker 1: I liked his relationship with Katness the same. He's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite characters. Him and the Tooch and everyone
Speaker 1: else touch don't really care anyways, A can and then
Speaker 1: it's like whatever the rest of the baby. Um, so
Speaker 1: he's her silas there's a tribute parade that he makes
Speaker 1: her all fancy, and I mean, speaking of Firehouse Dog,
Speaker 1: it's more like Firehouse were you freaking girl? When with
Speaker 1: her fire? Yeah? I mean, I was like, this is
Speaker 1: Josh the boy on Fire. You start calling her that weird?
Speaker 1: So the girl Girl on Fire was that that that
Speaker 1: has that had to have come out after this movie
Speaker 1: came out, right, otherwise you're like a weird reference that
Speaker 1: would have been really into. Josh Patterson isn't even on
Speaker 1: the poster for a house dog. It's just a dog.
Speaker 1: That's so it's really so embarrassing. He's the star of
Speaker 1: the movie and he's not on the poster. That's funny.
Speaker 1: It's just a dog in sunglasses. So there's the parade.
Speaker 1: Stanley Tucci is Caesar Flickerman, but he's Stanley Tucci and
Speaker 1: he's the commentator of all things Hunger Games. Um, we
Speaker 1: meet the GameMaker, there's President's no, who's Donald's Sutherland? And
Speaker 1: who expected you to say Stoke? Oh because because of
Speaker 1: Star Wars. Um, So they're all there. And then the
Speaker 1: tributes they train a little bit. The tributes from District
Speaker 1: one and two were always like really really good because
Speaker 1: they like go to like training camp and there it's
Speaker 1: a whole thing. There's like a whole class discussion we
Speaker 1: can have there. Um, and Peter is worried that he's
Speaker 1: going to died because he sucks it everything except that
Speaker 1: he's strong and he can throw heavy objects like John
Speaker 1: Hafferson is not strong. How this movie are you trying?
Speaker 1: He looks crazy. It is so weird that they're like
Speaker 1: he's so strong. I'm like, stop gaslighting me. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at And when she's like you should throw that big ball,
Speaker 1: he like walks over to it. I was like, he
Speaker 1: You're like his arm is going to fall up. He
Speaker 1: don't show him throwing it, but like seen or Peter
Speaker 1: tells his story about how like he's like, no, like
Speaker 1: even my own mother knows that, like you're gonna win Catus.
Speaker 1: And she goes, well, you're like really good at throwing flour.
Speaker 1: She's like, I've seen you do it many times. It's
Speaker 1: like a Baker's son superpower that he has. It's it's
Speaker 1: two superpowers, both baking related. Yes, they're take decorating. And
Speaker 1: does Susanne Collins understand bakeries? Has she ever met a
Speaker 1: poor person? I have a lot of questions based on
Speaker 1: her portrayal. And I love, I mean, I love short men,
Speaker 1: and I love when short men are cast in leading roles.
Speaker 1: End and it's like or shorter. I don't know his
Speaker 1: exact hide. I think it's a round five seven if
Speaker 1: I remember correctly from my Firehouse Dog days. Oh boy
Speaker 1: short a k a girl tall, right, yes, And but
Speaker 1: I like when when they don't Tom cruise it and
Speaker 1: the movie is like, no, he's shorter than her and
Speaker 1: we're not going to call attention to it. That said,
Speaker 1: he visibly could not be that strong. I mean, he
Speaker 1: has some arms, arms, muscle, but his little T shirt
Speaker 1: was No. I wasn't going to support I was very
Speaker 1: worried about the about the ball throwing. And you do
Speaker 1: notice too that they never they show a lot of
Speaker 1: cut twos, the like flashbacks of like him throwing a
Speaker 1: piece of bread air. Honestly, I believe that Josh Hudgerson
Speaker 1: would have gotten two into cross fit to get ready
Speaker 1: for this movie. He kind of has the resting face
Speaker 1: of someone who is two into cross He does and
Speaker 1: CrossFit resting, but they never show him throwing those hundred
Speaker 1: pound bags of flower around. Jen's shooting the arrows, what
Speaker 1: throw the iron ball? So like at this we are
Speaker 1: maybe to believe that at the same time Catness is
Speaker 1: hunting that deer that Gail totally sucks up. He is
Speaker 1: somewhere just like lifting backs, like in his version of
Speaker 1: the movie. That's what's taking place a lot of theorious
Speaker 1: at Alright, we meet Rue. She is a younger kid
Speaker 1: from District eleven. I think Catness. She's impressing the judges
Speaker 1: with how good she is with the bone arrow. She
Speaker 1: gets a score of eleven because they're like rating all
Speaker 1: the tributes, and she gets the highest score because she
Speaker 1: throws an arrow at them. And every time cat Is
Speaker 1: gets a great score, Peter is extremely emasculated and retally.
Speaker 1: It's and that's why he's the romantic lead of the movie.
Speaker 1: So it's the night before the Hunger Games and all
Speaker 1: the tributes to a TV interview, and Peter during his
Speaker 1: interview says that he is in love with someone who
Speaker 1: came to the Games with him. I hate this, yes,
Speaker 1: so much. We'll talk all about this. It's like when
Speaker 1: the people on the Bachelorette say they're in love with
Speaker 1: her in the first episode. I like, you just want attention.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you're not falling stop or a few arts
Speaker 1: because they've given you too much layer and not enough food. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Hunger Games of its own time, I mean we
Speaker 1: know there was booze because Hayman is drinking a lot
Speaker 1: of it, very demonst I mean, there's enough to dip
Speaker 1: his wig in it. That's why. That's that's why from
Speaker 1: always like liquor sweats, Yes, constants. You know, now it's
Speaker 1: toime for the games. Let the game speak in both
Speaker 1: of you. And right away, like half of the tributes
Speaker 1: are killed. This is the part of the convenience where
Speaker 1: everyone would have died. I was like I would as
Speaker 1: they were standing around, I was like trying to put
Speaker 1: myself in the position. I'm like, no, I think at
Speaker 1: this point I would have been like, well, I had
Speaker 1: a good run. It's always nice. Set like this will
Speaker 1: be on my IMDb page and it might kind of
Speaker 1: be like the crow and I had. Yeah. So Catne
Speaker 1: survives and runs into the woods, and then she learns
Speaker 1: that Peter is alive too and pretending to be an
Speaker 1: ally to the District one and two people, and they
Speaker 1: are using him to try to find Catanus because they
Speaker 1: want to kill her. She continues to survive. She escapes
Speaker 1: a fire. The bad guys find her, They chase her
Speaker 1: up a tree, and then she drops a wasps nest
Speaker 1: on them. Um, which her and her friend Ru had
Speaker 1: been the one to like alert her to the presence
Speaker 1: of the nest, so Ru is her her. Ally, they're
Speaker 1: also LSD wasps Yes, which which like Stanley Tucci kind
Speaker 1: of pops in sometimes like over the loud speaker like
Speaker 1: a vice principal and just like gives you exposition. You like,
Speaker 1: by the way, there's LSD in the wasp. But you're
Speaker 1: like right, because he's the host of the reality show
Speaker 1: that everyone's watches, like Home. He's Jeff Crisp sting it.
Speaker 1: He's like live narrating what is happening during the challenge.
Speaker 1: It's also kind of like he's doing the post show
Speaker 1: talk show while it is still happenings like the Talking
Speaker 1: Days Talking that's where that show got into name yeah,
Speaker 1: talking about who died so horrible. Also, Toby Jones is
Speaker 1: there with him, very like how do you underutilize Toby Jones.
Speaker 1: He's like he doesn't speak, like he responds like two sentences.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's like blah blah blah. Tracker Jackers or whatever
Speaker 1: they're called. Toby Jones is on the left, looking like
Speaker 1: a weird Mozart and he's like yeah, he literally is
Speaker 1: just like you got that right. That's it sounds like
Speaker 1: a good part. I would ship out of that part
Speaker 1: like he got that right. I would be like moving
Speaker 1: a lot, got your online. I would be really just
Speaker 1: like I got like two seconds on camera. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make it work and I'm getting my SAG card for this.
Speaker 1: You're gonna see it. Yeah, okay. So then kas finally
Speaker 1: gets her hands on a bone arrow and she and
Speaker 1: Ru have like formed this alliance and they destroy the
Speaker 1: supplies that like all the bad guys from District one
Speaker 1: and two are hoarding. But then Ru gets killed prize.
Speaker 1: Then there this incites some riots in District twelve or sorry,
Speaker 1: District eleven, and an announcement is then made that they
Speaker 1: will crown two victors in the Hunger Games if they
Speaker 1: originate from the same district. So then Catanis goes and
Speaker 1: finds Peter, who has disguised himself as a rock. It
Speaker 1: was so weird. What where did he get that stuff?
Speaker 1: I don't know. It happened to be in his pack.
Speaker 1: He had a cake decorating kit. That was the moment
Speaker 1: that shook me, like the second most after Helvetica. Front
Speaker 1: was like she found him disguised as a rock, and
Speaker 1: she's like, you know what, I think I am in
Speaker 1: love with him. You're like in the next scene she
Speaker 1: kisses him. I was like, what this is? What? That
Speaker 1: was part of the act. He wandered onto set of
Speaker 1: nailed it and was just like, I've got all the
Speaker 1: stuff I'm gonna paint my face and they were like, actually,
Speaker 1: you did you look like? He didn't really look like
Speaker 1: Tenda ten rock painting looks like they're their mirrors, and
Speaker 1: it's like, how didn't you know if? Also he has
Speaker 1: like an infectious cut on it. Also, I laughed out
Speaker 1: loud when he's like, hello, you know your man's is
Speaker 1: disguised as a rock and has a critical wound. He's unwell.
Speaker 1: He's like, am I winning? He at that point like
Speaker 1: he should have he should be dead, he should not
Speaker 1: feel he's close. But she gets him to safety and
Speaker 1: then they kiss. We'll talk all about this, uh, and
Speaker 1: then everyone's rooting for them to make it so, and
Speaker 1: then they're like, okay, we're the only team left with
Speaker 1: just the two of us still alive from the same district.
Speaker 1: We can win this together. And then at this point
Speaker 1: there's only one other tribute left, which is kato colored hair. Yes,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, he looks like a thumb guest. They fight him,
Speaker 1: they kill him, and then just then there's another announcement
Speaker 1: that says, just kidding, there can be only one winner.
Speaker 1: So Peter is like, catn this killing me and she's
Speaker 1: like no, let's both die. So they're about to eat
Speaker 1: these poison berries and then the announcer comes back and
Speaker 1: it's like, wait, wait, wait, just to stop, don't do that.
Speaker 1: You both win. So they're announced to be the victors
Speaker 1: of the Hungry Games. And then they go back to
Speaker 1: the Capitol. They have like post show interviews and they
Speaker 1: have to make her dress belly interesting and just like
Speaker 1: you piss them off by like doing this whole double
Speaker 1: victory thing. So now you have to pretend like you're
Speaker 1: really in love with Peter because everyone's just gonna gobble
Speaker 1: that up. They do that, and then that's the end
Speaker 1: of the movie. We'll take a quick break and then
Speaker 1: we'll come back to discuss and we're bad gods. All right,
Speaker 1: Well we're a start. There's so much to to talk
Speaker 1: about this. I feel like, okay, So this movie is
Speaker 1: like often cited when people are talking about movies with
Speaker 1: strong female protagonists because you do get to see, you know,
Speaker 1: a young woman who has a lot of agency, she
Speaker 1: has skills, the stakes are high. The series becomes about
Speaker 1: her being like a symbol for the revolution. Like it's
Speaker 1: a whole and it's a female lead action franchise, which
Speaker 1: is cool indeed, But there are some things that I
Speaker 1: wish wouldn't have happened. The romantic subplot and its entirety
Speaker 1: by any chance, Yes, that's the big thing. Hey. For me,
Speaker 1: I was like, and I wonder how much of this
Speaker 1: was supposed to inspire or like dread because for me,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh no, she's like being told that
Speaker 1: she has to fake this relationship with this guy. I
Speaker 1: don't like that. She kind of seemed to like him back, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because what I would have liked was for her to
Speaker 1: like not really know how much of it he's faking,
Speaker 1: because he is more duplicitous than she thinks like he is.
Speaker 1: She has seen that he knows how to play the game,
Speaker 1: so I disagree. I don't think he is at all duplicitous.
Speaker 1: I think he really going to the other side purely
Speaker 1: to save her. No, not for that, I mean like
Speaker 1: he knows how to play this game, so he is
Speaker 1: faking being in love with her. I mean, maybe he
Speaker 1: likes her, but I think because we see from the
Speaker 1: next movies that he he like fully is in love
Speaker 1: with her. I think it's a little bit of both.
Speaker 1: I think it's so I don't know, yeah, but he's
Speaker 1: like fully in love with her. But also I mean
Speaker 1: I think you're right too, and that like you see
Speaker 1: in that moment in the parade when they're on the chariot,
Speaker 1: like he goes to surprise, not kiss, but grab her
Speaker 1: hand and she pulls away and he's like, no, come on,
Speaker 1: they'll love it. And then so she's like okay, but
Speaker 1: then they hold hands and then people are like I
Speaker 1: was a little confused about like the same debate of like,
Speaker 1: because at first it does seem like I was assuming
Speaker 1: that he was very calculated in the ways, especially because
Speaker 1: of the whole like it felt like the first episode
Speaker 1: of The Bachelor, where he goes on he doesn't tell
Speaker 1: her that he likes her, he tells the entire world
Speaker 1: in this very performative way, and I was like, that
Speaker 1: seems calculated, Like that seems like some you know, something
Speaker 1: that just to gain attention and good will, but then
Speaker 1: they sort of try to spin it later as if
Speaker 1: it were actually totally sincere and not calculated at all,
Speaker 1: And I just I don't know, like I don't hate
Speaker 1: that the TV show tries to push them together because
Speaker 1: I feel like there's some commentary there of like the
Speaker 1: way that's really like realistic. Yeah, like the way the
Speaker 1: TV show treats Cat and is I think is meant
Speaker 1: to be like commentary of like when she goes up
Speaker 1: for her first interview, like Stanley Tucci make sure she
Speaker 1: has to show off her outfit and like she has
Speaker 1: to and when what he Harrelson advises her and what
Speaker 1: to do, it's very like reality TV calculated. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'd like that works for me because there's commentary being
Speaker 1: made and we believe at the time that she doesn't
Speaker 1: care for this guy at all, so there's like some
Speaker 1: interesting tension. But then I feel like they kind of
Speaker 1: throw it away by it being like, no, they actually
Speaker 1: do like each other, so because she initiates the kiss
Speaker 1: when they're in the cave, right, so, but then even
Speaker 1: then I was just like, is she doing this because
Speaker 1: she knows there being on camera? I don't know which
Speaker 1: would be smart. That would be interesting to my interpretation
Speaker 1: based on the book and the movie together, because I
Speaker 1: think what it comes down to is it not working
Speaker 1: in the movie is casting. They have no chemistry, They
Speaker 1: not in chemistry whatsoever, and neither of them have very
Speaker 1: many shades to their performance either. So when he is
Speaker 1: playing Sincere in love with Catanus, it reads exactly the
Speaker 1: same as when you are supposed to kind of wonder
Speaker 1: what his motives are because you were supposed to wonder
Speaker 1: because she is wondering. But then as the book goes on,
Speaker 1: it's like, no, he was a hundred percent since here.
Speaker 1: It is shitty how he announces it, which is not
Speaker 1: something I even thought about. Watching the movie last night,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, like and also I think
Speaker 1: I think, deep down maybe he does love her, but
Speaker 1: he might be like one of those guys that's like
Speaker 1: doesn't understand to love someone truly is to love them
Speaker 1: how they want to be loved, and rather he's just like,
Speaker 1: this is how we express it, and like that's why
Speaker 1: he announced it, because I think partially he's doing it
Speaker 1: because he's like, oh, I feel love her, I should
Speaker 1: just say it. And then like partially he's he knows
Speaker 1: the only thing he's got is knowing how to play
Speaker 1: the game, because he from the beginning they get in there,
Speaker 1: she's like sulking, and he's like we should wave at them,
Speaker 1: because like you've got to get people to like you.
Speaker 1: That was like an interesting moment for me at least,
Speaker 1: because you're just like, Okay, this is like h Like
Speaker 1: I almost like I wish that they if if the
Speaker 1: tension were constantly from like them doubting, like oh is
Speaker 1: this not how do I actually feel about it? But
Speaker 1: it's like I don't know yet it is partially a
Speaker 1: performance thing. And then setting aside there like lack of chemistry.
Speaker 1: If we just take it like the events of the
Speaker 1: story at face value, what happens is that the more
Speaker 1: the movie progresses, the more this romantic storyline gets entangled
Speaker 1: into the main story, which is their survival, which I
Speaker 1: feel is really unnecessary, Like they made a conscious choice
Speaker 1: because there's like, all right, this is a y a book,
Speaker 1: this is you know, a movie franchise for largely like
Speaker 1: teen young adult audiences, So we've got a wedge this
Speaker 1: not only a romantic storyline into here, but it's a
Speaker 1: love triangle story because gayl otherwise care because in this
Speaker 1: first movie, and I wonder if the book makes this
Speaker 1: more clear or not. I can't totally remember, but Gail
Speaker 1: and Catness are framed as being best friends, and there's
Speaker 1: no reason to assume that they have anything besides a
Speaker 1: platonic friendship apart from being very attractive, apart from both
Speaker 1: being near each other and both hot time. But but
Speaker 1: then when you when Gail is watching the Hunger Games
Speaker 1: from his TV or wherever, at the projected at the
Speaker 1: Hunger Um, he's seeing Catness and Peter Kiss on TV
Speaker 1: and he's like visibly upset. So we're supposed to understand, like,
Speaker 1: oh no, he's also in love with Catness because in
Speaker 1: a Why novel and movie, sure a woman gets to
Speaker 1: be the main character sometimes, but if she is, she's
Speaker 1: got to have not one but two boys who love her,
Speaker 1: which is like both adds nothing to well, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's I feel like it's supposed to add stuff to
Speaker 1: the story. But there's just multiple elements of this movie,
Speaker 1: and I think this is like the most sinister one.
Speaker 1: Also introducing Daddy issues ninety minutes into the movie. I
Speaker 1: also found to be very unnecessary. I forgot that that
Speaker 1: was part of her She's like hallucinating after getting bit
Speaker 1: stuff with the mom and the dad being dead and stuff. Right,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's like there's too many crutches involving
Speaker 1: male characters when it's like this movie does not want
Speaker 1: for steaks. The steaks are high enough the whole movie,
Speaker 1: and like adding in this like love story that doesn't
Speaker 1: work really and then throwing in some daddy issues on
Speaker 1: top of it, it's like we are like catness is
Speaker 1: already in trouble and the daddy stuff doesn't really pay
Speaker 1: off at all except in like a passing comment to
Speaker 1: her mom. And I don't know, like there was just
Speaker 1: most of the like adding a problem on top of
Speaker 1: a problem that was already life or death. It's like
Speaker 1: it's just like it's just not necessary. Also, it's also
Speaker 1: interesting and how they show like they introduced these like
Speaker 1: daddy issues is because what it actually comes down to
Speaker 1: is it becomes an issue she has with her mom.
Speaker 1: She doesn't think about her dad that much. What happened
Speaker 1: is her dad died and the mom shut down emotionally
Speaker 1: and she had to take care of herself and she
Speaker 1: had to take care of prim so it's actually a
Speaker 1: mommy issue, but it doesn't really present that way. It's weird.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like it kind of glory like
Speaker 1: the way mothers are presented in this movie are is.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's very limited, but I feel like it
Speaker 1: is telling where it seems like we're supposed to assume
Speaker 1: because Peter has a bad, possibly abusive relationship with his mom,
Speaker 1: that that's why he treats Cat and is like shit
Speaker 1: at first, which is kind of like a one to
Speaker 1: one and I was like that it should If you're
Speaker 1: going to do that, then you have to explore it.
Speaker 1: You can't just be like, that's why you shifty two
Speaker 1: women so you can like him. I thought he was
Speaker 1: like shitty to her because he was embarrassed about being
Speaker 1: like bonked on the head with a rolling pin. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what happened, but he got bonked or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I think he just was just in a shitty
Speaker 1: place and like, I didn't I don't want to keep
Speaker 1: being the in the book person. But again, this is
Speaker 1: another weakness of the movie. So it's like, on the
Speaker 1: one hand, it seems like a really good adaptation, and
Speaker 1: on the other hand, it totally doesn't convey at all
Speaker 1: what the book version of this was, which is that
Speaker 1: he was like, really, you putting himself on the line
Speaker 1: by throwing her that. But you're not supposed to give
Speaker 1: food to other people in the Hunger games, right in
Speaker 1: those worlds, I mean, everyone's hungry. It was like he was,
Speaker 1: everyone's so hungry, and so it's hard us to You're
Speaker 1: so you're allowed to bread at pigs, but not at people.
Speaker 1: It was like that bread was to feed their pigs
Speaker 1: that they need to survive, I think. And then so
Speaker 1: he's like really risking a beating by even throwing her
Speaker 1: some bread, and she remembers this so when he steps
Speaker 1: up on stage, at least in the book, she's like,
Speaker 1: it's kind of the sense maybe I'm remembering this wrong.
Speaker 1: That would be amazing if I'm remembering this wrong. But
Speaker 1: but when he steps up on stage, she's like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: the only other person who's been nice to meet my
Speaker 1: whole life, Like, I don't want it to be him.
Speaker 1: He like, was he like gave me bread once? Oh
Speaker 1: I read it as she was like, you threw bread
Speaker 1: at me. She's like, you sad that it's Peter. Ah,
Speaker 1: I did not see that in the movie. The movie,
Speaker 1: it seemed like she was like you threw bread at me,
Speaker 1: you think you're better than me, and like you saw
Speaker 1: me at my worst when I was like hungry and
Speaker 1: leaning on a tree in the rain. So she does
Speaker 1: not seem bad off. It seems like she was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just like having a nice day on the rain.
Speaker 1: Those flashbacks are badly done. It's like none of us.
Speaker 1: I feel like we all had different takeaways from them.
Speaker 1: I just I'm so disinterested in their romantic connection that
Speaker 1: I like, honestly wasn't even so is Catnets like she
Speaker 1: interested in him. She's not fish to fry, like not dying,
Speaker 1: she's too hungry to be in love. Also, this is
Speaker 1: what I think about a lot in these types of
Speaker 1: love triangles stories where it's like, Okay, you've got her
Speaker 1: best friend Gayle is apparently in love with her. Um,
Speaker 1: this guy Peter is apparently in love with her. But like,
Speaker 1: what if Kenness was a lesbian, like because she's just
Speaker 1: been like yeah, it's like she's not because of heteronormativity
Speaker 1: in media, But like, where's the story where she was
Speaker 1: like character, I would like if she was queer, But
Speaker 1: it's just like all the romantic stuff. I feel like
Speaker 1: it's just really over done and like not necessary, and
Speaker 1: I would love for the movie to have been fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes shorter. Um, So if they end so they could
Speaker 1: just cut it out, I'll be fine with it. I
Speaker 1: agree now as an adult. But if I was reading this,
Speaker 1: then I'd like all I wanted at was for two
Speaker 1: boys to be in love with me at the same time.
Speaker 1: It would be like, oh my god, dream come true.
Speaker 1: And so if I was reading this books, I'd be like, yes,
Speaker 1: two boys are in love with her and I am her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that's why she's still born. Because we talked about
Speaker 1: this sometimes where there will be a boring I mean,
Speaker 1: this is not this can be applied to any gender,
Speaker 1: but there will be like a boring main character, especially
Speaker 1: in like y A and teen fiction, where it allows,
Speaker 1: you know, the young person who's reading it or consuming
Speaker 1: it in whatever way to plug themselves into that character.
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, which is you know and you don't.
Speaker 1: I guess maybe that was why I was a little
Speaker 1: thrown by, because normally they're not female protagonists that get
Speaker 1: this boring plug in treat man, because it's usually like
Speaker 1: you're getting a Harry Potter or you're getting a neo,
Speaker 1: or you're getting just like a Bland dude. But I guess, yeah,
Speaker 1: just getting this is progressive taking all that, like the
Speaker 1: pendulum has to swing. I like, I like romance both
Speaker 1: as a genre and as like a thing in other movies,
Speaker 1: and I like a love triangle. I did not like
Speaker 1: this one because I think it was poorly done, Like
Speaker 1: there weren't any seeds that the best friend in her
Speaker 1: were like a thing. And so when he was like,
Speaker 1: oh I can't watch you in the bar, I was
Speaker 1: like what why. I was like, oh, you like her,
Speaker 1: like okay. And then when that's another thing where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I guess deep down, I just like always assumed tweet
Speaker 1: end up together, which is like, yeah, like it's like
Speaker 1: what you guys don't even seem to like each other
Speaker 1: until you cosplayed as a rock and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden she's in love seriously when he does that
Speaker 1: cosplay as a rock and she's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: like let me drag you into this cave and like
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh I have to paint myself as
Speaker 1: this cave. Now She's like put it down, like relax
Speaker 1: just to Pitai. I'm just can you imagine how many
Speaker 1: Instagram followers Pete would have had though? If he could
Speaker 1: have just painted himself like various surfaces like he been
Speaker 1: insanely popular, many sponsors, many parachute he would have got. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he would have been an influencer. Um, that's we've got
Speaker 1: to go to another break. But to to wrap up
Speaker 1: on the relationship, I guess it makes sense in a
Speaker 1: y A thing. I think it could have been more
Speaker 1: thoughtfully adapted. And I think it's also like because the
Speaker 1: love triangle or just like a romantic storyline is so
Speaker 1: pervasive and why fiction, it's just like, can we have
Speaker 1: one where there's not? And I'm sure there are And
Speaker 1: you know, it's been several years over a decade since
Speaker 1: these books were published, so I'm sure I haven't read
Speaker 1: much much why A fiction since then. But it's just like,
Speaker 1: can't we just have a story about like a badass
Speaker 1: young woman like doing cool stuff. And I'm not kissing boys.
Speaker 1: I'm mostly compelled by like Peanut and catness relationship as
Speaker 1: like them faking a relationship to please the masses and
Speaker 1: then actually either not liking each other or like working
Speaker 1: together and realizing like we have to fake this for
Speaker 1: reality TV, and then we then were full fucking burn
Speaker 1: the world down, and then it turns into the America
Speaker 1: that that's what it is like, exploring that like expectation
Speaker 1: of why a fiction and faking it and having the
Speaker 1: reader know that, Like, I think that that much better story.
Speaker 1: And the stakes are very high because each of them
Speaker 1: could be holding that kind of as like both a
Speaker 1: carrot and stick, as like because you better do what
Speaker 1: I need you to do, because otherwise I could just
Speaker 1: tell everyone that like we don't like or if like
Speaker 1: they the powers that be find out that they're faking it,
Speaker 1: then they'll, you know, like be mad, don't we have
Speaker 1: we have punch ups, Suzanne, uh. And with that, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go to a break. We'll be right back. So
Speaker 1: I think this might be a good transition into There's
Speaker 1: been a lot of discussion surrounding race in this movie.
Speaker 1: Um and as always, we want to open everything up
Speaker 1: to our listeners who may have info and insights that
Speaker 1: we don't. But there were two main subjects that I
Speaker 1: found in the coverage of In two thousand twelve when
Speaker 1: this movie was coming out, there was very upsetting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the first thing was catanis as being a whitewashed role
Speaker 1: by Jennifer Lawrence having been cast um fans of the book.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's this is a little trickier to discuss,
Speaker 1: but but it does seem like to an extent, there
Speaker 1: is something to that because in the books, Um, she's
Speaker 1: described as having all of skin and straight black hair,
Speaker 1: which leaves it to open to interpretation. But Jennifer Lawrence
Speaker 1: is not. She does not have all of skin, nor
Speaker 1: does she have straight black hair. No, and whatever whatever
Speaker 1: raised Susanne Collins was trying to imply, it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like was was reflected in the casting at all, which
Speaker 1: was sort of a discussion around then, but it didn't
Speaker 1: seem to for fans at this time to disqualify her.
Speaker 1: I know, it's so weird of the seven years ago
Speaker 1: and was a different time people barely so that's so
Speaker 1: that's where that's worth discussing. And also the fact that
Speaker 1: Susan Collins didn't overrule it because she was very integral
Speaker 1: in the making of this movie and she had the power.
Speaker 1: She's one of the producers, she's one of the writers
Speaker 1: of the script. I can imagine because it's not like
Speaker 1: she was coming off of another very successful franchise. I
Speaker 1: can imagine a situation in which she fought for that
Speaker 1: and just could not was overrule, get them to budge
Speaker 1: on it. I could say, I mean, yeah, it's it's unfortunate.
Speaker 1: And it seems like they were this was like a
Speaker 1: very hot time for Jennifer Lawrence. I think she was
Speaker 1: like coming off of Winter's Bone and so yeah, so
Speaker 1: she was coming off of like it makes sense that
Speaker 1: this would be the time to cast her in a
Speaker 1: huge franchise. But that was a subject of discussion, and
Speaker 1: it seems like, um, some fans were pretty upset that
Speaker 1: she had been cast, because that happens all the time.
Speaker 1: And then the other main subject of discussion that I
Speaker 1: think has changed quite a bit since the movie came
Speaker 1: out is the discussion around the black characters in the movie,
Speaker 1: particularly um there was a lot of to the point
Speaker 1: where there is an in depth New Yorker essay written
Speaker 1: about it, Yes, about fan backlash when black actors were
Speaker 1: cast as these parts that it is worth saying they
Speaker 1: were written as black care Yeah, that was wild watching
Speaker 1: that happen. I wasn't I wasn't aware of you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember, just like actually like just very dumb. So
Speaker 1: you're reading this book and you're like, this character is white, right,
Speaker 1: But yeah, So basically there was a bunch of racist
Speaker 1: ship heads on mostly Twitter, I think, but kind of
Speaker 1: just ve being so upset that ru was black. I
Speaker 1: remember this, And yeah. So the article that we referenced
Speaker 1: from The New Yorker is called white until Proven Black,
Speaker 1: Imagining Race and Hunger Games by Anna Holmes. Um, at
Speaker 1: least that's the one I read it. Okay, so check
Speaker 1: that out, um, because it provides some good insight about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it gives I mean it gives like the full like
Speaker 1: a scope of fans, like someone who scouted out like
Speaker 1: all the racist tweets made around it, there were, Um
Speaker 1: let me let me read one directly, just to give
Speaker 1: you the idea of what, uh it was like. I mean, basically,
Speaker 1: it was just tweets that said, first of all, that
Speaker 1: they were surprised that they had cast a black actress
Speaker 1: to play Rue, and second that they felt less bad
Speaker 1: when a black woman was killed then if a white
Speaker 1: woman was killed. So just a lot of really hideous
Speaker 1: biases that have absolutely everything to do with the person
Speaker 1: making the comment because if they you know, and and
Speaker 1: I think it's a lot of toxic fandom stuff of like, oh,
Speaker 1: it should have stuck to the book. But it's like
Speaker 1: Blenny didn't read the book because it was always written
Speaker 1: as a black character, and and it's nuts that it
Speaker 1: would be like you read the book and Catness is
Speaker 1: like not white question mark, and everybody's like, how dare you?
Speaker 1: And then you cast a very obviously black character to
Speaker 1: be a black actress and people were like, oh, she's
Speaker 1: not white, and it's really the red is white. And
Speaker 1: then it's also really interesting to look at it in
Speaker 1: the lens of today, which like I had actually forgotten
Speaker 1: about that whole controversy with the casting of the character room,
Speaker 1: And when I was watching it just with the lens
Speaker 1: of twenty nineteen, I was like, man, just as a whole,
Speaker 1: it does kind of suck that like a character of
Speaker 1: color helps this white protagonist and like points out all
Speaker 1: the things that she should do to survive. She points
Speaker 1: out the wast and she puts like medicinal leaves on her,
Speaker 1: like wasp bite. Yeah, and then dies and then the
Speaker 1: white character survives to two white characters survived, which is
Speaker 1: not by any means malicious. It's not anything like that.
Speaker 1: It just reveals an implicit bias that like people don't
Speaker 1: know they have, which is like, oh, well, what's wrong
Speaker 1: with that? They were? It shows that the black character
Speaker 1: was smarter, and it's like, yeah, but the winner to
Speaker 1: have the only girl who's a person of color and
Speaker 1: the entire movie be killed. I mean, she's really only
Speaker 1: involved in the movie in a meaningful way for maybe
Speaker 1: twenty minutes and through the like the lens of how
Speaker 1: does it affect our main character? Right, which I know
Speaker 1: this is not an ensemble film, and that literally everyone
Speaker 1: dies except for two people, but it's still there is
Speaker 1: still I think that kind I mean, the cast is
Speaker 1: still predominantly white when you consider Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelston,
Speaker 1: for sure, Stanley Tucci, like the GameMaker, the President is
Speaker 1: not like most of the people are white, with the
Speaker 1: exception of Lenny Kravitz and some extras you see who
Speaker 1: live in District eleven, which is apparently the only place
Speaker 1: where the black people live. It's so because I mean,
Speaker 1: it's and again it seems like that is uh all,
Speaker 1: I mean, that seems like it obviously is a Hollywood problem,
Speaker 1: but from what I could find about the book series
Speaker 1: is that the books were written to be far more diverse.
Speaker 1: It's like implied that they're like most people are mixed
Speaker 1: race at this point so far in the future, which
Speaker 1: they would be. Yes, it makes sense, but it's still
Speaker 1: casts as like an extremely white cast. And if they
Speaker 1: hadn't done that, Ru's death would not have been so
Speaker 1: rubbed us the wrong way exactly. But also we can
Speaker 1: all agree that the relationship between ruined Catness is very compelling.
Speaker 1: It's whereas she has like no chemistry with anyone else
Speaker 1: my favoritely her sister, the actress who plays Rue a
Speaker 1: man less Stenberg. I think I'm saying that right. I'm
Speaker 1: not totally sure. I have I have some cool quotes
Speaker 1: from her reflecting on this role. But um, my favorite
Speaker 1: example of like how that is the most compelling relationship
Speaker 1: in the movie is that a man Lestenberg and Jennifer
Speaker 1: Lawrence won the Teen Choice Award for Best Chemistry that year,
Speaker 1: just like fu J Hutcherson, Like apparently all of the
Speaker 1: teams felt that way. Yeah, so just a few words
Speaker 1: from a man Listenberg, who, um, if you're if you
Speaker 1: I wasn't following her social media or her like activism
Speaker 1: very closely before I stumbled across this, but she um,
Speaker 1: and she's also a non binary. She goes by she
Speaker 1: her and they them, but predominantly she her came out
Speaker 1: in like she's just she's a really really cool She's
Speaker 1: really cool. And so she did this interview last year
Speaker 1: when she was promoting uh movie that I don't think
Speaker 1: it was super well received, but it was called The
Speaker 1: Darkest Minds and it was a sci fi movie that
Speaker 1: she was the lead of. So she was reflecting on
Speaker 1: the Hunger Games and some of her thoughts quote, it
Speaker 1: does feel really special to have begun my career with
Speaker 1: The Hunger Games and to be in a place now
Speaker 1: where I can be cast in the lead of this
Speaker 1: sort of thing. I don't know that that would have
Speaker 1: been possible. At the same time, in the same way,
Speaker 1: she continued, noting that it's only recently that Hollywood and
Speaker 1: audiences alike have begun to see the effects of big
Speaker 1: pushes for on screen diversity, and then she comments on
Speaker 1: how she viewed the racist backlash against her character because
Speaker 1: she's only like twelve or thirteen to have to deal
Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, Um, She reflects on it now and says,
Speaker 1: quote there was resistance to having black girls in films
Speaker 1: and that black women are dehumanized and their lives are
Speaker 1: seen as less valuable than white lives. Uh. She This
Speaker 1: is from a BuzzFeed interview. By the way, she she
Speaker 1: remembers that one of the main complaints was that Rue's
Speaker 1: death became less sad to some viewers when they saw
Speaker 1: her as a black girl. Quote. While it was hurt
Speaker 1: full when I was twelve, it wasn't shocking. The irony
Speaker 1: of the whole situation was that Rue was one of
Speaker 1: the only characters I could find in the content I
Speaker 1: loved that was literally written as black. So that is
Speaker 1: that her thoughts. She's really cool. She is like also
Speaker 1: a major She speaks out about colorism in Hollywood a lot.
Speaker 1: She turned down a role in Black Panther because she
Speaker 1: felt that the should have gone to a darker skinned actor.
Speaker 1: She's just she's really cool, so check her out and
Speaker 1: support all of her stuff. Amazing. Also, speaking of non binary,
Speaker 1: it made me wonders because, like they say, like a
Speaker 1: girl and a boy is selected from each district, and
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, does that mean like non binary gender
Speaker 1: queer and like intersect, people are off the hook, like
Speaker 1: maybe this could be spun as good. Absolutely mad, but yeah,
Speaker 1: just to to wrap up on the conversation about race,
Speaker 1: like there's black people in District eleven, there's some black
Speaker 1: people in the capital, but like in PanAm, there are
Speaker 1: no Asian people. There are no like Latin X people.
Speaker 1: I think there might be one, maybe two Asian tributes,
Speaker 1: but the movie could not care less about those characters,
Speaker 1: Like they die immediately, Like it's just such a weirdly
Speaker 1: predominantly white cast or a movie that takes place in
Speaker 1: a world where people would be much browner. I was
Speaker 1: going to say, um, perhaps I can provide some perspective
Speaker 1: having been alive in like what the world was like then.
Speaker 1: It's like we just didn't know, Like we were raised
Speaker 1: a certain way with certain ideas about race and gender.
Speaker 1: So like you guys might not understand. But in just
Speaker 1: six it was still six years old. Yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: so just keep that in mind. It was a very
Speaker 1: long time. That's what this this director. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know how involved Gary Ross was in the creative
Speaker 1: writing decisions of this movie, but um, you know he
Speaker 1: doesn't have a great track record on race. He's also
Speaker 1: directed Pleasant Pills. So yeah, um much diversity and black
Speaker 1: and White was black and white, I take it back,
Speaker 1: and then it had a lot of color at the end.
Speaker 1: One of our most beloved episodes anyways. So, um, there
Speaker 1: was like a scene where Catanets is trying to impress
Speaker 1: the judges. It's at the end of the day. It's
Speaker 1: like mostly older white men who are like observing and
Speaker 1: like no one's paying attention to her at this point,
Speaker 1: so she like has to do this like drastic thing
Speaker 1: where she fires the arrow like right near them, and
Speaker 1: it just reminded me of an all too familiar situation
Speaker 1: where women are not taken as seriously as other people,
Speaker 1: namely straight white men, and she has to like work
Speaker 1: much harder to like garner the same respect that someone
Speaker 1: like the Cato character just like comes with that privilege
Speaker 1: of like being respected immediately. I feel like that at
Speaker 1: least is one of the things that was effectively commented
Speaker 1: on in the movie. At least, Yeah, I think. So
Speaker 1: there's a couple of the things that I um enjoyed
Speaker 1: too about the movie where this is a rare occurrence,
Speaker 1: but you get to see a woman using real weapons
Speaker 1: when the situation warrants it. Because we talk all the
Speaker 1: time about how in movies, if a woman has to fight,
Speaker 1: she's given a frying pan to bank on a guy's head.
Speaker 1: Just lady things, the kitchen appliances and you know, stuff
Speaker 1: like that. This is a pervasive trope. Um. So the
Speaker 1: fact that she we see, I mean we see lots
Speaker 1: of weapons, lots of weapons in this yes, and she
Speaker 1: makes them herself. She makes them herself. She's got a knife,
Speaker 1: she's got a bone arrow. We get to see a
Speaker 1: woman do things that we rarely get to see a
Speaker 1: woman doing movies, which is stuff like hunt, use tools,
Speaker 1: climb tree wrap, wrap a little rope around your legs
Speaker 1: so you can sleep on a tree, be better than
Speaker 1: her male counterpart at all of the except for decorates.
Speaker 1: He's given a traditionally what I would say is a
Speaker 1: feminine skill, which is like a decorating and really yeah,
Speaker 1: like cooking and really elaborate makeup and being weaker, yeah,
Speaker 1: and being shrill. Honestly, I find Peter to be shrill.
Speaker 1: He was shrill. I just wish he would calm down.
Speaker 1: He's hysterical because I didn't mention his hair at the
Speaker 1: top of the show. He also suffers from a wet
Speaker 1: hair issue. Yes, very bad hair. Bad hair. Sometimes sometimes
Speaker 1: I wonder. I'm just like, maybe it's just that Jennifer
Speaker 1: Lawrence has perfect hair, because that's how that's where all
Speaker 1: the hair budget, right. Yeah. Yeah, her wigs were too
Speaker 1: good and then everyone else's suffer. I mean, but like
Speaker 1: female protagonists need to look clean, she barely looks. I
Speaker 1: mean there is a makeovers too cute in District twelve.
Speaker 1: I was I would like blue bad dress. Yeah, her
Speaker 1: kicky boots, leather jacket, her leather jacket that she got
Speaker 1: from H and M. What was that? It was very
Speaker 1: I liked the jacket to cute. I have almost all
Speaker 1: of those articles of clothing I considered like showing up
Speaker 1: and caused playing as you do have that. I've seen
Speaker 1: that jab, I've got jets that are similar. I've got
Speaker 1: the jeans. I don't know, but anyways, I say I
Speaker 1: didn't buy that. They were poor. Her clothes were like
Speaker 1: I do not feel sorry for her. Where is she
Speaker 1: shopping you? You just mentioned the makeover. That was one
Speaker 1: of the things I actually did like because I feel like,
Speaker 1: again the movie frames the makeover as unnecessary and wrong.
Speaker 1: I feel like there was commentary there, right because again,
Speaker 1: there's like this whole ongoing theme throughout the movie where
Speaker 1: everyone's telling her catness, you need to be more likable.
Speaker 1: Oh by Peter saying that he has a crush on you,
Speaker 1: that makes you seem desirable, which is good. I feel
Speaker 1: like the movie maybe could have done a little bit
Speaker 1: more to suggest that that was a bad stance to take,
Speaker 1: But I think I would say it does enough. But
Speaker 1: I think that maybe for like younger viewers, it was
Speaker 1: perhaps too subtle for like pre teens, but it could
Speaker 1: all have been the author's intent maybe to comment on like,
Speaker 1: she is great at what she does, she isn't like likable,
Speaker 1: but she can win these games on her own. But
Speaker 1: the only way she's going to get outside help is
Speaker 1: if she seems like softened by somebody being in love
Speaker 1: with her. Right, Like, I think that that, like that
Speaker 1: was parts of the movie that I totally agree now
Speaker 1: that you mentioned it that it was if I was
Speaker 1: like thirteen seeing this movie, would I have picked up
Speaker 1: on that? Yeah? I don't think I wouldn't I fairly
Speaker 1: picked up on it yesterday. Well, and you guys have
Speaker 1: provided a lot of insights, like at the end to
Speaker 1: what I really liked at the end, at least for
Speaker 1: me as an adult woman, was how scary the end was,
Speaker 1: because like it was very like girl, what you get
Speaker 1: yourself into? Trap? And when he grabs her hand and
Speaker 1: pulls it out like that, and like the weird fakey
Speaker 1: like interview part where she's like, I just you know,
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine that, like I think. Me now, I'm like, dang, okay,
Speaker 1: that's like I get it also commentary, But as a
Speaker 1: thirteen year old I would have been like, uh huh, yeah,
Speaker 1: like idiot. I wouldn't have picked up on like the
Speaker 1: whole like aesthetic thing like and how she's made to
Speaker 1: be cute and how and how Stanley tis like show
Speaker 1: us your dress. I would have been like, wow, awsome dress,
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't clear enough. You're right that like doing that.
Speaker 1: Even though it's like as an adult that watches movies exclusively,
Speaker 1: this way I picked up right. But that's you know,
Speaker 1: we're watching it through the lens that we've trained ourselves
Speaker 1: to watch looking for. Also, does Stanley Tucci play the
Speaker 1: same character in this movie as he does in The
Speaker 1: Devil Worst Product? Question answer, yes, yes, yes, yes, a
Speaker 1: thousand times. Yet I love the tuch but I do
Speaker 1: think that Alan Common could have played this just as well,
Speaker 1: and Alfred Molina could have played just as well. Alfred
Speaker 1: Molina interesting. Interesting for Melina is our best friend. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's great, but he just wouldn't have gone first. And
Speaker 1: it's real crime that I wouldn't. A lot of people
Speaker 1: make that mistake. A lot of people make the mistake
Speaker 1: of not going to Alfred Molina first. He's available to
Speaker 1: do podcasts, so he can be in your movie. I'm
Speaker 1: really growing as a person just talking to you, guys.
Speaker 1: You're welcome. It's amazing. That's the true mission of this
Speaker 1: podcast is to get Alfred Molina cast in more roles.
Speaker 1: Just to go back to the weapons discussion very quickly. Um.
Speaker 1: According to a study from the Gina Davis Institute, which
Speaker 1: does a lot of great work, Fell and Olympic archer,
Speaker 1: which is what this is about. UM, I forgot about they.
Speaker 1: The institute conducted a study that concluded that seven in
Speaker 1: ten girls who had taken up archery say that Catanets
Speaker 1: from The Hunger Games and Princess Meridith from Pixar's brave
Speaker 1: influenced their decision to take up archery. That's great and perfect.
Speaker 1: I buy it because I want to do it too,
Speaker 1: write I mean, and it shows something that we talk
Speaker 1: about a lot, which is that representation matters. And this
Speaker 1: studies specifically about archery, but similar studies have been done
Speaker 1: about like showing women in computer science and other like
Speaker 1: stem fields and showing those women in those roles in
Speaker 1: media and not influencing girls and young women to pursue
Speaker 1: careers in those fields and stuff like that. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: the more you're represented, or the more a specific thing
Speaker 1: is represented, the more people, especially young people will think, oh,
Speaker 1: I can do that too. Female ghostbusting has gone up
Speaker 1: nine um no, but that totally I mean, And that's
Speaker 1: why we're always like pushing for more movies about like
Speaker 1: women who are also athletes and stuff like that, because
Speaker 1: it does. It does make a difference. I think that
Speaker 1: one of the strengths of this movie is that so
Speaker 1: it is based on source material from a female author
Speaker 1: who also was allowed to adapt her own work for
Speaker 1: the screen. There's three credited writer Suzanne Collins, Gary Ross,
Speaker 1: and a man bafflingly named Billy Ray Cyrus it's not
Speaker 1: we do not have the cyrus on me was like,
Speaker 1: finish the sentence they're hanging, Um, who I mean? And
Speaker 1: but it seems as if because they're both prolific screenwriters,
Speaker 1: that they probably had more of a role in just
Speaker 1: helping uh Suzanne Collins adapt. But she also has a
Speaker 1: history of she was a TV writer. She wrote for
Speaker 1: Clarissa Explains It All and a number of other and
Speaker 1: the Mystery Files of Shelby woo, oh my god, so
Speaker 1: many female Yeah, so it is, and it is cool
Speaker 1: of like, I feel like it's not very common that,
Speaker 1: especially when there's like I think that this movie definitely
Speaker 1: benefited from her adapting it. Like, god knows what would
Speaker 1: have happened if three men had adapted this work, and
Speaker 1: it would have made her too sexy and it would
Speaker 1: have rosy, which is another thing that I wanted to
Speaker 1: real Grossy Josie Grossy. And there's also a legendary female
Speaker 1: producer involved in this, Nina Jacobsen, who was one of
Speaker 1: the only women to head a Hollywood film studio ever. Um,
Speaker 1: so it seems like there were like women in power
Speaker 1: who were steering this movie in the right direction. And
Speaker 1: then the last thing I wanted to mention was although
Speaker 1: there is a male cinematographer animal director, I felt like
Speaker 1: the way that Jennifer Lawrence, who is very often objectified
Speaker 1: and uh in movies like her body, is not made
Speaker 1: a feast of in this movie. Yea for a moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: props to to movie for not you know, just making
Speaker 1: it about her body. Most of the time, she's in
Speaker 1: full like I mean he talked about mother exclamation point
Speaker 1: and that's just like out of your relationship, Aaronosky, I
Speaker 1: don't want anything to do, but yeah, I mean, well
Speaker 1: instead it's just like a million, like very very tight
Speaker 1: close up shots of her face and yeah, yeahs. I
Speaker 1: would just like to throw out there real quick that
Speaker 1: the album that came out that is not the soundtrack,
Speaker 1: but it's Hunger Games songs from District twelve, which are
Speaker 1: just like a lot of like kind of blue grassy
Speaker 1: and it's all that. It's just one that it's just
Speaker 1: that it's really good. That's so weird. Now there's this
Speaker 1: whole album where it's just like inspired by and it's
Speaker 1: really good, like Arcade Fires on their Nico Cases on
Speaker 1: their District Must Be. It's like Coleman in country. It's
Speaker 1: like Appalachia, which is like where I grew up. Brag
Speaker 1: damn um proud, brag, proud Appalachia. Just like a quick
Speaker 1: fire list of of last thoughts I had. Hamage calls
Speaker 1: Catness sweetheart no less than like six times in the
Speaker 1: movie very annoying. He is not a feminist icon, and
Speaker 1: I don't think he's framed as one. No, No, he's
Speaker 1: supposed to be a shout out to the I don't
Speaker 1: know if we ever learned her name or what district
Speaker 1: she's from, but the girl with red hair, oh double bun,
Speaker 1: double b that's a name. It is makes it almost
Speaker 1: all the way to the very end. Loved her and
Speaker 1: she's like another type who like doesn't want to kill anyone,
Speaker 1: but she's just trying to outlast. And that's another thing
Speaker 1: I want to say, is that, like I was kind
Speaker 1: of worried that because female characters are so often presented
Speaker 1: in movies, is like having to be this polite, nice,
Speaker 1: never would do anything wrong because women are high held
Speaker 1: to a higher standard than men of like just being
Speaker 1: perfect and polite all the time, that like Catnets wouldn't
Speaker 1: kill anybody, that she would, or just like maybe passively
Speaker 1: kill someone, but she like she kills different people, and
Speaker 1: I was like, does does does Peter kill anyone? I'm like,
Speaker 1: Peter does not kill anyone. I don't think it's too
Speaker 1: busy painting he is. He had took him six hours
Speaker 1: to paint himself like a rock, like he should have Realistically,
Speaker 1: he should have been killed in the time it took
Speaker 1: him like a paint And the only reason he got
Speaker 1: stabbed was because he wouldn't, like stop painting himself as
Speaker 1: a rock. When somebody attacked him. It was so he
Speaker 1: was fully painted as a rock. And that guy was
Speaker 1: like running and tripped and fells like but he's like,
Speaker 1: he's like keeping together, got me again, don't feel rocks
Speaker 1: to last things real quick? Um. On the train to
Speaker 1: the capital, Hey, Mitch asks Catnis if she will pass
Speaker 1: the marmalade. So, mich is basically Paddington. So I mean,
Speaker 1: but I mean, I know Paddington is a million times
Speaker 1: better Stare. But so let me rephrase um feminist icon.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not wrong, he is a feminist icon.
Speaker 1: Mitch is trying to emulate Paddington in this scene, but
Speaker 1: he does not succeed because Hay Midge sucks and Paddington
Speaker 1: would give him a hard stare, and Paddington would never
Speaker 1: wear that wigton or be drunk. Paddington wears raincoat. I
Speaker 1: was gonna getting prepared to be wet there. Really he
Speaker 1: should have been in the Hungary game. He would have
Speaker 1: died immediate, almost instantly. And then finally there is a
Speaker 1: cat that belongs to I think prim that hisses a
Speaker 1: catnet at the very beginning, just reminder that cats do
Speaker 1: have eight nipples and cat and I actually wow, I
Speaker 1: was on how many nipples does a cat miss have?
Speaker 1: I was on the phone with my boyfriend and I
Speaker 1: accidentally called her cat call Everdeen three times. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: cat call and he was like no, no, no, any
Speaker 1: other final thoughts. That's all right, let's does the movie
Speaker 1: pass the Bechtel cats? It does, doesn't It never not
Speaker 1: pass the I mean when women are talking, it's rarely
Speaker 1: about a man kind of trying to say, like being hungry,
Speaker 1: what they should do if kind of dies, right, how
Speaker 1: they should not be Dystopia is going to be doing
Speaker 1: a lot for the Bechdel test. We just will not
Speaker 1: have time to talk about men. Yeah, talking about survival
Speaker 1: does that happen even once that that that it does
Speaker 1: not pass that, like two women talk about men. I
Speaker 1: feel like maybe the dad comes out that what's her name,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Banks? I think is maybe talking to her about
Speaker 1: the peta fakery something. But most of the time between
Speaker 1: like Catinus and prim Catiness and her mom Catiness and
Speaker 1: Effie and Rue, it's passing is always passing, which is
Speaker 1: which is very impressive for a movie this popular to
Speaker 1: like more often than not be passing for sure. Movie,
Speaker 1: let's write the movie on our nipple scale zero to
Speaker 1: five nipples based on representation and treatment of women. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go with the I suppose us three because on
Speaker 1: one hand, it's like, okay, it, you got this like
Speaker 1: kick ass young woman who the young people who this
Speaker 1: franchise is for can like plug themselves into and see
Speaker 1: an awesome, kick ass, strong female protagonists represented on screen.
Speaker 1: Really bugs me about the love triangle and the romantic
Speaker 1: relationship that feels very wedged in and unnecessary, the failure
Speaker 1: to be more inclusive when it comes to race and
Speaker 1: the casting choices, stuff like that. But it is cool
Speaker 1: that she gets to, you know, use a weapon to
Speaker 1: kill people with and not a frying pan, So points
Speaker 1: for that. Um, I'll give one nipple to Rue, I'll
Speaker 1: give one nipple to the tooch, and I'll give my
Speaker 1: last nipple to two buns, the girl with red hair
Speaker 1: who survives almost the entire time. Clever clever Bus, I
Speaker 1: would watch a cartoon called clever Buns. Clever Buns. I'll
Speaker 1: go three point five on this one. I liked it.
Speaker 1: I liked it just like in general, I enjoyed the
Speaker 1: movie way more than I was expecting to, and like
Speaker 1: I had a lot of fun watching it for the
Speaker 1: most part. And yeah, I mean I think that they're
Speaker 1: this movie. It makes some pretty egregious errors in regards
Speaker 1: to how race is depicted, when it seems like the
Speaker 1: source material was there for that to not happen. Um,
Speaker 1: so don't like that. I like Catness is character. I
Speaker 1: feel like she checks a lot of boxes, even though
Speaker 1: I found her to be boring personally. I guess the
Speaker 1: the thing I'm really deducting nipples for, if we're getting
Speaker 1: into the weeds on it is I just like I
Speaker 1: wish that Ru was not sacrificed to give Catness more,
Speaker 1: which again I think is sort of like if she
Speaker 1: were not the only woman of color. That would be
Speaker 1: a less egregious thing. But because of the way it's presented,
Speaker 1: it's it's like it just seems like you're sacrificing one
Speaker 1: of your only black characters to reinforce the white woman
Speaker 1: woman's mission, which is like I don't love that. Uh,
Speaker 1: and and just kind of what we were all talking
Speaker 1: about with I feel like there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: that we picked up on in this movie that the
Speaker 1: intended audience might not necessarily pick up on. So hitting
Speaker 1: I mean, in y A movies, you got you gotta
Speaker 1: really kind of hit the points rather hard for them
Speaker 1: to get across. Um, so I'll go I'll go three
Speaker 1: point five. Though I enjoyed it. I'll give one to
Speaker 1: prim because I liked her. I'll give one too clever Buns,
Speaker 1: give one to ru, and I'll give my happy to
Speaker 1: Mr Kravitz. Yes, very good, Kelly, I'm gonna do at
Speaker 1: three point seven five. Um love them when I gets
Speaker 1: the exact Yeah. Well, because I'm a little more okay
Speaker 1: with the romance, just because I do like romances. I
Speaker 1: wish it was done better. All of my deductions are
Speaker 1: going to be because of mostly because of how race
Speaker 1: is kind of handled. I just think you can't help
Speaker 1: but look at this and with the like the things
Speaker 1: that we know now, the wetness of the wig is
Speaker 1: I'm that's maybe a full nipple that I think, So
Speaker 1: the bulk of it is the wet wig. But like
Speaker 1: you know, I think because I actually I almost hate
Speaker 1: it more when things are too ham fisted and when
Speaker 1: things are too like bonking you on the head with
Speaker 1: like this is feminist, Like I am okay with it
Speaker 1: just because I'm being selfish and just purely rating this
Speaker 1: on how I'm liking it rather than like how I
Speaker 1: would have liked it at thirteen. To me, I think
Speaker 1: it did handle like, hey, this is kind of how
Speaker 1: the patriarchy is treating women and like kind of parading
Speaker 1: them around and that kind of thing. So for me,
Speaker 1: that's that's why it sits at a pretty three point seven.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna do one one for ever Buns because
Speaker 1: they did like her. She really ended up being the
Speaker 1: hero of this unsung hero. I was going to say
Speaker 1: she's the MVP of Hunger Games. She was. She was.
Speaker 1: She was really hustling, hustling. Um one for oh Catness's
Speaker 1: leather jacket at the beginning, UM one for Rue because
Speaker 1: I did really love Rue and I wished I also
Speaker 1: wished she didn't die. And then point seven five to
Speaker 1: the touches teeth, they were so good. Thank you for
Speaker 1: not letting that drop off. Irresponsible of me as a
Speaker 1: Vineers scholar to not point out, yes, I mean just
Speaker 1: very like chick Lidy, Veneers really hold on. It's amazing
Speaker 1: you can understand a word. He says, yes, But he's
Speaker 1: a professional, professional, always a professional. What if he, like
Speaker 1: had to train ten hours a day. Tod talked with
Speaker 1: those Veneers, I went to Veneer training, filming began. Um
Speaker 1: I so as far as like just full on movie review,
Speaker 1: I would do three nips as far as ethnic diversity,
Speaker 1: a mere one nip as far as female representation. And
Speaker 1: this is mostly based on the actual content and intention less.
Speaker 1: So on direction. I think direction is where the messaging
Speaker 1: fell short, perhaps and where things got muddy. I don't
Speaker 1: think it was the writing. I think the writing was
Speaker 1: very solid. So I'm gonna give it four. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give it four nips for just female representation. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the things where the Hunger Games fall short,
Speaker 1: where the Twilight franchise does not because the first installment
Speaker 1: of the Twilight franchise was directed by a woman, where
Speaker 1: you would think that the Hunger Games would benefit from
Speaker 1: a female director, because it would, and they did not
Speaker 1: make the right choice. We gotta do more Twilight movies
Speaker 1: on the podcast, I think, but well, but then I
Speaker 1: don't think Katherine Hardwick ever directs a Twilight movie again,
Speaker 1: because sexism. Right, it's true, but it's true alright. Anyway,
Speaker 1: two to clever Buns, thank you, One to rue and
Speaker 1: one to Ruise. Really artfully done funeral bed. Oh, beautiful
Speaker 1: funeral bed. It's a suitiful funeral bed. Found a lot
Speaker 1: of good fan arts surrounding that honorable mention to Peter
Speaker 1: as a rock. He doesn't, No one gave, but it's
Speaker 1: just it's just because rocks. He was in disguise so well,
Speaker 1: and rocks don't have nipples, so that is always concealed,
Speaker 1: that is covered in nipples. We're clever buns, buns just nipples,
Speaker 1: I mean a deep feminist reading desert real clever nips. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks to the both of you for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having us. This is very fun.
Speaker 1: What would you like to plug? Where can people follow
Speaker 1: you online individually as a podcast you name it? I
Speaker 1: am Kelly Nugent. You can find me on Twitter and
Speaker 1: Instagram at Kelly nugi k E l l y n
Speaker 1: U g e E. If you have l Ray Network
Speaker 1: on your cable package, you can watch me on l
Speaker 1: Ray Nation that is Thursday nights, seven thirty pm Pacific,
Speaker 1: where I talk about all things pop culture. UM. You
Speaker 1: can listen to my podcast Same Day Shipping where I
Speaker 1: ship everyone with everyone, um. And you can also listen
Speaker 1: to me and Lindsay's podcasting Creeps, where we review y
Speaker 1: pulp fiction like Christopher Pike, arl Stein and many many more. UM.
Speaker 1: I'll have to get you on the podcast. Now are
Speaker 1: come full circle? So I'm Lindsay Katie. You can follow
Speaker 1: me on Instagram and Twitter at l I N D
Speaker 1: s A y K t A I. And please check
Speaker 1: out the Cartoon Network show Infinity Train, which is out
Speaker 1: there to find. Now. Finally, I'm very excited. I think
Speaker 1: everybody who watches it will like it. Hell yeah, incredible.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming, Thanks for having and
Speaker 1: may the odds ever be in your favorite Oh we
Speaker 1: off the plug stuff to u you can follow us,
Speaker 1: but it was like, um, are we going to keep going?
Speaker 1: You can catch us on all the social needs at
Speaker 1: back dol cast. You can uh sign up for our
Speaker 1: Patreon at Patreon a k Matreon at patreon dot com,
Speaker 1: slash batel Cast, where we're serving you two extra episodes
Speaker 1: a month four five dollars. What a bargain. And you
Speaker 1: can get our merch on our merch store at t
Speaker 1: public dot com slash the Bectel Cast. We've got stay
Speaker 1: tuned for clever Buns, March, feminist icon, Peter as a rock. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be so good if you cause somehow get
Speaker 1: the like do something with a Chevy logo, like painted
Speaker 1: as a rock and then like Peter popping out of
Speaker 1: it or the huge gaping wound in his thigh. I
Speaker 1: love living in niche culture. That's a lot good. It's
Speaker 1: maybe that'll be in our roach store, but yeah, check
Speaker 1: us out on all those places. Also bechtel cast dot
Speaker 1: com for our live appearances and things like that, because
Speaker 1: you know we have live shows here and there. Uh
Speaker 1: and once again, may the be ever in your favorite