Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, John Perich, and Jordan Stokes to overthink The Hunger Games book and film.
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Further Reading
Titanic and Hunger Games Crossovers on FanFiction.net
Everybody thinks that they’re the Katniss… :)
I’d choose District B13, which specializes in the export of parkour.
Well, ACTUALLY, Pan Am made it through the whole first season. ABC hasn’t announced a second one, so that’s still rather up in the air. (Hah!)
And another well, ACTUALLY: District 8 is the one that makes clothes. I should know- it’s the one I got “sorted” (for lack of a better word) into on the viral website promoting the movie before it was released. Ahem. Achoo. Etc.
I apparently commented on a number of the stuff you talked about already, over on the Open Thread. Violence v. gore; the dogs; Snow and Seneca; Cato at the end; the first-person perspective. I won’t bore you with repetition.
I don’t think the men can be mapped onto each other very easily, but I’d disagree and say Gale is more like Edward. He’s the more dangerous one. I’ve only read the first one, but I’ve experienced some spoilers for the next two books, so I base it off that and his behavior versus Peeta’s in the first book. Also Peeta is kind of weirdly naive and morbidly resolute and optimistic, even while in the thick of things during the competition. And I don’t remember Katniss saying it or not, but regardless, we know he knows about Gale when reading and watching, there’s no way he wouldn’t, but sort of like Jake in the Twilight series, he’s kind of okay with feeling like a second choice, so long as he gets the girl- at least during the competition.
Pan Am’s season was only 14 episodes long, which seems like it may have been cut shorter than intended. But it could still theoretically be renewed.
Toward the end of the podcast, with the talk of Katniss being somewhat forced into a relationship with Peeta, I started thinking about this post on another blog regarding “compulsory heterosexuality”: http://tigerbeatdown.com/2012/02/17/even-kitchenmaids-get-the-blues-compulsory-heterosexuality-on-downton-abbey/ They point to this phenomenon pretty clearly in the movie (I haven’t read the book): because people want to see a love story, whenever possible, people will form couple pairings that don’t really make any sense, as long as it gets more people to watch.
I feel like Pete should record a track where he just says “Bills of lading” and “Coriolis effect” over and over again.
I’m a little bit confused, please someone set me straight. Are Peeta and Katniss actually having a real relationship? Or was it all just for show?
The point of The Hunger Games (or at least, my take on it) is that the answer to both could be “Yes.” Or, to quote Vonnegut, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.”
This finally got my wife to listen to an entire show, so thanks for making it a good one.
John’s comments about “social control never has that sort of clarity and effectiveness” have stuck in my mind. He’s right of course, but it keeps making me think of the various simultaneous levels of social control that can be identified;
1) physical inaccessability of the ruling class
2) extreme material and informational poverty
3) ghetto-ized labor camps
4) the reaping
5) the “us vs them” spirit of rivalry created between the districts by the games
6) the “civilized vs savage” mentality fostered among the people of the capitol by the games.
I’ve only read the first book, so the other 2 might reinforce or contradict my suspicions. But I was thinking there was a lot of “Man behind the curtain” going on. That the Hunger Games themselves are just a useful distraction drawing anger and energy away that might otherwise be spent attacking the real social controls.
I guess what I’m saying is that Collins might just be clever enough to have already overthought that aspect a bit herself. I’m hoping to find out that’s true.