Film Analysis Isn't Just for Scholars: Catching Fire with Katniss

Catching Fire Edit.jpeg (Photo credit: 1:00 AM)

I still don't wanna work on my projects, but I got a few things done yesterday, which is good.  What's bad is that I keep coming across things that seem a lot more interesting, and they're distracting me (of course, if I were doing what needs to be done in the first place, I'd never know about them).  So, as part of my work-stalling routine, today I checked in at FlickeringMyth.com, and there was an article about The Hunger Games:  Catching Fire.  Not too surprising so far, but bear with me.  I was kind of stunned to realize that the author is doing the sort of thing I've spent the last ten weeks doing:  analyzing a film and arguing a point in a "scholarly" way.  He only quotes one outside source (Caroline Williams, who is presumably a feminist critic), so it's like a research paper without much secondary research, just the primary stuff, the film.  Dr. Toffee told us that people were writing this kind of thing and publishing it, but I don't think I believed her until now.  And it's really interesting. 

The point that the author, Paul Risker, is making is that the character of Katniss "is meticulously constructed to be an idealised role model," and he argues this with a lot of support from the text.  The "meticulous construction" is the thing that strikes me as the key to why The Hunger Games works as a whole, and here I've got to refer to the last big thing, the Twilight saga.  I never got into that, mainly because the heroine is so . . . well, boring doesn't begin to capture what she is.  She's self-absorbed and selfish, she uses people who care about her, and she's pretty much unlikeable, as far as I'm concerned.  My point here is that she is no kind of a role model for anybody who has anything resembling self-respect.  Now, I'm not looking for a role model myself, but I can see that Risker is right about what the films do with Katniss.  However, he also seems to feel that she's a bit too perfect, and I have to disagree on that score.  She's not flawless.

Anyway, I'm thankful (ahead of time) that he gave me something to write about so that I'm getting close to hitting my goal of 20 posts for the semester.  

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I Don't Wanna . . .

screeches and whines (Photo credit: Lettuce.)

I have the whole week off from school this week (but I still have to work -- especially on Friday.  I hate working retail), and, after a weekend where I accomplished exactly nothing, I'm facing facts.

Fact number 1 (just in the order it occurs to me, not ranked as to importance):  I have 5, yes, 5 projects to finish before the end of next week, and the thought of working on them makes my head hurt.

Fact number 2:  If I don't keep up with my coursework, I'll probably be stuck working retail forever.  (Hey, Dr. Toffee, you'll be pleased to know that I know that this is a slippery slope logical fallacy)

Fact number 3:  Somehow, I have managed to wind up having no money again, just when Christmas is coming and there's a lot of stuff I want to do (movies, parties, etc.) besides buying gifts.

Fact number 4:  Thanksgiving is coming at me like an out-of-control steamroller.  If I could have moved into my own place by now, I could just show up at Mom's on Thursday, eat my turkey, help with the dishes, and go home.  But because I live at Mom's, I'm responsible for a bunch of time-consuming chores that nobody will notice unless I don't do them.  Really, I guess that even though I want to help out, what I want more is not to have to help out.

Conclusion:  I am selfish, self-indulgent, and lazy.

However, as you can see, I am writing this post, so I am working on one of my projects, finally, which means that I have crawled out of my lair and started to face reality.  

But I still don't wanna. 

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Kinda/sorta off Topic: NBC's Dracula

Bram Stoker's (1847-1912) Notes on the
personal for his novel Dracula.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My sister Rebbie used to be a semi-goth; she has pretty good taste in clothes, so she never went the full route on it, but she did wear a lot of black and brood a lot and so on. Anyway, she was watching the new Dracula series the other night, and I tried to watch it with her, but I just couldn't get into it. I don't understand why they have him pretending to be an American, for one thing. Yes, it looks gorgeous, but I'm just not that interested in it. When it was over, I asked her what she saw in it. She said, "I'm trying to make my mind up about it."
That made me feel better. What I'm thinking now is that it almost fits into the neo-mythology genre, except they aren't really telling a new story, at least not so far. The other thing I'm thinking is that the book Stoker wrote has been adapted in a bunch of different ways, but one thing that all of them (as far as I know, since I haven't seen them all, I'm sure) have in common is that there is never a clear hero (the van Helsing character comes closest, but he's usually advising younger men on how to deal with vampires rather than enacting a monomyth), which is the way the book is, too. So, not neo-mythology, but . . .
The difference with this Dracula is that the show follows him as much as it does the other characters, or even more. Maybe that's my problem with it. In a way, it kind of reminds me of The Count of Monte Cristo (the Jim Caviezel one), where the audience is in on his plans. I guess I don't want to know that much about Dracula himself -- I like following all the clues that the characters miss until van Helsing shows up to set them straight. But I can see where that would be a problem for anyone trying to make a series out of it, since it would have to end sooner rather than later, or turn into a soap opera (and maybe that's the vibe I'm getting from the show) where week after week they try and fail to stop him. I guess we'll see.

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