Action, romance and political rebellion: “The Hunger Games” quickly building buzz as pop culture phenomenon

And so begins Conscious Effort to Blog Daily #2. I'm sort of cheating on this one, though. Here's a feature I wrote on "The Hunger Games" for a final project in J231. Sooo much fun.

Katniss Everdeen may not boast a lightning-shaped scar on her forehead or have a perpetually shirtless werewolf on speed dial, but girlfriend is a mean shot with a bow and arrow. The tough-as-nails protagonist of Suzanne Collins’ widely successful “The Hunger Games” trilogy has Hollywood producers and young adult literature enthusiasts alike all a-twitter with anticipation of popular culture’s “next big thing.” The saga’s growing acclaim is no secret to the students and faculty of Ohio University.

Sophomore Holly Storrow, a self-proclaimed “sucker for a good alternate-universe type of story,” read the first book on the recommendation of a friend and said that Collins’ character development was what won her heart. Storrow attributes some of the series’ recent surge in popularity to its “strong, motivated and smart” heroine, and sophomore Rachel Swalin agreed.

“[Katniss’] best quality is that she’s not afraid to make a stand against society,” Swalin said. “She’s not always sure that she’s actually changing the world for good or doing the right thing, but [this quality] makes her more of a heroine. It’s important to learn that sometimes perfection doesn’t make a heroine and that [we] can be just as strong when we’re unsure of ourselves.”

Although the series is often likened to fellow genre juggernaut “Twilight,” readers such as freshman Emily Estep insist that comparisons of the two series should stop at their shared usage of female protagonists. “The lead character is a young woman and there are two boys she's interested in. It's a young adult novel," she said. "Besides that, they're polar opposites."

Collins’ tale of a feisty teenage heroine in a post-apocalyptic society has been garnering buzz across the YA literature sphere since its release in 2008. Set in an undisclosed time in the future, “The Hunger Games,” tells the story of Panem, a 13-district country where North America once stood. At the center is the Capitol, a power-hungry and corrupted government that is forever in fear of its fellow districts revolting. To keep the masses in control, the Capitol orchestrates an annual tournament where one child of each gender from each district is chosen to compete to the death in a fantastical arena. The kicker? The battles are televised and serve as reality television for the wealthy inhabitants of the Capitol.

Junior public relations major Kate Bargerhuff said that the media aspect of “The Hunger Games” drew her to the series. “The way public opinion and appearances were so important in the book was interesting. I had assumed that it was another fairly trashy teen novel, but it really does have something to say,” she said.

The Common Experience Project also saw the potential “The Hunger Games” held for healthy classroom discussion and included the book on its 2010-2012 recommended reading list to all participating colleges, which include the College of Fine Arts, Department of English, Honors Tutorial College and University College, among others. The CEP’s theme is “Apocalypse: Dark Future, Bright Future” and, according to its website, its goal is to allow students to “confront the current fears and facts about the future of our society from the point of view of a specific discipline.” Other suggested works include Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and M. T. Anderson’s “Feed.”

English professor John Whicker had his students study the book in English 284: Writing about Culture, where they did projects about representations of reality and reality television.

“It’s a fairly well written and well contrived story [and] gets at several issues that are important in today’s culture such as climate change, global warming and income disparity and poverty. [Collins places these issues] in this post-apocalyptic world and society that allows us to talk about those issues and see how the extreme version of how one author imagines those current problems could turn out,” Whicker said.

Even though Swalin did not read the book as a school assignment, she imagined “The Hunger Games” would be ideal to teach in classrooms because it “touches on themes we study in class everyday: politics, women’s issues, and sociology. It would help open students up to discussing these issues and cause them to analyze it from a modern standpoint.”

Whicker said that aside from perceptions of reality, he has also used the book in English 151: Writing and Rhetoric classes to discuss issues such as gender and class and economics.

“With gender, there’s plenty of room to discuss both whether or not Katniss succeeds in being presented as an atypical female character and then what happens when she’s forced to play the traditional, romantic female lead for the audience’s benefit,” Whicker said.

His classes have also touched on economical aspects of “The Hunger Games,” including the centralized consumer society of the Capitol and it’s oppression of the poorer districts, relating the woes of the poor society to the growing income disparity in America.

Mature, thought-provoking themes aside, the biggest advantage Whicker has found to teaching the series is that his students have actually enjoyed reading it.

“In both quarters I’ve taught it, I’ve had students mention to me things like ‘I don’t usually read a lot, but I read this whole series after we read the first book,’” Whicker explained. “Students get caught up in it - it captures them.”

Whicker would and has recommended the book to others. “I find it a really enjoyable read and book. Plus, it has something to say.”

Hollywood certainly thinks so: a film adaptation is in the works for release in the summer of 2013. Storrow does not worry about the big-screen version’s inevitable success, but hopes that the movie stays on track with what she sees as the book’s true meaning.

“It’s about this strong girl, the one that kind of saves herself and who is willing to do anything for the people she loves,” Storrow said. “And that’s what’s so lovable about the story.”

---

The Michael Crichton Movie Dilemma: A tragic result of when books are too smart for their own good

I have three loves: cats, coffee and Michael Crichton. Unfortunately, I have yet to see any of them transfer well into the world of cinema. Movies about cats are creepy (I’m a firm believer that films with CGI-enhanced domestic animals should be left on the cutting room floor with Mel Gibson cameos and more Madea movies) and a rom-com adventure flick about the lives of Starbucks baristas has yet to make it to the silver screen. The most disappointing of all, however, is the fact that the film adaptations of the brilliant works of Michael Crichton have been less than deserving of my adoration.

Fans of boy wizards or those who walked out of “The Da Vinci Code” in disappointed tears could testify that movies just aren’t as good as their book counterparts. But from killer gorillas to ethical corruption in the study of genetics, Crichton touched on nearly every subject in the Nerd’s Guide to Perpetual Bliss. With intelligent, fast-paced sci-fi novels that practically beg to be cinema-sized, why hasn’t a decent Michael Crichton flick surfaced? 

A major hindrance in the Crichton quest to cinematic excellence could be the subject matter itself. Science fiction is tricky. It’s often misconstrued as nerds babbling about things “normal” people wouldn’t care about, so the genre can be polarizing. Done correctly, it can be a major success (right, George Lucas?). In the case of Crichton’s “Congo,” “Timeline” and “Sphere,” however, the sci-fi elements came off as cringe-worthy and embarrassing.

The appeal of “Congo,” a jungle adventure with treasures, ancient lost cities and murderous apes, was completely dwarfed by the way director Frank Marshall had the animals portrayed: by actors jumping around and pounding their chests in gorilla costumes, or by puppets.

“Timeline” coupled sci-fi with another popularly mocked genre: fantasy. The mash-up made it goofier than most Crichton novels, and the plot - which tackles time-travel, quantum physics and medieval life – had the 2003 film dead on arrival. From clunky visual effects to awkward medieval garb that looked like the costumers had raided a sixth-grade production of the “Sword and the Stone,” the film was a commercial flop and a stab in the heart to Crichton fans.

The thrills in “Sphere” are largely psychological and mind games are hard to portray to movie audiences. Sci-fi feeds off of the abnormal – which a potentially mind-controlling giant squid certainly is – but the lack of action left the 1998 film boring.

I’d be Twitter-stalking him like crazy if he were alive today, but Michael Crichton did admittedly have a penchant for writing weak female characters. While the women are scarcely portrayed as flimsy, overly emotional embodiments of female stereotypes, they just don’t get as much attention as their smart, capable male peers. This gender inequality could be easy to get over when you’re reading a book, but Crichton’s substandard female characters come across as even more inferior to their male counterparts in the film adaptations. Laura Linney’s Dr. Karen Ross may have been an essential team member in “Congo,” but she is easily overshadowed by scenes of Dylan Walsh’s Peter Elliott interacting with Amy the sign-language speaking gorilla, who is the true female lead.

Crichton knew his stuff: he graduated from Harvard (University and then Medical School) and did a medical fellowship at the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies. So honestly, his chapters filled with paragraphs of hefty scientific hypotheses would be any film adaptation screenwriter’s worst nightmare. Even established sex symbol Sharon Stone couldn’t make lengthy conversations about metaphysics universally appealing in “Sphere.” That’s where Crichton films have gone wrong: they’ve tried to dumb down the whip-smart scientific material in the hopes of an explosive action-adventure or they’ve kept the intimidating nerd-speak and hoped that enough of Crichton’s book fans would support the film.

Alas, there is a dinosaur-sized contradiction to my claim. “Jurassic Park,” the 1993 classic about the consequences of reviving dinosaurs via DNA from ancient mosquitoes and then placing said dinosaurs in a “controlled” theme park, had a couple things going for it that other Crichton adaptations did not. One, the film stands as the only adaptation where Crichton helped pen the screenplay. The result is a healthy balance between showcasing intelligence (Jeff Goldblum’s preachy mathematician/chaos theorist is a central character) and smidgens of unexpected humor (Samuel L. Jackson’s bit part as a techie at InGen). Secondly, the movie

flourished under the control of Steven Spielberg, the biggest name by far to helm a Crichton adaptation. Spielberg’s directing expertise resulted in famous scenes of cups of water trembling with Tyrannosaurus-sized bass thumps of doom and a showdown finale that made kids everywhere scared to venture into hotel resort kitchens. 

            

“Jurassic Park” not only proved that dinosaurs are still completely badass post-extinction, but that it’s completely possible to make a successful movie out of a Michael Crichton novel. It just takes more effort than adapting a formulaic Nicholas Sparks romance. The directors and screenwriters have to be willing to consider the polarizing effects of the sci-fi genre, the sometimes lackluster character development and overwhelming underlying scientific data. And absolutely no more gorilla suits are allowed. --

"Scream 4" is a bloody good reboot that enjoys itself almost as much as fans will

Sidney Prescott just can’t catch a break. The haunted heroine of fictional Woodsboro has been terrorized by serial killer Ghostface on a semi-regular basis since the murder of her mother 15 years ago. Now, two sequels and a handful of dead slutty teens later, the billowy psycho is back to wreak havoc in “Scream 4.”

Sidney (Neve Campbell, whose “Why are you doing this to me face?” and heavily banged hairstyle haven’t aged a day) is returning to her hometown for the first time in 11 years in order to promote her new book. Why she and her publicist (Allison Brie, who puts an extra perk in each F-bomb) thought returning to Woodsboro on the anniversary of the killings would be a good idea is anyone’s guess, but Sidney puts her brave face (which has more of a furrowed brow than her victimized face) back on once it is apparent that Ghostface has returned as well.

“Scream 4” is constantly reminding the viewers of “new movie, new rules,” and so that means Sidney won’t be the only target this time around: Ghostface has also set his sights on her younger cousin, Jill (Emma “Julia’s niece” Roberts) and her ragtag group of quick-speaking, hyper-pop-culture-aware friends.

The best thing about the “Scream” franchise is its unashamed willingness to self-deprecate. The movie has become a franchise about a franchise – former journalist Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox, who has finally found a stylist that can clothe her in outfits that wouldn’t scare even a serial killer away) wrote a series of books detailing the Woodsboro murders and those, in turn, have been made into the ever-popular “Stab” movies. Teens in “Scream” are obsessed with “Stab” as much as teens not in “Scream” are obsessed with, well, “Scream.”

Trying to wrap your head around some of the self-awareness is like standing in a room with continually reflecting mirrors. Instead, it’s best to embrace the hilarious self-mocking of “Scream 4” for what it is: a wittier, bloodier, better movie than its predecessors.

The opening sequence – 10 minutes in which director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson will fool you more than once – sets the scene for the hip reboot. Pretty girls are still getting phone calls from a scraggly voiced killer, but they’re stalked on era-appropriate Facebook, too. Williamson knows his way around speaking like a teen – he’s currently a writer for sexy “The Vampire Diaries” – so of course his characters name drop everything cool from Channing Tatum to Harry Potter.

Special effects have evolved rapidly since the days when Drew Barrymore was hung from a tree, so the 

killings come complete with dangling insides and excessive pools of blood. As with the very horror movies it claims to mock (the characters repeatedly speak of a horror movie’s “rules” for survival), the scares and murders are somewhat predictable. This isn’t the audience’s first adventure with Sidney Prescott, so there’s really no gasp of surprise when Ghostface threatens to kill everyone she loves and then people start dropping like flies whenever she’s around (Jill’s friend even nicknames Sid “The Angel of Death”).

From cameos by Kristen Bell and Anna Paquin to bit parts by Adam Brody and Anthony Anderson, the roles are impeccably cast with actors who know that the “Scream” movies are harmless, bloody good fun. Seasoned vets Cox and Campbell jump back into their roles with enthusiastic gusto, as does David Arquette as town sheriff Dewey. As expected, they are as self-aware of their place on the sidelines as their characters are: it’s a reboot, so the show belongs to the new crop of doomed damsels. The best of the cool kids is Hayden Panettiere as Jill’s snarky, rebellious BFF.  She’s got the best lines, the best haircut and more spunk than she ever did as an invincible cheerleader on “Heroes.”

Roberts, on the other hand, will need to do more than blandly mope about with her emotionless eyes to prove that her casting – and budding career, for that matter – isn’t due to a heavy dose of nepotism.  Even her performance during the adrenaline-charged third act – which should have been her time to shine – falls as flat as a bloody knife to a wooden floor.

There are tons more smirk-worthy details that just can’t be divulged without having to scream “spoiler!” Even the actors had to keep tight-lipped on whether their contracts had been renewed for the planned “Scream 5” and “Scream 6.”

With Craven’s expertly tight directing and Williamson’s even tighter dialogue, it’s likely that the duo accomplished just what they set out to do with this Screamake: a whole new generation of fans who will know just what to say when a cloaked creeper gives them a ring to ask “What’s your favorite scary movie?”

From here on out ...

... I will attempt to post something err'day. This is going hand-in-hand with other promises I've been making myself, like "I will not eat as much chocolate tomorrow" and "Stop looking for 'Vampire Diaries' spoilers on Twitter" and "Touch up those chipped, jankity nails, geez."

Anyway.

5 Pop-Culture-Related-Things-That-I'm-Thinking-About-Instead-of-Studying-for-Italian.

1. WHY is "American Idol" still on the air? Seriously? The last successful Idol was freaking Carrie Underwood or something. I don't understand why so many people want to go try out for a show that doesn't guarantee anything but a cringe-worthy, cheese-fest of a "first" single and/or maybe, maybe - for the lucky ones only -  a guest-spot on tween Nickelodeon shows. Mmmm, whatevs. Somewhere Simon Cowell is chortling to himself in that mean-spirited Brit way. And probably still wearing tight, black v-neck tees.

2.  It is so, so, so unfortunate that NPH is gay.

3. I watched the pilot episode of "Breaking In," this semi-funny pretty-okay might-be-good-sometime show that just came on FOX about a ragtag group of people who are hired to break security systems or something AKA the 2483469863th show Christian Slater has tried to headline. And, I mean, there are worse things out there than seeing ex-Lex Luthor play a toolbag bf to Beth from "Cloverfield" and wonder why the writers thought it was okay for a character to seriously utter the line, "My mouth is about to have sex with this candy bar." Case in point:
4. J-Woww, Snooki and Pauly D are getting their own spin-off shows. In other news, the world is ending.

5. On the other hand, Glenn Beck is ending his show on FOX(and hopefully going to live in some isolated cave somewhere far, far away for the rest of his life). So maybe the world will be okay after all.

Hmkay, semi-pointless blog rant done. Now back to studying. Or FB creeping. Ya know.

Ciao,
Holly

In a galaxy far, far away (but we'll just call it "Athens, Ohio"), I was told to start a blog.

On "what do you want to be when you grow up?" day in the first grade, I lied and told my teacher I wanted to be a marine biologist.


Truth be told, I didn't really know what I wanted to be, but I had just gotten this sweet scuba diver Barbie and the kid next to me had already claimed Batman.


My teacher told us we should grow up and do something we loved to do. What did I like to do? I liked to play with my younger sister - not silly noob games like "house" or "babysitter" or "school," mind you, but really complex adventure sagas about cowgirls and Indians or ninjas and spies - and I liked to play Barbies (they were also often cowgirls/ninja/spies/superstars who raced around the basement in bright pink Jeep Cherokees on the hunt of the Evil Kitty Nala), and I made up stories. A lot. I scribbled before I could write, but I drew pictures so I knew the general storyline. But I didn't think that was something you could actually do for a living.


But later that afternoon, when I approached my teacher and confessed that I had lied (because even as a first grader I was a good girl), she told me five words that have stuck in my head ever since.


"You could be an author."


Granted, it was a little while later that I put two and two together and figured majoring in author didn't necessarily mean a steady income. But my love for writing and English and vocabulary quizzes and DOL exercises never ceased, and then I joined a journalism class my sophomore year of high school. 


BAM. Writing. Steady(ish) income. Not having to worry about drowning 543659847 feet deep in the ocean.


And so by the end of my sophomore year, I had secured the editor-in-chief position of The Massie Quarterly newspaper for the following year and had pretty much decided I was going to school for journalism and minoring in awesome or psychology.


It took a little experience to fine-tune my journalistic desires, but I knew by my senior year that I wanted to pursue entertainment journalism. 

1. I was an avid Entertainment Weekly and People magazine fan and I would dieeeee to have the job Michael Ausiello had at EW.
2. I had/have no desire to report about wars or politics or other scary things that may involve me becoming a hostage somewhere.
3. People need some light, fluffy journalism.

 Don't get me wrong- I've gotten my fair share of skeptical looks from fellow students and professors alike when they ask me what I want to do with my life and I say "be the boss at Entertainment Weekly and marry JJ Abrams, of course." It's not "professional" enough for some people. It's not "hard news" enough for those old school print editors. And that's fine.


But entertainment journalism is where I want to be. And when those skeptics say "Oh man, I had to cover the most boring court case ever yesterday" and I'm all, "Oh, that sucks, I had lunch with Steven Spielberg, we're like BFF now" and their jaws just drop ... I'm just going to shrug. And then smile, and offer them an autographed head shot of my man Steve. 

I believe, that done correctly, entertainment journalism can be taken just as seriously as business or community news journalism. After all, there's the universal human aspect, just magnified to celebrity status.

Honestly, it's not the celebrities that make entertainment appeal to me as much as it is the characters they play and the stories they help tell. As a writer, I'm much more invested in the story-telling aspect of Hollywood, and sometimes I forget that the actors and actresses are, you know, real people. It's likely that I'd have a hard time running into Hayden Christensen and not calling him Anakin, walking by Neil Patrick Harris and recognizing him sans Barney Stinson suit or seeing Andrew Garfield and  ... not passing out.

I don't feel as if I've really gotten a taste of true entertainment journalism just yet, though. Even though I've been writing movie and TV reviews for Speakeasymag.com for two years now, it's sort of difficult to find a gold-star celebrity walking around Athens, Ohio. And I'm just not all that interested in the like 6 local bands that are covered to death by the Post, ACRN, etc.

But everybody's got to start somewhere, even if it's by lying to your first grade teacher.

(Haven't thought of a catchphrase yet, but you'll be the first to know when I do)
Holly