Mockingjay I (Film Review)

[selenak]

Spoiler-free version, for anyone curious whether or not the decision to split the final volume of the trilogy in two would come across as "we want to milk this cash cow a bit longer" or would be justified by the end result, it's definitely the later. There is no "post" in Katniss' PTSD, so I'd rather describe her as shell shocked (come to think

Comments

[fallingtowers]

That's a great review, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I sometimes have the feeling that there's a bit of a Hunger Games backlash in fandom (which is probably inevitable for any popular franchise, or maybe it's just limited to a couple of spaces that I frequent).

Anyway, it's nice to see someone give the movies the due that they (IMNSHO) deserve. Good point about the colour symbolism - it didn't really strike me how many negative associations the colour white carries, but it's kind of obvious in retrospect.

It's also funny that you bring up "shell shock" as a point about Katniss. I recently had a lengthy RL discussion about THG, and we talked a fair bit about Katniss's passivity and mental state in Mockingjay, and I also brought up WWI and the history of PTSD.

I kind of find it both funny and annoying that so much of the criticism of Mockingjay focuses on Katniss's lack of agency and various nervous breakdowns in gendered terms. To read: You shouldn't write a female character who is so limited in her choices, so ignorant in

[bats_eye]

The way that certain elements of the media have taken the desire for more strongly charactised interesting female characters (which katniss without question is) as a desire for physically and mentally perfect female characters is reliably frustrating.

The writer of gone girl made the same point about how her evil antihero is deemed bad for women in a way that dexter and tony soprano or walter white are never accused of being bad for men.

And it trickles down to the authors is the worst of it, I think Abigail Nussbaum made a point in her review of the first book of just how many good qualities Collins has to give Katniss in order to get people to sympathise with her given her role, and it's still not enough for some, whereas a male main character in a novel about the same kind of material (shellshocked combat veteran, etc) is allowed to be far more flawed without risking losing the audience's sympathy.

[fallingtowers]

...certain elements of the media have taken the desire for more strongly charactised interesting female characters (which katniss without question is) as a desire for physically and mentally perfect female character.

Yes, I think you're on to something there, and it bugs me to no end. It's a different way of putting women on a pedestal, and I find it especially frustrating that it sometimes comes from people who loudly claim to be feminist. Which is why a female character should never ever do something that doesn't measure up to an imaginary gold standard of role model behaviour, whose goalposts keep shifting every day.

I think Abigail Nussbaum made a point in her review of the first book of just how many good qualities Collins has to give Katniss in order to get people to sympathise with her given her role, and it's still not enough for some.Yes. THIS

[selenak]

Ironically, this reads very much as a female character with a male-encoded narrative to me: the young recruit, fresh from the trenches and too damaged to fight. So it's kind of encouraging to see that I wasn't simply making that up.

No, absolutely not. And I think if Katniss were a male character there would be praise about the realism of the story in allowing him to suffer the consequences of being put through so much. (Just a quick thought: I don't know whether you've watched Iron Man III or read the reviews, but something eveyone I read praised was the good continuity of letting Tony Stark go through PTSD following Avengers and nearly dying. Everyone thought that was a great touch.) How many people loved Regeneration, both the book and the film? How often is the shellshocked WWI soldier archetype evoked this year alone?

Speaking of, yes, right, Craiglockhart Hospital!

[fallingtowers]

And I think if Katniss were a male character there would be praise about the realism of the story in allowing him to suffer the consequences of being put through so much.

Oh yes, there would indeed. I can understand people being frustrated with Mockingjay (the book): I loved it when I first read it, but on re-reading, I liked the concept really better than the execution. However, I still don't have any problems with the course of events or how the characters react to them - just with the style and presentation.

Unfortunately, I haven't see Iron Man III (I watch the MCU movies just casually and selectively), but if I should see it at a movie night on DVD, I will definitely watch it with the PTSD storyline in mind.

How many people loved Regeneration, both the book and the film?The book is actually one of my favourite novels, though I think the first volume of the trilogy is also the least interesting one. (And the movie is by far more conventional, so I don't nearly like it as much.) But one of the reasons why I loved it is that

[selenak]

Speaking of gender and breakdowns, both Collins in her book and the movies treat them gender neutral - I mean, Haymitch never got over his Hunger Games, or the fact he had to mentor kids into their deaths year after year - he's an alcoholic who if motivated enough pulls himself together to protect people but otherwise deals with his pain by drowning it in a bottle, and nobody sees him as weak. Finnick in Mockingjay I is as shattered and worried as Katniss, but nobody asks him to be a rebel symbol or make speeches (until the end), and he's not seen as weak, either. Among the female victors, you have Annie who's barely functional until the later half os Mockingjay, yes, but you also have Johanna, who is a mess but channels it via aggression. Prim and Rue are both girls acting far older and wiser than their age and in lethal danger, too. It's not like Katniss carries the burden of being the only female character, or the only character reacting to all the horror with breakdown. But because she's the heroine (tm), there seems to be the

[fallingtowers]

Yes, this list really drives home the point. Also, Peeta is another person whose sanity and personality are utterly broken at some point, though the hijacking plotline is more like external reprogramming than something more realistic like Haymitch's alcoholism. (Though he does have issues long before that - see his "it's okay, I get nightmares, too" comment.)

Is there anyone in the books who is not emotionally and mentally fucked up?

Speaking of Johanna: I really hope that the next movie is going to show her and Katniss as traumatized and pissed-off roommates. I liked the prickly friendship among survivors they had going on there.

But because she's the heroine (tm), there seems to be the perception that any emotional reaction like breaking down and crying makes her weak.

To be fair, I think some of the criticism might be due to the structural issues of Mockingjay. She's the heroine and the first person narrator, and she spends a lot of time in the books being trapped and breaking down while the war is going on elsewhere, and we

[lady_songsmith]

I strongly agree with that last point. Most of the criticism I hear leveled at Katniss in my circles is really more of a criticism of Collins: to wit, that she spends the whole book thinking about herself and every time something major happens she goes off to cry. Which is really just a frustrated audience looking for more focus on the things that happen off-stage. I think Collins' dedication to maintaining the single POV really hurt both the story and reader perceptions of Katniss in Mockingjay. It will be interesting to see if people coming fresh to the movies have a more sympathetic take, getting both the depiction of shellshock and the action the book sidelines.

[fallingtowers]

I think Collins' dedication to maintaining the single POV really hurt both the story and reader perceptions of Katniss in Mockingjay.

Well, I think she's not a good enough writer to pull off the story I assume she was trying to tell. Maybe I'm reading too much into things, and she just decided to stick to the first person POV for the sake of consistency, and everything spiralled from there.

But I suspect that the decision to keep many events offstage was in some ways a deliberate choice. Personally, it was interesting to me because I like narratives about the effect of combat, but not so much about the battles themselves, if that makes sense. But such a thing is very hard to pull off in writing because the prose was too simplistic and lack the nuance to give it resonance.