The Oncoming Hope

Over at Women In Hollywood, a fantastic blog on women in the movies, Melissa Silverstein wonders whether there's potential to hire a female director now that Gary Ross has stepped down/been pushed out/whatever.

We all know the state of female directors in mainstream movies (be honest, can you name more than one off the top of your head?). Nonetheless, it would be fantastic to see a triumph of female strength like The Hunger Games be helmed by, well, a woman.

So I'd like to open the floor to you, dear reader. Make your case for the perfect director for Catching Fire and Mockingjay (yes, you can nominate a different director for each).

I'll get the ball rolling: my vote goes firmly to Jane Campion. I recently saw The Piano for the first time, and have been haunted its portrayal of brutal violence (I won't spoil it for you here, but it's probably the first thing anyone thinks of when they think of this film). Campion masterfully gives voice to a woman who has none but her instrument.

Katniss is similar to Ada McGrath in many ways. She may not be mute, but she remains totally insignificant, a bit player on the universal stage, but retains her humanity despite circumstances that conspire to destroy it entirely.

We can only imagine what Campion would have done with the first movie, but we can hope (against hope) that she becomes involved at some stage.

Runner-up: Mary Harron, who directed American Psycho.

And the floor's open!

Experiencing a tv show or movie a week later than everyone else has its advantages. You meet a work after the hype cycle deflates.

In the case of The Hunger Games, the early reviews tempered my (admittedly stratospheric) expectations. End result: true love was ever in my favor.

Unfortunately, the hype cycle didn't totally pass me by. In fact, I was more than a little flummoxed to see so much attention paid to something that I personally adore. It's not like when a band goes mainstream, as they've usually changed their sound by the time that happens. A TV show either reboots or evolves. A novel (or film), on the other hand, remains in-state forever (George Lucas notwithstanding).

Being a lifetime geek-of-all-trades, I'm not so accustomed to so much attention being paid to something I love for what it is. These circumstances must surround every over-hyped event, but it's the first time it's happened with something I love.

And I'm still surprised how much ugliness that attention inspires. The racism around the casting of Rue and Cinna, the misogyny from even the most blue-striped reviewers, the total lack of interest in understanding why a phenomenon becomes a phenomenon. The whole "I don't care what statistics you show me, I don't want to read this book, therefore it must be a romance, read by evil female tweens."

It's difficult to engage with the speakers of these words, because all evidence to the contrary exists in the text. Rue's dark-skinned, the story's a brutal dystopian action thriller, and Katniss is a goddamn superhero who's only interested in romance as a tool to help her win this most gory of reality shows. Again, all in the text (and by text, I mean both the movie and the novel).

I'm not saying you have to like the Hunger Games. Plenty of people hated the novels, for legitimate reasons (too much violence and brutality, mainly). But if, as a reviewer, you choose to attack the fans rather than explicate why it's a good or bad movie, I wish that you find a swarm of tracker-jackers in your bed.

Finally, after reading so much carping about world-building, about neutered violence, about Twilight for some reason I've yet to understand, I'm left with just one question. Does anyone really have a problem with staring at Jennifer Lawrence's face for 2.5 hours?