THE HUNGER GAMES:CATCHING FIRE - (9)

CATCHING FIRE kind of upset me.  It might be I am growing querulous and sensitive in my old age and will soon be complaining of drafts and wearing shawls, but I think there's also a good chance CATCHING FIRE is just a hard movie to watch.  When I see images of people fighting in the streets against armored police I can't help but think of Kiev and Turkey and Libya and Egypt and all the unrest and violence in the world.  Freedom from oppression is a noble cause but it is terribly, dreadfully expensive.

So, instead of pretending I have anything productive to say about that, I think I will just bring up a little moment which I found curious.  When Katniss is in the staging area at the very start of the Game, there is one person to be there with her before she goes out to fight and, quite possibly, die.  The sole human selected for that moment, the last loving face she will see before facing an environment and 23 people who will hunt and kill her, is this man:

No, not Lenny Kravitz, though he is cool.  That character is Cinna, her stylist, and he is presented in this moment as the one sole support when facing change, chaos, sorrow, and certain death.   Her stylist.  Criminals sentenced to death get a clergyman in our world but at The Capitol, a stylist is the person authorized to take confession, extend solace, and give absolution.  What does this mean?  Is the reconciliation between one's internal and outward presentation that metaphysical?  Is it the only comfort in a world covered in glitter to hide the blood?  Is it because the silent language of clothing, of visual presentation one of the few voices available to a person with no power, no voice to raise safely?  Is it because The Capitol trusts stylists to see the best parts of a soul hidden deep and present it to the world safely packaged?   Or is a stylist simply the one who makes your disgusting horrible self as socially acceptable as can possibly be managed?

You've got to work with what you've got

I like thinking about these questions but what I keep running into is the fact that Cinna is Peeta's stylist, too.  Cinna was with Katniss, not Peeta.  Which makes me think that her stylist is her Father Confessor because she is a woman.   A lot of the political statements Katniss actually makes are in the form of her clothing.  When she shows disdain and challenges the President, her clothing is  the statement.

Open rebellion has never looked hotter (and I'm not talking about Katniss...)

When the President insists that she wear her abandoned wedding gown the tables are turned, again, into a challenge in the form of a mocking jay.

That's an official Capitol gif there, folks!

This looks really cool.  What bothers me is that Katniss had no idea what her clothes would do.  She didn't design them, she didn't produce them, and she literally had no idea she was about to become a political symbol when she spun around on that stage.   Cinna did all the deciding and designing.  He paid for it with his life, but it was his choices that boxed her in.   In fact, the whole movie is really just watching Katniss fight to get out of the corners she's shoved into.  The President boxes her in with threats to her family and community.  Haymitch boxes her into trusting people with promises of protecting Peeta.  Gayle boxes her into sticking around by choosing ideals over relationships.  The Games box her into becoming a killer just to survive.  In fact, the only people in the movie who release Katniss from binary decision-making paradigms is her family.

When her sister tells her that Katniss is free to do what she feels is right and to not worry about the consequences to her family because they would have made the same choice, it is the one moment of freedom in the whole show, the one release from fear.   In real life every situation usually has multiple options but everyone around Katniss tries to keep her limited to only one - to do or not to do.  When Prim says, (essentially) "We got you, boo", Katniss is offered the chance to do what she feels is right without fear of condemnation from those who love her.  This is super important because thinking outside of limited parameters is how she won the Games in the first place.

I am tempted to also put Peeta into the category of "Persons Who Don't Manipulate Katniss To Their Own Benefit" but I might be influence by the fact that he's adorable and I love him.

I like him even when he's wearing a ribbed mock-turtleneck that features sharp pointy metal things

For the most part, Peeta does a great job of not being horrible.  However, he does indulge in a spectacular fit of passive agressive manipulation with that pendant of his.  Because of course he requested a medalion made with photos of the people Katniss loves best so he can remind her that she is beholden to those people and he gets to be the one to die.  It might have worked, too, had Prim not already addressed the issue.  So, really, Peeta is just bad at manipulating Katniss and fails the one time he tries.

Here he is being terrible at manipulation again.

I'm going to go ahead and call that a win.