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By Tom • 12 years ago

Katniss Everdeen: The Good Kind of Poor Person

The Hunger Games is a great book, and its exploration of the impact of class, wealth, and status on the world, both socially and politically, is remarkably complex and mature for a work that targets a young adult audience. The ways in which the government dominates and subjugates the districts while placating the citizens of the capitol is fairly spot on as a allegory for modern society, although in The Hunger Games the government is the sole perpetrator of these wrongs, as there are no corporations in this communist dictatorship.

Our protagonist is Katniss Everdeen, who lives squarely under the heel of the boot of the capitol. She is one of the poorest citizens in one of the poorest districts, and yet she is able to fight back against the oppressive government and help lead the rebellion. She is smart, clever, self-reliant and brave. She is, in fact, everything you could ask for in a poor person.

Several people have written about the idea of good poor people vs. bad poor people. Elizabitchez sums it up very well regarding the idea that we have about how a poor person is supposed to act to earn our sympathy and respect. This is an idea that is true of many marginalized communities, especially the overweight. One of Chris Rock’s most famous standup bits perfectly articulates the idea of the good black person vs. the bad black person. Rich people and conservative politicians have ...
By Tom • 12 years ago

Richard Corliss and Peter Travers Don’t Think People Made Movies about Women in 2011

It’s that time of year again, when critics release their list of the 10 best films of the year. Some critics have fairly commercial lists filled with big blockbusters and Oscar players, while others tend to the more obscure, picking foreign films, documentaries, and other independent films that audiences outside of New York and Los Angeles never get to see.

Richard Corliss and Peter Travers, the chief film critics for Time Magazine and Rolling Stone, have a combination of all of those kinds on their film. What don’t they have? Films about women. Richard Corliss was able to include the critically lambasted Fast Five (that’s right, the fourth sequel to The Fast and the Furious) on his list, but couldn’t make ...

It’s that time of year again, when critics release their list of the 10 best films of the year. Some critics have fairly commercial lists filled with big blockbusters and Oscar players, while others tend to the ...
By Tom • 13 years ago

Made in Dagenham: A Feminist Review

I’ll admit that I didn’t have terribly high expectations going into Made in Dagenham. The reviews had been positive but not glowing, but the complete lack of marketing for the film meant that it was barely on my radar, having accumulated no buzz whatsoever. The trailer also gave it a bit of a “Lifetime Movie” feel (a fairly misogynistic label itself, in the way it belittles films about women, but one that nonetheless has been imprinted in my brain). It was only my love of Sally Hawkins and Bob Hoskins that got me to the theater to see it, and I took my sister because it seemed lighthearted and fun and about women, so ...

I’ll admit that I didn’t have terribly high expectations going into Made in Dagenham. The reviews had been positive but not glowing, but the complete lack of marketing for the film ...
By Tom • 13 years ago

Five Male Screenwriters Who Write Awesome Female Characters (And Five Who Need Some Work)

The two most important aspects of screenwriting have always been story and character. Obviously you need a great story, one that not only grabs the audience’s attention but is able to keep that attention. To have a believable, moving story arc that is not cliché and predictable. But just as important as the story is the characters that inhabit said story. If you don’t care about the characters, you aren’t going to care about the story. The characters have to be fully developed, complex people, and they need the ability to change, because if your characters are the same at the end of the movie as they are at the beginning of the movie, you did something wrong as a ...

The two most important aspects of screenwriting have always been story and character. Obviously you need a great story, one that not only grabs the audience’s attention but is able to keep that attention. To have a ...