The Bechdel Cast - The Hunger Games with Kelly Nugent & Lindsay Katai

Episode Date: September 26, 2019

Caitlin, Jamie, and special guests Kelly Nugent & Lindsay Katai of Teen Creeps podcast all volunteer as tributes to discuss The Hunger Games.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @kellynugee @lindsaykatai of @teencreepspod on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you.

You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories,

and of course, the culture. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus.

And we talk about the representation of women in movies. Yes, it's our job. It's our job. We're making millions of dollars in movies. Yes. It's our job. It's our job. We're making millions of dollars doing this. There's... I feel like sometimes people get the wrong idea of how much podcasters make, which is zero dollars.

Yeah. It's wild. Anyways, this is our show about the portrayal of women in movies. We use the Bechdel test as a starting off point. Bechdel test being a media metric invented by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace test, that requires that a

scene in a piece of media have two female identifying characters with names that talk to each other about something other than a man. Sounds simple enough, but most things don't pass the test. Oopsies. Oopsie daisy. Let's demo it, shall we? Sure. Hey, Jamie. What? Caitlin. Do you feel

that the odds may ever be in your favor? Um, usually I would say no. I feel like I would have. I mean, I know this is true of all survivalist movies when I'm like, oh, I died 45 minutes ago. I feel like I would have. I mean, I know this is true of all survivalist movies. I'm like, oh, I died 45 minutes ago. I was like, oh, there's no fucking way.

But I also felt that way about many characters. And I won't specify the gender, so it passes the test. In conclusion, it passes the test. Well, how about a conversation that won't pass the Bechdel test? I hate Joshutcherson's hair in this movie fair fair um mine was gonna be jamie did you know that the actor who plays the game maker in hunger games is neither jim caviezel nor milo ventimiglia. Thought it was one or the other of them. Turns out, neither.

It's Ventimiglia. Oh, shit. We need to talk about men more, I think. No, we're super excited to talk. We're talking about The Hunger Games today. Yes. Hunger Games won, so Hunger Games stands. Don't slide into our mentions asking why we didn't refer to Hunger Games.

How many movies were there? 900? Four. Too many. Don't ask us about the other three. I am not prepared to answer those questions. So we're talking about the first movie that came out in 2012 today. Yes.

And here to join us in our discussion, we've got the hosts of Teen Creeps podcast. It's Kelly Nugent and Lindsay Kaytai. Hi. Hi. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having us. Sound of a cannon. Or hopefully not the sound of a cannon. Because that means you died. I am gonna kill

all of you before this is over. Oh yeah, what if by the end of this there can be only one victor left? Ooh, I wish I had known that ahead of time. I don't think I would have agreed to do the show i volunteer as tribute to be killed first they're like that's not how it works you're like i want to make it happen yeah i want to be the girl in the crowd that raises her hand is like

please kill me i'm ready to die that's a fun fanfic version and then that's like galaxy brain because if you're like elizabeth banks step on my neck and kill me and then she's like no you're gonna live and you're like oh no and then you live forever oh wow it's reverse psychology dystopian people are so easily confused so for the two of you what is your history relationship with this movie the franchise have you read the books all that kind of good stuff so i did not read the books or the movie or read the mood i'm okay we're here we didn't read the movie and i did watch the book yeah i put it on a chair and stared at it for hours. It wasn't great.

I didn't do the movies or books until like later after they had been out for a while because I was very like anti at the time. I think I was just like, I only like adult fiction. This was obviously before Lindsay and I started our podcast because all we do is read stuff for YA audience. But then I finally gave in and I like watched the first movie and I was like oh dang I like this and then I went and like found the books and read the books but I don't really remember the books so that's kind of where I'm at okay good what about you Lindsay I read the books first they were recommended to me by a friend who thought that i would like them and i did like them i liked them fine and then i liked the movie fine sure very diplomatic well enough i truly don't

have a terribly negative opinion about them or like i'm not super amped about them either ambivalence is you know solid i feel like that's a common theme in this room towards this franchise. Yeah, I think so. Respectable. Yes. Jamie, how about you? This is one of the many franchises

that I just completely slept on. I don't know what I was doing when these books were coming out. I mean, maybe I was taking yet another foray into being a guy's gal and just missed the entire thing I just started seeing movies three years ago when we started this podcast so I remember the books were popular and I also felt like I'm like I'm too old for this because I feel like I was just like a teen and wanted to be too old for something did you think that they were

similar to like, kind of? No, but they're like the same era of book, right? I think that Twilight might have been the last YA fiction I read before I decided arbitrarily that I'd aged out of it. But I don't know. I think that maybe if I were a few years younger, I would have read these books, but I don't know. I think that maybe if I were a few years younger, I would have read these books. But I didn't.

And then I just had really no desire to see the movie, even though I had a very weird formative crush on Josh Hutcherson that I no longer stand by. Interesting. But he was in this movie called Firehouse Dog. And I was there for Firehouse Dog okay for some reason it sounds familiar but I can't think what it is I couldn't tell you one thing that happens in the movie Firehouse Dog I was really there for Josh Hutcherson and the rest of the people there were like nine um yeah I have no history with this franchise is what I'm saying what about you Caitlin

I read the books I want to say must have been like 2010 or maybe a little bit later. I think I read them in preparation for the first movie coming out. So that would have been probably a little bit sometime in like 2012, I guess. I don't know, in that frame of time. And then I, since then, have seen each of the movies in theaters and that makes me sound like I'm a big fan of this franchise which I again would not call myself uh I just I just tend to see most movies especially ones that are big and that you know people are going to talk about because you know I like to be a part of the conversation Caitlin's addicted to the discourse. I sure am. I love a cultural moment. But I think I've only seen each movie once, aside from the first one to prep for the episode.

And I remember thinking the movies are better than the books. And a rare case of me thinking that because I feel like the movies are just more streamlined story wise especially the third one gets really sloppy in the book and i'm just like what is even happening i heard that i don't think i actually read the third one but i i did hear it was very sloppy and the movie was better yes wait what happened well they overthrow the government yeah she becomes like katniss becomes a symbol for like the revolution of like them trying to overthrow this like totalitarian government right and and then but like she's very moody for a lot of the time and like doesn't really do much you know what this is a classic

harry potter book what is it four five yeah is it the one where he gets really moody and like loses his temper in a tea cake shop or something where i was i remember getting to that part and being like i don't need any part of this but i i yeah i don't think i could be there for katniss being that moody yeah but she is always that moody she's a pretty moody she's like 100% mood zero percent personality interesting yeah i do agree that she does not have much of a personality which i don't like i mean and again i haven't read the books and so i'm like i don't know how much of this is just jennifer lawrence make i mean it's jennifer lawrence is weird i feel like she's a polarizing actor for many i always kind of like get leery around conversations like that because i'm always like

is it you know people are more critical of actresses than of actors mediocre actors flourish all the time i don't love her performance in this movie i feel like she i don't know if the character is written to be kind of like boring yes it is that is true it is written to be boring unfortunately well i don't think she did a great job. I don't think What's-Her-Face sat down and went, I'm going to write a really boring character. Yeah, yeah. But that is what ended up being on the page. Yes.

Yeah, her personality is, I'm hungry. Yeah, yeah. Or like, I'm scared. Oh, no, what have I gotten myself into this time? I definitely felt that feeling a lot right when Lenny Kravitz is like 30 seconds and she's like, oh no. I think this is high visibility

for strong female protagonists that are also boring as fuck. I will say she's a little less boring than the most boring female protagonist, which is Bella Swan. Oh, for sure. Because she at least has opinions, which is like, I don't like this.

And a skill. She has a strong skill. She's good at hunting and tracking. And she doesn't trip nearly as much as Bella Swan. Yeah. She's not as clumsy. But when she does trip, the stakes are high. That's true. She falls down a freaking giant hill. Yeah. I. She's not as clumsy. But when she does trip, the stakes are high. That's true.

She falls down a freaking giant hill. Yeah. I was like, very high stakes. That would hurt. I was like, ouchie.

And it's like right at the beginning. I know. It's so early that she falls for so long. It felt like, what is that movie that's supposed to be

parodying Kung Pao? Is that that like karate parody movie where there's like there's a scene in that movie where a baby falls down the same hill and it's clearly a puppet and it falls for like 45 seconds and it's really funny or it's like a strong character that i was not emotionally compelled by uh even for a moment except for the stuff with your sister but we'll get to that sure sure sure oh sure uh i'll do the recap and then we'll dive into the discussion yeah and everyone feel free to talk over her so she gets stepping out yeah i'll just talk about my day okay so we open with some like text information about the hunger games which jamie as you pointed

out is in helvetica font oh my gosh okay wait no i had that font was not i do at least it's not papyrus it may as well have been. I was so shocked. I was telling Caitlin and Aristotle upstairs and Sophie as well that I had to stop and make sure I was watching the right movie. I'm like, oh, maybe this is like some weird like off-brand version of The Hunger Games. But I'm like, they had a $78 million budget. It was. And the movie opens with six slides of Helvetica literally the same font I was let's not worry about why but I was looking for a video of someone playing through the fire

and flames on expert mode on guitar and I clicked on it and it was like I think I got rickrolled because then it was like a picture of a cat and then like font over it that was like thank you for coming to my channel but it was that font it's like that is what's happening on hunger games it's a 13 year old please like and subscribe slide at the beginning i was shaken to my i feel like that is the most emotion i felt in the entire movie was how viscerally i responded to the helvetica font at the beginning and the end. Because the movie ends and then it fades out and says, like, directed by Gary Ross. And you're like, the Helvetica's bad. Like, it's so jarring.

Yeah, really bad. The true villain of the movie. True dystopia. True dystopia. Yeah, like, this is without making commentary. Like, Helvetica will sort of outlive us all, I guess, in a way. It's the cockroach of font.

The last I'll say about the font is, like, if you've got $78 million, at least use a serif. Like, it's ridiculous. Some kind of flair. Ugh, unreal. Anyways. I hear you. So the content of the font.

We learned that there are 12 districts of Pan Am, which sounds like an airline, but it's the country that used to be the United States of America. And each district will offer up a male and female between the ages of 12 and 18 at a lottery selection ceremony type thing called the reaping. And the children who are selected also called the tributes are sent to the capital and then transferred to an arena where they will fight to the death in what is called the hunger games they're like what if the bachelor plus survivor plus apocalypse plus a so-so Elizabeth Banks performance. This franchise answers that.

Yes. Because The Hunger Games are televised as a reality TV show for everyone to see and everyone fights to the death until a single victor remains. And I don't mean a person named Victor, of course, because that would not pass the Bechdel test. One victor per Hunger Games.

But will he be the Victor? That'd be a great, like, I kept trying to, I just got into The Bachelorette which is my shame, but I keep trying to I kept trying to, like, picture the contestants doing, like, talking heads because that's the only element of reality

TV. They shirk for this. It would be so fun if Josh Hutcherson were like, yeah yeah i'm kind of starting to catch feels for cat or if he's like if he's like um like right so we see him you know he's sided with the bad guys and he's like so i might have been on the wrong side of history oh it'd be so good goodness okay so we meet katniss everdeen that's jennifer lawrence's character she is from district 12 which is like a poor coal miner part of the of panem and katniss is a skilled archer she hunts for food for her and her family which is her mother and sister prim who she loves dearly and who is stressed out about this upcoming reaping

can i can i just say prim's fine but like i i just don't see like from what i saw prim i would not have volunteered to distribute for her i would have just let her go but i think you need to keep in mind that the person who was like i couldn't possibly let her go was katniss katniss who's possibly even even more of a vacuum of personality yeah true like prim showed emotion right yeah so so she had that going for her that little i i thought that the actress who played prim did a great job with being given not too much also the the name i'm wondering if Suzanne Collins had if she's released any

insight into her naming conventions, because naming a little girl Prim seems weirdly pointed, and I don't know. It's short for Primrose, I think. Yeah, that doesn't do much work for me. It's a shortcut to get to Prim, though, for sure. Yeah, anyways.

Her best friend is Gale. That's Liam Hemsworth's character. It's Chris Fleming. I'm kidding. Oh, I get it. And the two of them talk about how fucked up the Hunger Games are and how they should just leave. And then Katniss and Prim go to the reaping. And Effie Trinket is there that's elizabeth banks

character oh okay really quick what elizabeth possibly be i like elizabeth banks i do not like her in this part at all i think she's doing a terrible helena bonham carter impression how many times did helena bonham carter turn this part down and then how many times did Helena Bonham Carter turn this part down? And then how many times did Parker Posey turn it down after before they arrived at letting Elizabeth Banks do a terrible impression of both of them? It bothers me. I don't like it. So I was

fine on her performance. I thought she was like a 7 out of 10 performance wise. Until you mentioned Helena Bonham Carter and I was like, oh. That's so what she's going for. That's what it is. Three, now it's three.

She simply wasn't available. Because Helena would have killed it. That's like a role she was born to play. That's her in 80% of her film career. It's wild. They needed somebody who can actually play like out of it yeah because her character is not that forever elizabeth thanks isn't isn't really a character actor in that way she was trying something i appreciated the effort ultimately it did make me just wonder what

if parker posey had gotten she seems to be available. She was doing Parker Posey's character from Josie and the Pussycats. Exactly. Yeah, that is exactly what she was doing. Elizabeth Banks, we see you. Let's go be girls. Oh, God. Great movie. Anyways.

So Effie Trinket is from the Capitol. She represents the Hunger Games, essentially. Or she represents District 12 for the liaison like what is she's a liaison and she is the uh district 12 hunger games like reaping like representative right she's by far the most dystopian looking of everyone besides stanley tucci she and stanley tucci are the only ones delivering looks quite that dystopian yeah and then you've got guy fieri beard and then everyone else kind of looks normal yeah oh yeah and but except for like the non-speaking extras that will like occasionally

who are like well yeah everyone in the capital but people who is, yeah. The speaking roles though. Right. Sure, sure, sure. Anyways, guys. So for, we're at the reaping. For the girls, Prim gets selected to participate in the games, but Katniss can't bear to see her little sister compete. So she volunteers as tribute in an iconic scene. And then it goes like this. I volunteer. I volunteer as tribute.

And then like lots of shaky camera work which urgent scary i actually i liked this part i thought i was a little bit moved by it sure i like the parts with her and her family i wish there was more of that unless pita oh pita speaking of pita gets selected for the boys and that's josh hutcherson's character so katniss and pita hutcherson if you had asked me i thought it was 10 million dollars it was hutchinson did i say it wrong i might have said it wrong no i think you're right i think it is hutcherson i feel like jamie would definitely know since she had a sexual awakening. As a former Stan, it is Josh Hutcherson.

And that is how it's spelled in Firehouse Dog. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. So they go and meet their mentor, Haymitch, which is Woody Harrelson. And his $4 wig. Feminist icon Woody Harrelson's wig. Yeah.

Middle part $4. The mosteminist icon, Woody Harrelson's wig. Yeah. Middle part, $4. The most and least. Yeah. Yeah. I liked Woody Harrelson in this movie. The wig was wild.

I didn't see, there's a lot of wigs in this movie and this is, also, it was like an anime cosplay wig. I don't know what was happening with it.

It was very bad. It was like, PC. Could not keep dry. It was, why, like, just blow some wind on him. I't understand why it was constantly wet and pc it was so bad i like that they're like he's an alcoholic therefore he has a dirty wig on all the time like this leap of logic doesn't quite make sense but sure visual language meanwhile the costume designer is like

look i know it's kind of cliche but i'm just gonna go with a cheap wig because he's an alcoholic it's just like a shortcut of storytelling like you know like the the collar is undone and the wig's wet yeah yeah every alcoholic i've ever known has a soaking wet wig and that's a dead it's a dead giveaway that you need help so he's a previous like victor of the games which is why he's helping them but he doesn't really have much interest in helping him. The main thing that he tells Katniss is that she

needs to be more likable so that she'll get sponsors who will send her stuff during the games to help her survive. Which at least is framed as a bad thing because you don't want to hear that from someone wearing a soaking wet wig. I know.

Yeah. Like, likable? Really? Right. For you? I appreciate it. In this moment? I appreciate that the movie went out of its way to frame this as like, this is not the right thing to be saying to this character. Yes.

That's important. Yeah. Yeah. So then they get to the Capitol and Katniss meets Cinna. That's Lenny Kravitz. Oh. Hot. Hot.

What a, what a, I didn't, I didn't know the cast of this movie outside of Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson and the Hutch. I know that my, like, my best friend from high school, Lois, listens to the show and she went to Firehouse Dog with me and

she is losing her mind right now. I keep thinking it's like Firehouse Dog. That's what I keep thinking it's like Fire House Dog. That's what I keep thinking too because of the emphasis of how you're saying it. Fire House Dog. I'm sorry. I've been saying it for 13 years since it was released. I just can't stop. I have it on DVD. It's the only DVD

I own. Anyways. And I watch it every day. I love it. I don't have a DVD player but if I ever get one I'm ready. What were we even talking? Oh, I just had no idea Lenny Kravitz was in this movie.

And what a pleasant surprise. I know. Yeah. Something my boyfriend said was, how many steps did it take in the process to get to casting Lenny Kravitz? He's an interesting poll.

Was he their first choice? Yeah. No idea. But I think he adds a je ne sais quoi. I like him in this movie. I think casting Lenny Kravitz, a style icon, as a dystopian stylist rules. I thought it was real fun. Yeah.

I liked that too. And I liked his relationship with Katniss. Same. He's one of my favorite characters. Him and the tooch and everyone else. The tooch. Don't really care. Anyways.

Feminist icon, Caitlin Durant. And then it's like uh whatever the rest of the movie right um so he's her stylist there's a tribute parade that he makes her all fancy and and i mean speaking of firehouse dog it's more like firehouse were you freaking girl when he was on fire with her that was yeah i mean i was like this is Josh Hutcherson canon the boy on fire they start calling her that weird shot the girl on fire oh the girl on fire was that

that had to have come out after this movie came out right otherwise you're like what a weird reference that would have been Josh Hutcherson isn't even on the poster for Firehouse Dog it's just a dog that's so that's so embarrassing he's really sad for him.

That's so embarrassing. We know who the real draw is. He's the star of the movie and he's not on the poster. That's funny. It's just a dog in sunglasses. So there's the parade. Stanley Tucci is Caesar Flickerman, but he's Stanley Tucci. And he's like the commentator of like all things hunger games

um we meet the game maker there's president snow who is donald sutherland and he expected you to say stoke oh yeah because i forgot because of star wars yeah um so they're all there and then the tributes they train a little bit the tributes from District 1 and 2 are always, like, really, really good because they, like, go to, like, training camp. And it's a whole thing. There's, like, a whole class discussion we can have there. And PETA is worried that he's going to die because he sucks at everything. Except that he's strong and he can throw heavy objects around. It's actually just like, Josh Hutcherson is not strong.

How dare you try this movie? Why are you trying? It was crazy. It is so weird that they just like, John Hutcherson is not strong. How dare you try this movie? Why are you trying? It was crazy. It is so weird that they're like, he's so strong. I'm like, stop gaslighting me.

I'm looking at him. And when she's like, you should throw that big ball. He like walks over to it. I was like, he hopes it. You're like, his arm's gonna fall off.

But they don't show him throwing it because it's pretty crazy. He couldn't make it because but like they have that whole scene where Peeta tells this story about how like he's like no like even my own mother knows that like

you're gonna win Katniss and she goes well you're like really good at throwing flour she's like I've seen you do it many times it's like a baker's son superpower that he has he has two superpowers both baking related yes cake decorating and throwing flour does suzanne collins understand bakeries has she ever met a poor person i have a lot of questions based on her portrayal and i

i mean i love short men and i love when short men are cast in leading roles. Sure. And it's like, or shorter. I don't know his exact height. I think it's around 5'7", if I remember correctly, from my Firehouse Dog days. Oh, boy short, a.k.a. girl tall. Right. Yeah. Yes.

But I like when they don't Tom Cruise it, and the movie is like, no, he's shorter than her, and we're not going to call attention to it. Yeah, I liked that. That said, he visibly could not be that strong. Well, he has some arms he's got thick arms he's got muscle but like his little t-shirt was like tight on his arm no i wasn't gonna support that i was very worried about the about the ball throwing and you do notice too that they never they show a lot of cut twos the like flashbacks of like him throwing a piece of cut-toos, the, like, flashbacks of, like, him throwing a piece of bread at her. Yeah. Honestly, I believe that Josh Hutcherson would have gotten

too into CrossFit to get ready for this movie. He kind of has the resting face of someone who is too into CrossFit. He does. CrossFit resting face. But they never show him throwing those hundred-pound bags of flour around. No. It's like, listen,

Jen's shooting the arrows. What? Throw the iron ball. Yeah. So like at this, we are maybe to believe that at the same time, Katniss is hunting that deer that Gail totally fucks up. Yeah.

He is somewhere just like lifting bags of flour. Like in his version of the movie, that's what's taking place. A lot of theories, a lot of theories a lot of theories all right we meet rue she is a younger kid from district 11 i think it's 11 uh katniss she's impressing the judges with how good she is with the bow and arrow she gets a score of 11 because they're like rating all the tributes and she gets the highest score. Because she's a bitch. She throws an arrow at them. And every time Katniss gets a great

score, Peeta is extremely emasculated and retaliates. And that's why he's the romantic lead of the movie. Whoops. So it's the night before the Hunger Games and all the tributes do a TV interview. And PETA during his interview says that he is in love with someone who came to the games with him.

I hate this. Yes. So much. We'll talk all about this. It's like when people on The Bachelorette say they're in love with her in the first episode. I'm like, you just want attention. I'm like, you're not falling. Stop. Or if you are, it's because they've. I'm like, you're not falling. Stop.

Or if you are, it's because they've given you too much liquor and not enough food. It's a Hunger Games of its own type. I mean, we know there was booze because Haymitch is drinking a lot of it. Very demonstrative. There's enough to dip his wig in it.

That's why. That's why it's wet. That's why. Or it's from all the like liquor sweats. Yes. Oh, sure. Yeah. Constant.

Yes, the liquor sweats. You know. We all know. Now it's time for the games. Let the games begin. Yay! Both of you at the same time. And right away, like half of the tributes

are killed this is the part of the movie where everyone would have died as they were standing around I was like trying to put myself into position I'm like no I think at this point I would have been like well I had a good run it's always nice that like this would be on my IMDB page

and it might kind of be like the crow and i had yeah so katniss survives and runs into the woods and then she learns that pita is alive too and pretending to be an ally to the district one and two people and they're using him to try to find katniss because they want to kill her. She continues to survive. She escapes a fire. The bad guys find her. They chase her up a tree and then she drops a wasp's nest on them, which her friend Rue

wasp-y nest. And her friend Rue had been the one to like alert her to the presence of the nest so rue is her her ally they're also lsd wasps yes which is which like stanley tucci kind of pops in sometimes like over the loudspeaker like a vice principal and just like gives you exposition you're like by the way there's lsd in the wasp but you're like right because he's the, by the way, there's LSD in the wasp. And you're like, okay. Right, because he's the host of the reality show that everyone's watching from home. He's Jeff posting it. He's like live narrating what is happening

during the challenge. It's also kind of like he's doing the post-show talk show while it is still happening. Yeah. This is his talking dance. The talking dance. That's where that show got its name yeah yeah yeah talking about who died that's so horrible also toby jones is there with him barely oh right how do you under utilize toby jones he's like the uh oh yeah he doesn't speak like he responds like two

sentences maybe he's like blah blah blah tracker jackers or whatever they're called and toby jones Oh, yeah. He doesn't speak. Like, he responds, like, two sentences, maybe. He's like, blah, blah, blah, trackerjackers or whatever they're called. And Toby Jones is on the left looking like a weird Mozart. And he's like, mm-hmm. Yeah, he literally is just like, you got that right. That's it. Sounds like a good part. I would play the shit out of that part. Like, you got that right.

Yeah, I would be would be like moving a lot if that's your one line i would be really gesticulating i got like two seconds on camera i'm gonna make it work listen i'm getting my sag card for this you're gonna see it yeah okay so then katniss finally gets her hands on the bow and arrow and she and rue have like formed this alliance and they uh destroy the supplies that like all the bad guys from district one and two are hoarding shoot the fruit but then rue gets killed yes and katniss cries there and then they're this incites some riots in district 12 or sorry district 11 and an announcement is then made that they will crown two victors in the hunger games

if they originate from the same district so then katniss goes and finds pita who's disguised himself as a rock it is so weird what he looks like where did he get that stuff i don't know it happened to be in his pack he had a cake decorating kit that was the moment that shook me like the second most after helvetica font was like she found him disguised as a rock and she's like you know what i think i am in love with him you're like in the next scene she kisses him i was like what this is what i know oh no no no not to kink shame that was part of the act yeah he wandered onto set of nailed it and was just like i've got all the stuff i'm gonna paint my face and they were like actually you did you nailed it

you look like you nailed it he didn't really look like a rock he 10 out of 10 rock painting he just looked like they're mirrors and there's like how did he know it was also he has like an infectious cut on it. Yes. Also, I laughed out loud when he's like, hello. You know when your man is disguised as a rock and has a critical wound? He's unwell. He's like, am I winning? At that point, I'm like, he should be be dead he should not be alive he's close but she gets him to safety and then they kiss we'll talk all about this uh and then everyone's rooting for them to make it so and then they're like okay we're the only team left with just the two of us

still alive from the same district we can win this together and then at this point there's only one other tribute left which is kato the guy with the flesh-colored hair yes oh yeah he looked like a thumb houseguest yeah they fight him they kill him and then just then there's another announcement that says just kidding there can be only one winner so pita is like katniss kill she's like, no, let's both die. So they're about to eat these poisoned berries. And then the announcer comes back and is like, wait. Wait. Stop.

Don't do that. You both win. So they're announced to be the victors of the Hunger Games. And then they go back to the Capitol. They have like post-show interviews and they have to sort of make her dress up like bell oh yeah you're just like yeah interesting okay and haymitch is like you piss them off by like doing this whole double victory thing so now you have to pretend like you're really in love with pita because everyone's just gonna gobble that up right they do that and then

that's the end of the movie we'll take a quick break and then we'll come right back to discuss definitely caruana galizia was a maltese investigative journalist who on october 16th 2017 was murdered there are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price.

Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, this is Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you.

You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Catherine Han is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh, my God.

I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hahn can sing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song?

Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Luge. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, Rudy. Not hawk this slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean

when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job?

Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Santer. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection think a lot about that quote. What is it? Like you miss 100% of the shots you never take. Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself.

Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Oh, God. Oh, goodness. All right.

Well, where to start? There's so much to talk about with this film. So I feel like, okay, so this movie is like often cited when people are talking about movies with strong female protagonists. Sure. are talking about movies with strong female protagonists sure because you do get to see you know a young woman who has a lot of agency she has skills the stakes are high the series becomes about her being like a symbol for the revolution like it's a whole and it's a female led action franchise which is cool indeed but there are some things that i wish wouldn't have happened the romantic subplot in its entirety by any chance yes that's the big thing hated it yeah hey i for me i was like and i wonder how much of this was supposed to inspire like dread because for me i was like oh no she's

like being told that she has to fake this relationship with this guy i don't like that she kind of seemed to like him back that was toward the end yeah because what i would have liked was for her to like not really know how much of it he's faking because he is more duplicitous than she thinks like he is she has seen that he knows how to play the game so i disagree oh i don't think he is at all duplicitous i think he was going to the other side purely to save her life no no no not for that i mean like he knows how to play this game so he is faking being in love with her i mean maybe he likes her but i think because we see from the next movies that he he like fully is in love with her i mean maybe he likes her but i think because we see from the next movies that he he like fully is in love with her i think it's a little bit of both super i think it's so i

i don't know yeah yeah but no he's like fully in love with her but also i mean i think you're right too in that like you see in that moment in the parade when they're on the chariots like he goes to surprise not kiss but grab her hand. Yeah, and she pulls away. And she pulls away. And he's like, no, come on. They'll love it. And they do.

So she's like, OK. So then they hold hands. And then people are like, we love it. I was a little confused about the same debate. Because at first, it does seem like I was assuming that he was very calculated in the ways especially because of the whole like it felt like the first episode of The Bachelor where he goes on he doesn't tell her that he likes her he tells the entire world in this very performative way and I was like that seems calculated like that seems like some you know something that just like gain attention and

goodwill but then they sort of try to spin it at later as if it were actually totally sincere and not calculated at all and i just i don't know i like i don't hate that the tv show tries to push them together because i feel like there's some commentary there of like the way yeah that's really like realistic yeah yeah the way the tv show treats katniss i think is meant to be like commentary of like when she goes up for her first interview, like Stanley Tucci makes sure she has to show off her outfit and like she has to. And when Woody Harrelson advises her on what to do, it's very like reality TV calculated. So I'm like, OK, I'd like that works for me because there's commentary being made. And we believe at the time that she doesn't care for this guy at all. tv calculated so i'm like okay i'd like that works for me because there's commentary being made and we believe at the time that she doesn't care for this guy at all right so there's like some

interesting tension but then i feel like they kind of throw it away by being like no they actually do like each other so right because she initiates the kiss when they're in the cave right so but then even then i was just like is she doing this because she knows she's never being on camera i don't know i don't know which would be smart all of the above that would be interesting my interpretation based on the book and the movie together because i think what it comes down to is it it not working in the movie is casting they have no chemistry they do not have chemistry whatsoever they do not and neither of them have very many shades to their performance either so when he is playing sincere in love with Katniss it reads exactly the same as when you are supposed to kind of wonder what his motives are because you

are supposed to wonder because she is wondering right but then as the book goes on it's like no he was a hundred percent sincere it is shitty how he announces it which is not something i even thought about watching the movie last night yeah i'm like oh yeah no yeah like and also i think i think deep down maybe he does love her but he might be like one of those guys that's like doesn't understand to love someone truly is to love them how they want to be loved and rather he's just like this is how i express it and like that's why he announced it because i think partially he's doing it because he's like oh i feel love for her i should just say it and then like partially he's

he knows the only thing he's got is knowing how to play the game. Because from the beginning they get in there, she's sulking. And he's like, we should wave at them because you've got to get people to like you. That was an interesting moment for me at least. Because you're just like, oh, okay. I wish that if the tension were constantly from them doubting, like, oh, is this sincere? Exactly. It's not how do I actually feel about it?

But it like, I don't know. Yeah. Instead it's just muddy. It is muddy. It is partially a performance thing. And then setting aside their like lack of chemistry, if we just take it like the events of the story at face value, what happens is that the more the movie progresses, the more this romantic storyline gets entangled into the main story which is their survival which i feel is really unnecessary like they made a conscious choice because there's like all right this is a ya book this is you know

a movie franchise for largely like teen young adult audiences so we've got to wedge this not only a romantic storyline into here but it's a love triangle story gotta be a tribe because gail helmsworth otherwise why lonely i care yeah because in this first movie and i wonder if the book makes this more clear or not i can't totally remember but gail and katniss are framed as being best friends and there's no reason to assume that they have anything besides a platonic friendship apart from being very attractive apart from both being near each other and both hot but but then when you when gail is watching the hunger games from his tv TV or wherever it's projected. At the bar. He's like at a bar.

At the Hunger Games bar. He's seeing Katniss and Peeta kiss on TV and he's like visibly upset. So we're supposed to understand like, oh no, he's also in love with Katniss because in a YA novel and movie, sure, a woman gets to be the main character sometimes, but if she is, she's got to have not one, but two boys who love her. Which is like, both adds nothing to, well, I mean, it's, I feel like it's supposed to add stuff to the story, but there's just multiple elements of this movie. And I think this is like the most sinister one. Also introducing daddy issues 90 minutes into the movie, I also found to be very unnecessary.

I forgot that that was part of it. Wait, what part? I don't remember. She's like hallucinating after getting bitten by the tractor jackers. Oh yeah, the stuff with the mom and the dad being dead and stuff. Right. I feel like it's like there's too many crutches involving male characters when it's like this movie does not want for stakes. The stakes are high enough the whole movie. And like adding in this like love story that doesn't work really. And then throwing in some daddy issues on top of it.

It's like we are like Katniss is already in trouble and the daddy stuff doesn't really pay off at all except in like a passing comment to her mom and i don't know like there was just most of the like adding a problem on top of a problem that was already life or death it's like it's just like this is just not necessary but also like it's also interesting in how they show like they introduce these like daddy issues is because what it actually comes down to is it becomes an issue she has with her mom. She doesn't think about her dad that much. What happened is her dad died and the mom shut down emotionally and she had to take care of herself and she had to take care of Prim. So it's actually a mommy issue, but it doesn't really present that way. It's weird. I mean, I feel like it kind of glorified, like the way mothers are presented in this movie are is i mean it's very limited but i feel like it is telling where it seems like we're

supposed to assume because pita has a bad possibly abusive relationship with his mom that that's why he treats katniss like shit at first which is kind of like a one-to-one that i was like that should if if you're gonna do that then you have to explore it you can't just be like that's why he's shitty to women so you can like him i thought he was like shitty to her because he was embarrassed about being like bonked on the head with a rolling pin what i'm not sure what happened but he got bonked or whatever and i think he just was just in a shitty place and like right didn't i don't want to keep being the in the book yeah person but again this is another weakness of the movie so it's like on the one hand it seems like a really good adaptation

and on the other hand it totally doesn't convey at all what the book version of this was which is that he was like really putting himself on the line by throwing her that you're not supposed to give food to other people in the hunger games right in those worlds i mean everyone's hungry yeah it was like he he was yeah everyone's so hungry and so it's hard to be hungry you're so you're allowed to throw bread at pigs but not at people it was like that bread was to feed their pigs that they need to survive i think right and then so he's like really risking a beating by even throwing her some bread and she remembers this so when he steps up on stage at least in the book she's like it's kind of the sense maybe i'm remembering this wrong that would

be amazing if i'm remembering this wrong but but when he steps up on stage she's like oh no the only other person who's been nice to me my whole life like i don't want it to be him it does not read like that in the he like was he like gave me bread once oh i read it as she was like ugh you threw bread at me no like she's like you sad that it's pita i did not see that in the movie yeah maybe it seemed like she was like you threw bread at me you think you're better than me and like you saw me at my like worse when i was like hungry and leaning on a tree in the rain. Also, she does not seem bad off. It seems like she was like, yeah, I was just, like, having a nice day out in the rain. Those flashbacks are badly done.

Yeah, and confusing. Like, it's like none of us, I feel like we all had different takeaways from them. I just, I'm so disinterested in their romantic connection that I, like, honestly wasn't even paying that close attention. So is Katniss. Like, she isn't she's busy interested in him she's got other fish to fry like not dying she's too hungry to be in love also this is what I think about a lot in these types of like love triangle stories where it's like okay you've got her best friend Gail is apparently in love with her um this guy Peta

is apparently in love with her but like what if Katniss was a lesbian? Yeah. Because she could have just been like, sorry, guys. Yeah. It's like she's not because of heteronormativity in media. But, like, where's the story where she's just like. I would fully believe that character. I would like Katniss so much better if she was queer. Yeah.

It's just. We don't. Like, all the romantic stuff, I feel like it's just really overdone and, like, not necessary. And I would love for the movie to have been 15 minutes shorter. So if they and so they could just cut it out, I'd be fine with it. I agree now as an adult. But if I was reading this, then I'd like all I wanted at 13 was for two boys to be in love with me at the same time. It would be like, oh, my God, dream come true.

And so if i was reading this books i'd be like yes two boys are in love with her and i am her yeah maybe that's why she's so boring because we talk about this sometimes where there will be a boring i mean this is not this can be applied to any gender but there will be like a boring main character especially in like ya and teen fiction where it allows you know the young person who's reading it or consuming it in whatever way to plug themselves into that character yeah that's for sure what she is yeah but like yeah which is you know and you don't i guess maybe that was why i was a little thrown by it because normally they're not female protagonists that get this boring plug-in treatment

because it's usually like you're getting a Harry Potter or you're getting a Neo or you're getting just like a bland dude. But I guess, yeah, just kidding. This is progressive. Yeah. Take it all back. The pendulum has to swing.

I like romance both as a genre and as like a thing in other movies. And I like a love triangle. I did not like this one because i think it was poorly done like there weren't any seeds that the best friend and her were like a thing and so when he was like oh i can't watch you in the bar i was like what right why i was like oh you like her like okay um it's confusing and then another thing where it's like oh i i guess deep down i just like always assumed we'd end up together which is like ew another thing where it's like oh i i guess deep down i just like always assumed

we'd end up together which is like ew right yeah like it's like what you guys don't even seem to like each other until you cosplayed as a rock and then all of a sudden she's in love seriously when he does that cosplay as a rock and she's like oh my god like let me drag you into this cave and like and he's like oh i have to paint myself as this cave now. She's like, put it down. She's like, relax. For once, just be PETA. You're delusional.

I'm just Katniss and you're just PETA. Can you imagine how many Instagram followers PETA would have had, though, if he could have just painted himself like various surfaces? Like he would have been insanely popular so many sponsors so many parachutes he would have got yeah he would have been an influencer um that's uh we've got to go to another break uh but to to wrap up on the relationship uh i guess it makes sense in a ya thing i think it could have been more thoughtfully adapted and I didn't like it. But then it's also like because the love triangle or just like a romantic storyline is so pervasive in YA fiction, it's just like, can we have one where there's not? And I'm sure there are.

And, you know, it's been several years, over a decade since these books were published. So I'm sure I haven't read much YA fiction since then. But it's just like, can't we just have a story about like a badass young woman like doing cool stuff and not kissing boys I'm mostly compelled by like Peanut and Katniss's relationship as like them faking a relationship to please the masses and then actually either not liking each other or like working together and realizing like we have to fake this for reality TV and then we'll fucking burn the world down. And then it turns into the Americans. That's what it is.

I think that like exploring that like expectation of YA fiction and faking it and having the reader know that, like I think that that would be cool. That's a much better story. Really cool. And the stakes are very high because each of them could be holding that kind of as like both a carrot and stick as like, cause you better do what I need you to do because otherwise I could just tell everyone that like, we don't like each other.

Or it's like they, the powers that be find out that they're faking it. Then they'll, you know, right. Yes. Be mad. They'll be mad.

They'll be so mad we have punch-ups suzanne uh and with that we're gonna go to a break we'll be right back definitely caruana galizia was a maltese investigative journalist who on october 16th 2017 was murdered there are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price.

Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, this is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level.

The one, the only, Catherine Han is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh, my God, I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to.

No, I know, I'm so behind. Katherine Hahn can sing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I'm so behind. Katherine Hahn can sing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person?

I got to hawk this slalom, Luge. I'm not going to hawk this slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or, can I negotiate a higher salary

if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies.

Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it, like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So I think this might be a good transition into there's been a lot of discussion surrounding race in this movie. And as always, we want to open everything up to our listeners who may have info and insights that we don't. But there were two main subjects that I found in the coverage of in 2012 when this movie was coming out

there was it's very upsetting yeah there the first thing was Katniss as being a whitewashed role by Jennifer Lawrence having been cast um fans of the book I mean it's this is a little trickier to discuss but but it does seem like to an extent there is something to that because in the books she's described as having olive skin and straight black hair, which leaves it open to interpretation. Sure. But Jennifer Lawrence is not. She does not have olive skin, nor does she have straight black hair. No. black hair no and whatever whatever race Suzanne Collins was trying to imply it doesn't seem like was reflected in the casting at all which was sort of a discussion around then but it didn't seem to

for fans at this time disqualify her I know it's so weird it was seven years ago 2012 was a different time people barely gave a fuck before Ghost in the Shell so that's so that. So that's worth discussing. And also the fact that Susan Collins didn't overrule it because she was very integral in the making of this movie and she had the power. Right. She's one of the producers. She's one of the writers of the scripts. I can imagine because it's not like she was coming off of another very successful franchise. I can imagine a situation in which she fought for that and just could not get them to budge on it. I mean, yeah, it's unfortunate. And it seems like this was a very hot time for Jennifer Lawrence. I think she was coming off of Winter's Bone.

She was. She had just come off of that, yeah. Yeah, so she was coming off of Winter's Bone. She was. She had just come off of that, yeah. Yeah, so she was coming off of, like it makes sense that this would be the time to cast her in a huge franchise, but that was a subject of discussion and it seems like some fans were pretty upset that she had been cast because that happens all the time.

And then the other main subject of discussion that I think has changed quite a bit since the movie came out is the discussion around the black characters in the movie, particularly Rue. There was a lot of, to the point where there is an in-depth New Yorker essay written about it. I read it. about fan backlash when black actors were cast as these parts that it is worth saying they were written as black characters yeah that was wild it watching that happen i wasn't i wasn't aware of you guys yeah i remember just like actually like just very dumb so you're reading this book and you're like this character is white yeah yeah But yeah, so basically there was a bunch of racist shitheads on mostly Twitter, I think,

but kind of just across. Where They Thrive being so upset that Rue was black. I remember this. And yeah, so the article that we referenced from The New Yorker is called White Until Proven Black, Imagining Race in Hunger Games by Anna Holmes. At least that's the one I read. Yes. Okay. So check that out because it provides some good insight about that.

Yeah, it gives I mean, it gives like the full like scope of fan like someone who scouted out like all the racist tweets made around it. Let me read one directly just to give you the idea of what it was like. I mean, basically, it was just tweets that said, first of all, that they were surprised that they had cast a black actress to play rue and second that they felt less bad when a black woman was killed than if a white woman was killed so just a lot of really hideous biases that have absolutely everything to do with the person making the comment because if they you know and i think it's a lot of toxic fandom stuff of like oh it should have stuck to the book but it's like well then you didn't read the book because it was always written as a black character and so it's nuts that it would be like you read the book and katniss is

like not white question mark yeah and everybody's like how you? And then you cast a very obviously black character to be a black actress. And people were like, oh, she's not white. And it's really red is white. And then it's also really interesting to look at it in the lens of today, which like I had actually forgotten about that whole controversy with the casting of the character rue and when i was watching it just with the the lens of 2019 i was like man just as a whole it does kind of suck that like a character of color helps this white protagonist and like points out all the things that she should do to survive she points out the wasp and she puts like medicinal leaves on her like wasp bites yeah and then dies and then the white character survives two white characters survive which

is not by any means malicious it's not anything like that it just reveals an implicit bias that like people don't know they have which is like oh well what's wrong with that they were it shows that the the black character was smarter and it's like yeah but the winner to have the only girl who's a person of color in the entire movie be killed yeah i mean she's really only involved in the movie in a meaningful way for maybe 20 minutes and through the like the lens of how does it affect our main character right right which I know this is not an ensemble film. And that literally everyone dies except for two people. Right. But it's still, there is still, I think, that kind of.

It's not a good look. It just, yeah. It just kind of stinks. I mean, the cast is still predominantly white when you consider Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson. Oh, for sure. Stanley Tucci, like the game maker, the President Snow, like most of the people are white, with the exception of Lenny Kravitz, and some extras you see who live in District 11, which is apparently the only place where black people live. It's so bizarre. I mean, it's and again, it seems like that is a whole I

mean, not seems like it obviously is a Hollywood problem. But from what I could find about the book series is that the books were written to be far more diverse. It's like implied that they're like most people are mixed race at this point so far in the future. Which they would be. Right. It makes sense. But it's still cast as like an extremely white cast yeah and if they hadn't done that rue's death would not have been so rubbed us the wrong way exactly right but also we can all agree

that the relationship between rue and katniss is very compelling it's very cute whereas she has like no chemistry with anyone else my favorite barely her sister the the actress who plays rue amanda stenberg i think i'm saying that right i'm not totally sure yeah i have i have some cool quotes from her reflecting on this role but um my favorite example of like how that is the most compelling relationship in the movie is that amanda stenberg and jennifer lawrence won the Teen Choice Award for Best Chemistry that year. Awesome. Just like, fuck Josh Hutcherson. Like, apparently all the teens felt that way.

Yeah. So just a few words from Amandla Steinberg, who if you're if you I wasn't following her social media or her like activism very closely before i stumbled across this but she um and she's also non-binary she goes by she her and they them but predominantly she her came out in 2016 like she's just she's a really really cool she's really cool and so she did this interview last year when she was promoting a movie that i don't think was super well received, but it was called The Darkest Minds. And it was a sci-fi movie that she was the lead of. So she was reflecting on The Hunger Games and some of her thoughts. Quote, it does feel really special to have begun my career with The Hunger Games and to be in a place now where I can be cast in the lead of this sort of thing. I don't know that that would have been possible at the same time in the same way she continued, noting that it's only recently that Hollywood and audiences alike have begun to

see the effects of big pushes for onscreen diversity. And then she comments on how she viewed the racist backlash against her character, because she's only like 12 or 13. She's so little to have to deal with that. Yeah. She reflects on it now and says, quote, there was resistance to having black girls in films and that black women are dehumanized and their lives are seen as less valuable than white lives. This is from a BuzzFeed interview, by the way. She remembers that one of the main complaints was that Rue's death became less sad to some viewers when they saw her as a black girl. Qu it was hurtful when i was 12 it wasn't shocking the irony of the whole situation was that rue was one of the only characters i could find in the content i loved

that was literally written as black so that is that's her thoughts she's really cool she is like also a major she speaks out about colorism in hollywood a lot she turned down a role in black panther because she felt that the role should have gone to a darker skinned actor she's just tight she's really cool so check her out and support all of her stuff amazing also speaking of non-binary it made me wonder because like yeah they say like a girl and a boy yeah is selected from each district and it's like okay does that mean like non-binary genderqueer and like intersex people are off the hook i was gonna say i'm like maybe this could be spun as good yeah silly goose absolutely mad but yeah just to to to wrap up on the conversation about race like there's black people in district

11 there's some black people in the capital but like in panem there are no asian people there are no like latinx people i think there might be one maybe two asian tributes but the movie could not care less about those characters like they they die immediately. Like it's just such a weirdly predominantly white cast for a movie that takes place in a world where people would be much browner. I was going to say, perhaps I can provide some perspective having been alive in 2012, like what the world was like then. It's like,

we just didn't know like we were raised a certain way with certain ideas about race and gender so like you guys might not understand but in 2012 it just was different it was we're all six years old yeah we don't know so just keep that in mind it was a very long time ago also Also, this director, I mean, I don't know how involved Gary Ross was in the creative writing decisions of this movie. But, you know, he doesn't have a great track record on race. He's also directed Pleasantville. Oh, yeah. There you go.

Whoopsies. So much diversity. I know. Black and white. Oh, yeah. That movie was black and white. Oh, yeah. That movie was black and white. So I take it back. And then it had a lot of color at the end.

One of our most beloved episodes. Anyway, so there was like a scene where Katniss is trying to impress the judges. It's at the end of the day. It's like mostly older white men who are like observing and like no one's paying attention to her at this point. So she like has to do this like drastic thing where she like fires the arrow like right near them. of an all too familiar situation where women are not taken as seriously as other people, namely straight white men. And she has to work much harder to garner the same respect that someone like the Kato character just comes with that privilege of being respected immediately.

I feel like that at least is one of the things that was effectively commented on in the movie at least yeah i think so there's a couple other things that i um enjoyed too about the movie where this is a rare occurrence but you get to see a woman using real weapons when the situation warrants it because we talk all the time about how in movies uh if a woman has to fight she's given a frying pan to bunk on a guy's head just lady things like kitchen appliances and you know stuff like that yeah this is a pervasive trope so the fact that she we see i mean we see lots of weapons lots of weapons in this yes and she makes them herself she makes some herself she's got a knife she's got a bow

and arrow we get to see a woman do things that we rarely get to see a woman do in movies which is stuff like hunt use tools climb trees wrap uh wrap a little rope around your legs so you can sleep on a tree yeah be better than her male counterpart at all of those except for cake decorating well he's given a traditionally what i would say is a feminine skill which is like cake decorating and really yeah like cooking and really elaborate makeup. And being weaker. Yeah. It's true. And being shrill. Honestly, I find PETA to be shrill.

He was shrill. I just wish he would calm down. No. He's hysterical. Emotional. He's hysterical the entire movie. He did mention his hair at the top of the show. He also suffers from a wet hair issue.

Yes. Very bad wet hair. Oh, bad hair. Bad hair. PETA. Very bad wet hair. Oh, bad hair. Bad hair. PETA. Sometimes I wonder. I'm just like, maybe it's just that Jennifer Lawrence has perfect hair because that's how she has to be free. That's where all the hair budget went.

Yeah. That, yeah, her wigs were too good. And then everyone else's wigs suffer. I mean, but like female protagonists need to look clean. She barely looks. I mean, there is a makeover scene is too cute in district 12 oh i was like i would wear like blue dress yeah her kicky boots oh her little leather jacket her leather jacket that she got from h&m what was that it was very yeah why is it i liked the jacket it's too cute. I have almost all of those articles of clothing I considered showing up and cosplaying as Katniss.

Wait, you do have that jacket. I do. I was like, I've seen that jacket. Yeah, I've got boots that are similar. I've got the jeans. I don't know. Honestly, I didn't buy that they were poor. Her clothes were cute.

I was like, I do not feel sorry for her. Where is she shopping? I know. Caitlin, you just mentioned the makeover. That was one of the things I actually did like. Because I feel like, again, the movie frames the makeover as unnecessary and wrong. Yes. I feel like there was commentary there.

Right. Because, again, there's this whole ongoing theme throughout the movie where everyone's telling her, Katniss, you need to be more likable oh by Peeta saying that he has a crush on you that makes you seem desirable which is good I feel like the movie maybe could have done a little bit more to suggest that that was a bad stance to take but I think it I would say it does enough but I think that maybe for like younger viewers it was perhaps too subtle for like pre-teens to maybe pick up on that 100 yeah but it could all have been the author's

intent maybe to comment on like she is great at what she does she isn't like likable but she can win these games on her own but the only way she's going to get outside help is if she seems like softened by somebody being in love with her right like i think that that like that was parts of the movie that i i totally agree now that you mentioned it that it was if i was like 13 seeing this movie would i have picked up on that yeah i don't think i would oh god absolutely i barely picked up on it yesterday well you guys have provided a lot of insight well like at the end too what i really liked at the end at least for me as an adult woman was how scary the end was because like it was very like uh-oh girl, what'd you get yourself into?

She's trapped. And when he grabs her hand and pulls it up like that and like the weird, fakey like interview part where she's like, I just, you know. I couldn't imagine my life without him. Like, I think me now I'm like, dang, OK, that's like I get it. Also commentary. But as a 13 year old, I would have been like, uh-huh. Uh-huh. Wow.

They're so in love. Yeah. Right. Like, idiot. I wouldn't have picked up on, like, the whole, like, aesthetic thing, like, and how she's made to be cute and how Stanley Tucci's like, show us your dress. I would have been like, wow, awesome dress.

Like, it wasn't clear enough, you right that like yeah doing that even though it's like as an adult that watches movies exclusively this way i picked up on it right but that's you know yeah we're watching it through the lens that we've trained ourselves to watch we're looking for it through also does stanley tucci play the same character in this movie as he does in the devil wears prada yes question answer yes yes yes yes a thousand times yet i love the tooch but i do think that alan cumming could have played this just as well and that alfred molina could have played it just as well alfred molina interesting i mean alfred molina is our best friend same bias, he's great, but he just wouldn't have gone there first. And it's a real crime that I wouldn't.

A lot of people make that mistake. A lot of people make the mistake of not going to Alfred Molina first. He's available to do podcasts, so he can be in your mood. I am really growing as a person just talking to you guys right now. You're welcome. It's amazing. That's the true mission of this podcast is to get alfred molina cast in more roles just to go back to the the weapons discussion very

quickly yes um according to a study from the gina davis institute ever heard of her uh which does a lot of great work fellow mensa member g, Gina Davis. And Olympic Archer, which is what this is about. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Institute conducted a study that concluded that seven in 10 girls

who had taken up archery say that Katniss from The Hunger Games and Princess Merida from Pixar's Brave influenced their decision to take up archery. That's great. That's cool. And it makes perfect sense.

I buy it because I want to do it too. Right. I mean, and it shows something that we talk about a lot, which is that representation matters. And this study is specifically about archery. But similar studies have been done about showing showing women in computer science and other like STEM fields and showing those women in those roles in media and not influencing girls and young women to pursue careers in those fields and stuff like that. I mean, the more you're represented or the more a specific thing is represented, the more people, especially young people, will think, think oh i can do that too female ghostbusting has gone up 900 percent since 2016 um no but that totally i mean and that's why we're always like pushing for more movies about like women who are also athletes and stuff like that

because it does it does make a difference i think that one of the strengths of this movie is that so it is based on source material from a female author who also was allowed to adapt her own work for the screen. There's three credit of writers Suzanne Collins, Gary Ross and a man bafflingly named Billy Ray. No Cyrus. No Cyrus is not. Why would you not have a Cyrus on the end of that? It's like, finish the sentence, sir. Don't leave me hanging. But it seems as if, because they're both prolific screenwriters, that they probably had more of a role in just helping Suzanne Collins adapt. But she also has a history of, she was a TV writer.

She wrote for Clarissa Explains It All. Oh. And a number of other, and The Mystery F shelby woo oh my god so many female levels yeah so it is and it is cool of like i feel like it's not very common that especially when there's like i think that this movie definitely benefited from her adapting it like god knows what would have happened if three men had adapted this work for real it would have made her too sexy and grossy. Which is another thing that I wanted. It would be real grossy.

Josie grossy. Josie grossy. And there's also a legendary female producer involved in this, Nina Jacobson, who was one of the only women to head a Hollywood film studio ever. So it seems like there were women in power who were steering this movie in the right direction. And then the last thing I wanted to mention was although there is a male cinematographer and a male director, I felt like the way that Jennifer Lawrence,

who is very often objectified in movies, her body is not made a feast of in this movie. Yeah, not for a moment. Yeah. So props to the movie for not, you know, just making it about her body. Most of the time she's in full, like, protection. I mean, we talked about mother! Exclamation point.

And how that's truly the worst movie. You're just like, keep us out of your relationship, Aronofsky. I don't want anything to do with this. But yeah, I mean, instead it's just like a million, like very, very tight close-up shots of her face. And brain, yeah. Oh yeah, her braids. And her brain. And her braids, yeah.

And her many braids. I would just like to throw out there real quick that the album that came out that is not the soundtrack but it's hunger games songs from district 12 which are just like a lot of like kind of dark blue grassy and it's all that it's just one album that it's just that over and over it's really good that's so weird no there's this whole album where it's just like inspired by. Oh, that's cool. And it's really good. Like Arcade Fire's on there. Nico Case is on there. Oh, wow.

Well, District 12 must be. It's like cool men in country. So it's like Appalachia, which is like where I grew up. Brag. Damn. Hashtag proud brag. Proud Appalachia. Just like a quick fire list of last

thoughts I had Haymitch calls Katniss sweetheart no less than like six times in the movie very annoying he is not a feminist icon and I don't think he's framed as one no no no he's supposed to be shout out to the I don't know if we ever learn her name or what

district she's from but the girl with red hair. Oh, Double Bun. Double Bun. Yes. That's her character name. There it is. Who makes it almost all the way to the very end.

Loved her. And she's, like, another type who, like, doesn't want to kill anyone. But she's just trying to outlast. thing i wanted to say is that like i was kind of worried that because female characters are so often presented in movies as like having to be this like polite nice never would do anything wrong because women are high held to a higher standard than men of like just being perfect and polite all the time that like katniss wouldn't kill anybody that she would or just like maybe passively kill someone but she like oh she kills people a few different people I was like does does yeah does

PETA kill anyone I'm like PETA does not kill anyone I don't think it's too busy painting you can't decorate he is he had took him six hours to paint himself like a rock he should have realistically he should have been killed in the time it took for him to paint himself.

The only reason he got stabbed was because he wouldn't stop painting himself as a rock when somebody attacked him. No, so he was fully painted as a rock and that guy was running and tripped and fell. He's like, oh! But he's like, yes. He's like, keep it together.

Got me again. Rocks don't feel pain. Two last things real quick. On the train to the Capitol, Haymitch asks Katniss if she will pass the marmalade. So Haymitch is basically Paddington. Second, I mean, Paddington is a million times better. So let me rephrase. I mean, but I mean, Paddington, I know Paddington is a million times better.

So let me rephrase. Feminist icon. I mean, you're not wrong. He is a feminist icon. Hamish is trying to emulate Paddington in this scene, but he does not succeed because Hamish sucks and Paddington would give him a hard stare. And Paddington would never wear that wig. Or be drunk. Paddington wears raincoats. He's not getting wet.

He's always prepared to be wet, though. Really, he should have been in The Hunger Games. He would have won. He would have died immediately. Almost instantly. Finally, there is a cat that belongs to, I think, Prim, that hisses at Katniss

at the very beginning. Just reminder that cats do have eight nipples that hisses at Katniss at the very beginning. Just a reminder that cats do have eight nipples, and that's Katniss with Caitlin. Yes, and Katniss. Katniss? Katniss. Wow. Good point. How many nipples does a Katniss have? I was on the phone with my boyfriend, and I accidentally called her Kat Call Everdeen three times.

I was like, yeah, Kat Call. And he was like, no, no, no. Any other final thoughts? No, no, no, no, no. That's all I got. All right. Does the movie pass the Bechdel test? Yeah.

It does. Yeah. Doesn't it never not pass the Bechdel test? I mean, when women are talking, it's rarely about a man. It's not about trying to stay alive. It's about being being hungry what they should do if katniss dies right yeah how they should not be hungry dystopia is going to be doing a lot for the bechdel test we just will not have time yeah to talk about men yeah talk about survival like

does it happen even once that it does not pass that like two women talk about men yeah i feel like maybe the dad comes up gets brought up yeah dad yeah like what's her name elizabeth banks i think is maybe talking to her about the pita fakery something but most of the time between like katniss and prim katniss and her mom katniss and effie and and rue it's passing the Bechdel test. I'd say 99.9% is always passing. Which is very impressive for a movie this popular to more often than not be passing

the Bechdel test. For sure. Yay movie. Hurrah. Let's rate the movie on our nipple scale. 0 to 5 nipples based on its representation and treatment of women. I'm going to go with I suppose a three because on one hand it's like okay great you got this like kick-ass young woman who the young people who this franchise is for

can like plug themselves into and see an awesome kick-ass strong female protagonist represented on screen it really bugs me about the love triangle and the romantic relationship that feels very wedged in and unnecessary the failure to be more inclusive when it comes to race and the casting choices stuff like that but it is cool that she gets to you know use a weapon to kill people with and not a frying pan so yeah points for that um i'll give one nipple to rue i'll give one nipple to the tooch and i'll give my last nipple to two buns the girl with red hair who survives almost the entire time yes two clever gone too soon clever i would watch a cartoon called clever buns clever buns uh i'll go 3.5 on this one i liked it i liked it just like in general i enjoyed the

movie way more than i was expecting to and like I had a lot of fun watching it for the most part and yeah I mean I think that there this movie makes some pretty egregious errors in regards to how race is depicted when it seems like the source material was there for that to not happen um so don't like that I like Katn's character. I feel like she checks a lot of boxes, even though I found her to be boring personally. I guess the thing I'm really deducting nipples for, if we're getting into the weeds on it, is I just like I wish that Rue was not sacrificed to give Katniss more, which again, I think is sort of like if she were not the only woman of color that would be a less egregious thing but because of the way it's presented it's just like it just

seems like you're sacrificing one of your only black characters to reinforce the white woman's mission which is like I don't love that uh and and just kind of what we were all talking about with I feel like there was a lot of stuff that we picked up on in this movie that the intended audience might not necessarily pick up on. Right. So hitting, I mean, in YA movies, you got to really kind of hit the points rather hard for them to get across. It's true.

So I'll go 3.5, though. I enjoyed it. I'll give one to Prim, because I liked her. I'll give one to Clever Buns. I'll give one to Rue. And I'll give my halfie to Mr. Kravitz. Yes. Very good.

Kelly, Lindsay? I'm going to do a 3.75. I love when it gets exact. Yeah. i'm gonna do a 3.75 um level when it gets exactly yeah well because i'm a little more okay with the romance just because i do like romances i wish it was done better all of my deductions are going to be because of mostly because of how race is kind of handled i just think you can't help but look at this and it with the like the things that we know now the wetness of the wig is i'm that's maybe a full nipple that i think so the bulk of it is is the wet wig okay um but like you know i think because

i actually i almost hate it more when things are too ham-fisted and when things are too like bonking you on the head with like this is feminist like i am okay with it just because i'm being selfish and just purely rating this on how i'm liking it rather than like how i would have liked it at 13 sure to me i think it did handle like hey this is kind of how the patriarchy is treating women and like kind of parading them around and and that kind of thing so for me that's that's why it sits at a pretty 3.75 so i'm gonna do one one for clever buns because i did like her she really ended up being the hero of this unsung hero i was gonna say she's the mvp of hunger games she was she was so busy she was really fucking hustling yeah hustling um one for oh katniss's

uh leather jacket at the beginning oh good um one for rue because i did really love rue and i wished i also wish she didn't die and then 0.75 to the tuchus teeth oh Oh, yes. They were so good. Thank you for not letting that drop off. Irresponsible of me as a veneer scholar to not point out. Yes. I mean, just very like chicklety veneers. Really.

Full on. It's amazing you can understand a word he says. Yes. But he's a professional. He's a professional. Always a professional. What if he like had to train 10 hours a day to learn how to talk with those veneers i went to veneer training 10 000 hours before filming began um let's see how about you i so uh as far as like just full-on movie review

i would do three nips as far as uh ethnic diversity a mere one nip as far as female representation and this is mostly based on the actual content and intention less so on direction i think direction is where the messaging fell short perhaps and where things got muddy i don't think it was the writing i think the writing was very solid so i'm gonna give it four i'm gonna give it four nips for just female representation and that's one of the things where the hunger games uh fall short where the twilight franchise does not because the first installment of the twilight franchise was directed by a woman where you would think that the hunger games would benefit from a female director because it would and they did not make the

right choice. We gotta do more Twilight movies on the podcast. Well, but then I don't think Catherine Hardwick ever directs a Twilight movie again because sexism. Right, it's true. It's true. Anyway, two to Clever Buns.

Great, thank you you full set for one to rue and one to ruse really artfully done funeral bed oh beautiful funeral bed found a lot of good fan art surrounding that oh yeah that makes sense i bet i well done honorable mention to pita as a rock. Oh, Peeta as a rock. No one gave Peeta as a rock. Peeta as a rock. But it's just because he was in disguise so well

and rocks don't have nipples. Yeah, that is why. He was concealed. Yeah, that is why. Covered in nipples. Were Clever Buns Buns just nipples? I mean, yes. a deep feminist reading does reveal clever nips uh well thanks to the both of you for coming on the podcast thank you so much for

having us this is very fun what would you like to plug where can people follow you online individually as a podcast you name it i. I am Kelly Nugent. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Kelly Nugent, K-E-L-L-Y-N-U-G-E-E. If you have El Rey Network on your cable package, you can watch me on El Rey Nation. That is Thursday nights, 7.30 p.m. Pacific, where I talk about all things pop culture. You can listen to my podcast, Same Day Shipping, where I ship everyone with everyone. And you can also listen to me and Lindsay's podcast, Teen Creeps, where we review YA pulp fiction like Christopher Pike, R.L. Stine, and many, many more.

We'll have to get you on the podcast now. We already had Jamie. Come full circle. So I'm Lindsay K. Tye. You can follow me on Instagram and Twitter at L-I-N-D-S-A-Y-K-A-T-A-I. And please check out the Cartoon Network show Infinity Train, which is out there to find now. Finally.

Very excited. I think everybody who watches it will like it. Incredible. Thank you so much for coming. Thanks for having us. And may the odds ever be in your favor. Oh, we have to plug stuff too. You can follow us. I was like,

are we going to keep going? You can catch us on all the social medias at Bechdelcast. You can sign up for our Patreon at Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon, at patreon.com slash Bechdelcast, where we're serving you two extra episodes a month for $5. What a bargain. Wow. two extra episodes a month for five dollars what a bargain and you can get our merch on our merch store at tpublic.com slash the bechtel cast we've got stay tuned for clever buns merch feminist icon pita as a rock

yeah that would be so good oh if you could somehow get the, like, do something with a Chevy logo. Like, painted as a rock. And then, like, PETA popping out of it. With a huge gaping wound in his thigh. I love living in niche culture. Absolutely. It's good. Maybe that'll be in our merch store.

But, yeah, check us out on all those places. Also Bechtelcast.com for our live appearances and things like that. Because, you know, we have live shows here and there. Yeah. And once again, may the odds be ever in your favor. Bye. Bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated.

Crooks Everywhere unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadson. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know

we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious

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