Katniss Takes Aim at a New Generation

‘Katniss Takes Aim at a New Generation’

A Scholarly Discussion of JLaw, ‘The Hunger Games’, and ‘No Hard Feelings’ by James P. McCabe.

In IMDb Mini Bio-speak, Jennifer Lawrence is “often cited as the most successful actress of her generation. She is also the first person born in the 1990s to have won an acting Oscar”.1

The role she is most famous for to date is that of Katniss Everdeen in the hugely popular ‘Hunger Games’ trilogy.

How popular is the ‘Hunger Games’ trilogy of YA books, and then the subsequent films?

Why did it hit such popularity with the young audience, and what does the character of Katniss represent to them?

The trilogy sold over 100 million copies worldwide and is translated into 54 languages.

‘The Hunger Games’ is the 21st-highest-grossing film franchise of all time, having grossed over US$2.97 billion worldwide.

I myself am a fan especially of the first film in the series, which I thought was produced and directed in such a way as to resemble a rough-hewn independent work, almost like a manifesto, light on the obvious effects work and heavy on intimate, personal moments and intense, unpredictable action sequences.

‘After she is selected twice to be in (the Hunger Games) and survives, she (Katniss) teaches her readers the importance of courage, nerve, and never, ever compromising yourself or your beliefs. It is one of the only pieces of advice Katniss' Hunger Games mentor, Haynitch, imparts to her’.6

Only 20 years old when she began work on the first film, Jennifer Lawrence’s embodiment of the character of Katniss is inarguable. The moment in which Katniss stands and announces that she is taking the place of her young sister in the Games secures her place in the history of cinema permanently. Katniss does so acting entirely on her own sense of right and wrong… there is no suggestion of any kind of spiritual reward to come… such spirituality cancelled out by the existence of the Games themselves…

That was eleven years ago.

Jennifer’s new film, a comedy called ‘No Hard Feelings’, landed on Netflix last week (as of October 26, 2023), ­and has now rocketed to the very top of the most-watched list.2

Lawrence, familiarly known as ‘JLaw’, is one of the producers of this new film, which was given generally good reviews and defined as an ‘R rated Comedy/Drama’.

JLaw is almost always given especially high marks for her antics in the film, of which there are many, and her ‘true comedic chops’. ‘A surprising old school romantic comedy, totally politically incorrect’.4

My observation is that JLaw/Katniss, only twenty when the first ‘Hunger Games’ film was done, has now reached her early 30’s, and here turns to confront, deal with and relate to the next generation of filmgoers that has come of age after her. There’s an underlying theme here that merits closer inspection…

Rather than take up space running through the plot of ‘No Hard Feelings’, I’ll leave it for you to see, if you haven’t already, and get on with my thesis…

I see the use of the tune ‘Down on the Street’, by Iggy and the Stooges, as a musical choice and framing device, to be of primary importance in discussing the film. For one thing, it helps emphasize (Jennifer’s character) Maddie’s physicality... the first time we hear it is when we see her powering her way up a steep hill on roller skates- having no other way to get to work. The choice of a song (presumably by 46-year-old director Gene Stupnitsky) from 1970 widens the intended audience for the film considerably, to include not just 17 to 34-year olds, but also older people like myself, who would know it from freshman year in college, or even high school, and that’s certainly why I got interested in it enough to look into it further.5

I’m going to go a little bit further out, and suggest that the very presence of the song hints at an existential Heart of Darkness lurking under the rom-com surface. When it comes to nihilism there’s no one better at it than the Stooges; there has to be a reason for it to be there. So let’s see what we can find…

Maddie does not relate well to Percy’s Princeton bound friends. In the frat party sequence, she appears to them as threatening as a huge Morlock crashing a crowd of tiny, playful Eloi… they recognize her more as a potential Terminator, rather than as the ‘oh what a lady, oh what a night’ gift his parents intend her to be, and they respond accordingly…

Jennifer’s co-star Andrew Barth Feldman was 19 and a student at Harvard when he was tapped for the role of Percy.

The choice of the name ‘Percy’ for Jonathan’s character tends to suggest that he’s not the world’s most physical guy- although the idea that his parents might have named him after an obscure Kinks song is kind of an, er, stretch…

The film makes the point that this up and coming generation is far more conservative than Maddie’s: ‘Doesn’t anybody f**k anymore?’ she roars in one revelatory moment when she barges in on an unsuspecting frat couple in bed...

Lawrence seems to be saying to her audience that she has been in total control of her hard-partying talk show doppelganger the whole time.

Where she once griped relentlessly about the all over body make up required for her X-Man First Class character, whom she christened “Mistink’ (shape-shifter Mystique), she now seems to have not too much trouble indulging in a totally Nude-Ninja beach sequence, one of the film’s most talked-about highlights…

We hear ‘Down on the Street’ again towards the film’s end, as Maddie, in fact both characters, are realizing that they are going to have to use a certain amount of physical strength in order to bring the situational conflicts to an acceptable conclusion…

It’s a small gesture, and the camera comes in tight on it, when Maddie summons the strength to tear up an envelope having to do with her long-absent father, and in doing so, lets go of her hope that they might someday be reunited…

Percy, meanwhile, has reverted to a totally childish state by trashing the car that is meant as payment to Maddie as hard as he can… not having any other way to express his feeling of betrayal… he has to tear himself away from his cool teenage bedroom, his parents’ home, and his overly romanticized idea of Maddie, and get himself on the road to his future…

So if there is a bleak core of nihilism to the film, it remains hidden… unless you want to count the line, “You’re still a virgin, Percy”, which she muses practically to herself after a key exchange…

The film ends on a note of ambivalence, as this genial war of generations comes to a draw… Maddie is adamant about moving far away to start her new life, yet she offers to go out of her way to drop Percy off at college first… and Percy, who is supposed to be a Type A Master Of The Universe after his affair with Maddie, ends up bargaining with her about the possibility of continuing the relationship well into the fade out…

Meanwhile, a new installment of the Hunger Games series, ‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’, said to be a prequel to the trilogy, from a book by Suzanne Collins and directed by Francis Lawrence, is looming on the horizon for theatrical release next week (November 16, 2023). This time we’ll be concentrating on the story of the young man who becomes President Snow in the later works. Will it be as dark and ‘dystopian’ as its predecessors? The lyrics are there, so let’s let Iggy say it best:

A thousand lights Look at you A thousand lights Look at you I'm lost I'm lost I'm lost, yeah…7

1. IMDb Mini Biography By: Ben Lawrence

2. By Rory Mellon for Tom’s Guide, published October 26, 2023

3. By Danielle Paquette for The Washington Post, April 27, 2015 at 8:23 a.m. EDT.

“We’re beginning to learn what ‘Generation Katniss’ really cares about — and why it matters”.

4. IMDb: J-Law is hilarious, by Top Dawg, Critic. Published 26 June 2023.

5. ‘Down on the Street’ from the 1970 album ‘Fun House’ by the Stooges, on Electra. The group’s second album, thought to be extraordinary in its ability to make the concept of physicality audible. Who says that? I do.

6. From Wikipedia, Mar 23, 2012.

7. ‘Down on the Street’ Songwriters: David Alexander / James Osterberg / Ronald Asheton / Scott Asheton. Down on the Street lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Warner Chappell Music, Inc