The Hunger Games and movie relationships

At NPR, Linda Holmes writes about The Hunger Games, focusing on the way that the movie (and, by extension, the books) subverts normal blockbuster relationships, arguing that Peeta is portrayed as a typical movie girlfriend while Gale plays the part of a typical movie boyfriend:

Don’t get me wrong: In real life, we all know couples of all gender alignments who operate in this way and in lots of other ways, whether they’re male-female or two guys or two women or whatever; there’s absolutely nothing about baking, physical strength, or emotional accessibility that is inherently gendered in real life for real humans with any consistency. But the movies, or at least the big movies, are different. Going by the traditional Hollywood rules, make no mistake: Peeta is a Movie Girlfriend.

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In fact, you could argue that Katniss’ conflict between Peeta and Gale is effectively a choice between a traditional Movie Girlfriend and a traditional Movie Boyfriend. Gale, after all, is the one whose bed she winds up steadfastly sitting beside after she helps bind his wounds. Gale explains the revolution to her. She puts up a plan to run; Gale rebuffs it because he presumes himself to know better. Gale is jealous and brooding about his standing with her; Peeta is just sad and contemplative.

My sense was that there was a lot more kissing between Katniss and Gale in the movie than in the book, so it will be interesting to see how the movie versions of these relationships play out in the two-part Mockingjay.

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