Frank Kogan

Finally saw The Hunger Games.* Had the thought that it would not work to gender reverse the two main roles. By "not work" I mean "not work for me as a viewer of a current American or Western European movie or TV show, as opposed to in life where it may well come reversed and 'work' as such." And "not work for me" doesn't mean I wouldn't accept it even if it were done well, but rather that I don't believe it could be done well. It wouldn't click emotionally or aesthetically. I'll also say that this is a mostly untested hypothesis on my part, as I've seen very few 21st century movies and little 21st century TV. So I don't know how the roles are frequently gendered these days or what's done well or not.

Won't say more about Hunger Games in the main post so as not to spoilerate it on the small chance that someone is reading who hasn't seen it. But anyone who wants can have at it in the comments. Sixty years ago such roles likely would have been the opposite in gender and often enough would have worked very well.**

Not that the two movies are all that similar to The Hunger Games — and they're far better in a whole number of ways — but in both Red River (1948) and The Searchers (1956) there's a woman who appears early and whose subsequent absence is felt extremely. Whereas now I don't think you could cast the main character as a guy, or that the gender of the absent person would be definitive. Well, you could cast the main character as a guy, but I'm hypothesizing that it wouldn't work.*** Ditto East Of Eden (1955). You'd likely have to gender reverse James Dean and Julie Harris. I don't think you could have a guy equivalent to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, though again you may well get one in life. And for all I know you're getting them in movies and on TV and I'm not seeing it; but my hypothesis is that when you get them they don't work all that well.

I realize that this post will be quite confusing for someone who can't correctly guess my reasons for not thinking the Hunger Games roles are gender-reversible.

Fwiw, I don't think it works to gender reverse Miranda Lambert's "Kerosene" or "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" or "Gunpowder And Lead," but I'll add that in fact Tyler Farr's "Redneck Crazy" (2013) is a gender-reversed "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," and it went country top ten. But it doesn't work for me. And again, "doesn't work for me" doesn't mean "it couldn't conceivably work for me given my own attitudes," since all sorts of shit works for me (Rocko's "U.O.E.N.O." is on my end-of-year long list). Just that it has nothing like the depth and excitement of the Lambert tracks.

[EDIT: And Red River, The Searchers, and East Of Eden still work for me fine, better than the Hunger Games, and I don't think that's merely because I'm able to put them in the context of their times.]

Unrelated to this: is anyone else not getting email notifications from livejournal? I'm still getting notified via livejournal messages, so I don't think I'm missing anything. But lj comments aren't even showing up in my EarthLink spam filter, which I've instructed to hold messages and not to automatically delete anything.

*First installment. Haven't read the book. Btw, I have all sorts of issues with how the thing was plotted in regards to who gets to kill whom and how we're supposed to take it. It panders. But it works pretty well, 'cause the two main characters work.

**"Opposite" deserves scare quotes but I decided that sticking 'em in would be too much of a speed-bump. I can't problematize everything that's problematic.

***Unless maybe they were gay?

What's working for me through three episodes: the banter. That's the show, really. The high school world is referred to rather than actually created. The vampires/witches so far are so what. The relationship between Buffy and her mom is played for laughs (Mom thinks Buffy is a typically inscrutable teen, whereas Buffy can't let Mom in on what's happening since it's all about vampires and witches and dead people); it's potentially touching but isn't something I feel yet.

( Psyches, danger, Stumpy )

(No spoilers, please.)