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Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Last summer, my best friend, Sophie and I spent 15 hours in 26 minutes, rewatching all of the hunger games and divergent movies for us. The experience wasn't about the quality or caliber of the movie, but the nostalgia we prepared for our first year of college by returning to the super fandom of our early adolescence. I called Sophie to reflect on why we love those movies in the first place.
Speaker 2 00:00:30 I think still seeing rep like representation for strong female. Um, character is still there and still speaks to me. And I know still speaks to you
Speaker 1 00:00:40 Like Sophie and I. So many now young adult women grew up idolizing the 2000 to 10 to 2016 version of dystopia media and literature. Canis Everdeen interest Pryor were seen as strong, independent role models. Their bravery in the face of utter disaster was complimented by their identity as a young woman.
Speaker 2 00:01:02 I think it was the first time that we were seeing really popular young adult books that had female heroins. Um, for a majority of like children's books, it was always centered on like a male character. And then maybe there was like a female counterpart or a female side kick, but we never really saw a strong female protagonist. And I think that the air of dystopian novels really brought that in and as, um, a young girl trying to figure out who she was and obviously books are extremely influential, influential in that area. And so I think just that powerful female figure really drew me to the dystopian novel
Speaker 1 00:01:42 Idolizing character like cat or tri offered Northwestern freshman, Evelyn Driscoll the opportunity to strengthen her relationship with her four sisters
Speaker 3 00:01:51 From a family with a lot of girls. I have four sisters and then of course my mom, um, so I've always grown up around strong female role models, but I think that, um, yeah, I think that us both being able to have a similar strong female role model, um, just showed how we each can be strong with each other, if that makes sense. And it kind of just like, I don't know, like it bonds us like in our womanhood obviously. Um, and
Speaker 4 00:02:16 Do you think there's something we said with the main characters of these dystopian, you know, books, movies, mainly being women?
Speaker 3 00:02:23 Um, yeah, definitely. Um, I think that obviously when we grew up or when we grew up super young, we didn't have a ton of like strong female role models. Of course the only really female role models we had were like princesses from the Disney movies, which of course they're often a lot of like passive roles where they're not the ones doing, um, the saving in a sense. And I think, think that through, um, books like divergent and through books, like the hunger games, it was crazy that the main character was a woman and it was also, it's also just cool how physically strong these women were. Like, of course they're mentally strong and like emotionally super strong, but they're also very physically strong and that's something that's not often portrayed in novels. Um, and yeah, so it kind of inspires me and I know it inspired my sister,
Speaker 1 00:03:16 The values of bravery and standing up for what you believe in are apparent in these dystopian films for the hunger games. It is especially prevalent its connection to sisterhood on
Speaker 5 00:03:26 Dear. I, I volunteer a tribute
Speaker 3 00:03:31 Sister dressing up as cat. Oh yeah. Um, so my sister actually had like a huge obsession with the hunger games. She, I remember she had this big poster in her room that was very close up of Jennifer Lawrence and she actually, so we used to take sewing classes together and she actually made a cat costume. Um, and we went and got the fabric for it and she made it and dressed up as her for Halloween
Speaker 1 00:03:57 Northwestern, freshman, Ava a and Doley also found dystopia in middle school. Those
Speaker 6 00:04:03 Characters were like my role models. Right. And they especially like as a young girl, you know, middle school is a, is a rough time. And, um, to be able to like look up to someone that it seems so fearless, it's, it's nice to have when you feel like insecure,
Speaker 1 00:04:24 Ava's interest in the hunger game has remained, but now she's considering it in a slightly new light,
Speaker 6 00:04:29 You get into high school and then you have to start turning off this, like Englishy thinking. Right. And so I'm like analyzing them. I'm like, what kind of critique on capitalism is this like <laugh> with the capital will be like the center of consumerism and, and whatnot. And then them like pitting all the lower classes against each other. So it was, it was funny to, uh, re-watch it, um, a couple of years later and like find new meaning in it, I guess, cuz I did not think of that when I was 14
Speaker 1 00:05:00 And ever came to these conclusions after she spent her 20, 20 lockdown, both rewatching the hunger games and doing a little light reading on political theory,
Speaker 6 00:05:10 They make me root for the underdog, you know? And I was like, when I was reading like this more like academic, I don't know like political theory, I felt the same way
Speaker 1 00:05:22 Freshman Nikki Gandi took a dystopian literature class, her senior year of high school though the course work was mostly focused on dystopian classics like fi for vendetta or we, she found that the class was bonded together and their love for the dystopian books they grew up on.
Speaker 7 00:05:38 Um, but I honestly think taking that class and reading those books made me appreciate them a lot more because I was like, I was surrounded by like kids my age who had also like gone through a similar thing where their like first exposure to dystopian literature were things like the hunger games were, um, like have these happy endings.
Speaker 1 00:05:56 Nikki also noticed a difference in the dystopian. She studied versus the books she enjoyed while the books in class were more Scholastic by nature, the dystopian stories she grew up on featured a sense of hopefulness that stuck with her.
Speaker 7 00:06:10 I think a lot of us talked about like how books like that and like growing up with books like that really helped us sort of deal with a lot of the issues that we were seeing around us. And that was something that we talked about a lot was this idea that like, even when things look really bad, like there's still always a way for them to get better.
Speaker 1 00:06:29 She sees the influence of dystopian literature playing out in youth activism today.
Speaker 7 00:06:34 There are like many factors that contributed, but uh, blah, like past couple years, like the rise of like youth activism and stuff like that, like obviously there's a ton of reasons why that happened. But I do think like one of the reasons is because like a lot of us have grown up with this literature that sort of gives us this idea that like one and it's always like one like normal girl or normal boy, like can like change the whole society that they live in. Um, and so I think people like growing up, like reading those messages over and over again and like seeing those messages like in movies and stuff like those were the big movies when we were growing up. Um, definitely sort of gives you a little bit more hope that like you, as an individual can make more change
Speaker 1 00:07:17 And there's one poor dystopian question. Every super fan agrees on
Speaker 8 00:07:22 Like I have one final question.
Speaker 7 00:07:23 Okay, perfect
Speaker 8 00:07:24 Pet or team Gail
Speaker 7 00:07:27 Pet all the way. I was always team pet
Speaker 2 00:07:30 Team pet for life team pet for life. Josh Huon. If you see this, I love you. Definitely
Speaker 3 00:07:34 Team pet, definitely team pet, anyone team gal is just wrong. They just have not read the
Speaker 1 00:07:40 Books for w N R news. I'm Ellie Skelly.
