Authorized Thirst Trap Contributor Tom Bryce feels sorry for all of us who are British and profess to not be naturally blonde. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Fire up your time machine, pull up your nets, and dust off your old Tumblr accounts — 2012 is making a comeback. Along with his eclectic fashion and disturbing music, his “Hunger Games” series is one of the most trending pop culture phenomena of the 2010s, once again in the spotlight.
In 2020, Suzanne Collins, author of the Hunger Games series, surprised the world with a prequel to her beloved book, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes..” The book follows the formative years of President Coriolanus Snow, a character who up until this point in the series had been portrayed as a terrifying villain. The Coriolanus Snow portrayed in the prequels was still that villain, still terrifyingly twisted, but with a hint of vulnerability given to him by his youth. However, once the movie’s trailer was released, all of that stopped mattering.
When Tom Bryce, who plays the young president in this film, steps into the frame, morality quickly melts like snow in the hot spring sun. Six feet tall, with a chiseled face and a dashing smile, Bryce could only be described as a Hollywood beauty. As expected, the crowd went wild.
Fan enthusiasm reached an all-time high when footage of the film began to be released on social media. Overnight, edits of the character were plastered all over the internet, with the caption: “I know it’s his fault, but…”
The hysteria over Bryce’s portrayal of such an insidious character raises some interesting questions. Does a character’s appeal, whether implied or realized, influence the delivery of the message conveyed by the media? I would say that it does, especially in this case.
Another recent example is the Barbie movie, which was released in theaters in July 2023. This movie is all about female empowerment, and yet the message advertisers chose to capitalize on was “Am I Keno?” Mind-boggling and truly baffling.
The complete obscurity of the film’s message seems to carry over into awards season. A joke was made at the expense of the female cast at the Golden Globes, with Ryan Gosling nominated for an Oscar for his role as Ken, but Margot Robbie, who played opposite Barbie, not nominated, and Greta Gerwig also nominated. It wasn’t done. , director of the film.
All in all, The Hunger Games is a great piece of social commentary, depicting a world that is a bit far-fetched, but not completely beyond the realm of possibility. However, most readers seem to have forgotten the finer aspects of this criticism in favor of the romantic subplots and flamboyant fashions of the Capitol. Because the more beautiful evil is, the more smoothly it disappears. Viewers don’t even know what hit them until the end credits start rolling.
With that in mind, let’s return to the issue of President Snow. Would moviegoers have left The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes with a different feeling if Snow hadn’t been so Hollywood glamorous? Once again, the answer is yes. The attractiveness of the snow was part of the trap. No one wants to watch an ugly movie about ugly things unless it has some kind of appeal. And in this case, that charm manifested itself in the form of the main character.
