How about a flash card for this gif?

gif taken from reallyattractivepeople

Book description for Feminist Ryan Gosling: Feminist Theories from Your Favorite Sensitive Movie Dude (from Amazon):

What started as a silly way for blogger Danielle Henderson and her classmates to keep track of the feminist theorists they were studying in class quickly turned into an overnight sensation. Since its launch in October 2011, the Feminist Ryan Gosling blog has close to 30,000 followers and more than 3 million page views per month.

In this hilarious book based on the wildly popular blog, the author pairs swoon-worthy photos of the steamy actor with sensitive feminist theories and plenty of sweet talk. Included are 120 full-color photos and captions throughout, with some of the best entries from the blog along with 70 to 80 percent brand-new material for the book.

Can't wait to have my hands on Ryan Gosling this book.

The Curious Case of Ana Ivanovic

The video features highlights from the high-quality 2008 French Open semifinal featuring Ana Ivanovic and her fellow Serbian, Jelena Jankovic. Ana, dressed in a sleek, pink adidas kit would go on to defeat JJ in three sets in this match, book her third Grand Slam final (her second straight for 2008), become the #1 ranked women's tennis player in the world and win her first Slam trophy (beating Russian Dinara Safina). Ana was arguably the most popular Serbian during this time, even more popular than her childhood friend and fellow tennis player, Novak Djokovic. She even got me to start watching tennis again because I just absolutely loved her game. She hits the ball very cleanly and has a lovely, but lethal, forehand that she could hit from different sides of the court even if off-balanced. Ana also has a made for Hollywood story to tell that made me adore her even more (imagine arranging your practice sessions while dodging NATO bombs in war-torn Serbia and honing your tennis skills in an abandoned swimming pool for lack of a better facility?). 

Beautiful, smart, genuinely nice and charming (an anti-mean girl) and, most importantly, a very talented tennis player, Ana was the perfect face to represent the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) after Justine Henin's sudden retirement (she would come back in 2010 but then retire again in 2011 due to an elbow injury) and the Williams sisters inability to regularly compete in tournaments. The WTA finally hit the jackpot with Ana at #1 and Maria Sharapova at #2 (this was before Sharapova was sidelined by a shoulder injury that almost ended her career). Ana would, however, turn out to be the biblical Job of women's tennis. Niggling injuries, bad luck and humiliating losses (imagine losing in the second round of a Grand Slam tournament to the 188th-ranked player in the world while you're still #1 and be on the opposite end of probably the greatest upset in the history of sports) soon followed her Cinderella story. The pressure of being a marketable, top-ranked player was just too much for her to bear (for an account of her struggles for the past four years, click here). What followed was a long slump peppered with stops and gos, a loss in confidence and a dramatic fall in rankings (she fell to #65 in July of 2010). Fans (*ahem*) would get excited with a couple of good wins only to be deflated afterwards when she suffers a bad loss or when she picks up an injury that would derail her progress once again.

Amidst the bad breaks, heartbreaking losses and calls for her to drop tennis and take up modelling full time (the slump has thankfully never affected her good looks), Ana plodded on injury after injury and bad loss after another. She endured the endless questioning from the media about her poor form with enough insight, wit and self-deprecating humor (Ana fans picked up and learned to poke fun at her to cope with the heartbreaking losses). Always on the look out for ways to turnaround her game, Ana hired and fired several coaches (she's currently being coached by Nigel Sears) and just refused to give up. When Ana plays well, she's like an action hero who imperiously beats up her opponents to submission. When she loses, she's like a female version of Superman who wilts from kryptonite and steals defeat from the jaws of victory.

Fast forward to today and she's still not the same player that she was back in 2008. While Ana seems to have had the best start of the year than she has had in the last couple of years (a good showing at the Australian Open, Dubai and Indian Wells), she has so far not found her form on clay just yet. Considered her best surface (she was a back-to-back French Open finalist in 2007 and 2008), she is so far struggling on clay (4-8 win-loss record on this surface since 2010, currently 1-2 this year), which is unfortunate since she could pick up a lot of points during this time of the year to enable her to inch closer to the top 10 (she's currently at #15) and qualify for the WTA Year End Championships later this year. I hope she picks it up in her upcoming clay tournaments.

As a fan, I don't know if she could still be that fearless, adidas pink dress-wearing Ana from 2008 who managed to win a Grand Slam and get to #1 in one week (she hasn't reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal since winning the French Open in 2008). But there's still the hope and belief that her hard work and perseverance will be rewarded in the end. As much as people fell in love with her swimming pool story, nothing would be better than an uplifting comeback story. She's simply too nice and too talented not to have another shot at a Grand Slam title and a #1 ranking.

Wasted opportunity?

From Rappler:

In a historic vote, the Supreme Court of the Philippines voted 14-0 to reaffirm its ruling ordering Hacienda Luisita land to be distributed to farmer beneficiaries. The Hacienda Luisita estate and sugar plantation belongs to the Cojuangco side of President Benigno Aquino III and has been the subject of a decades-long, bitter and bloody legal dispute. President Aquino divested shares in Hacienda Luisita before taking office in 2010, but Chief Justice Renato Corona has said that the President has pushed for his impeachment because of the court’s rulings favoring farmers involved in the case. 

While it can be argued that SC Chief Justice Renato Corona may have ruled against the Cojuangcos to spite President Noynoy Aquino (Corona is, after all, a midnight appointee of former President Gloria Arroyo and is being suspected of using his position to serve the disgraced former President's interests), PNoy should still take this opportunity to end the long-running Hacienda Luisita issue and distribute its land to its rightful owners, the Cojuangco family a.k.a. the President's relatives landless farm workers. CJ Corona will obviously earn a lot of political brownie points for this but the decision is still the right one and PNoy should do every single thing possible to make sure that the poor farmers get what is due them. Even Congressman Edcel Lagman (a former Gloria ally) is considering this a triumph of the late President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino's (also PNoy's mother) Comprehensive Agrarian Reform program (CARP). The SC's ruling of a lower valuation for Hacienda Luisita also benefits the government cost-wise since they would be compensating the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI) at a much lower amount (they shouldn't even be compensated anymore since they've benefited from it for years at the expense of their farmers). 

PNoy, who linked poverty to widespread corruption and repeatedly encouraged the public to tread the "daang matuwid" during his 2010 electoral campaign, should not only focus his sights on the likes of CJ Corona (who is himself suspected of having ill-gotten wealth and is currently on trial himself for alleged betrayal of public trust and violation of the Constitution). PNoy should grow a political backbone, tell his relatives to buzz off and instead encourage them to take the "straight path". I hope our dear President doesn't pass up on his "golden chance at greatness" and also take this opportunity to honor his mother and deliver on his campaign promise.

Your daily BS from Anders Breivik.

Anders Breivik (photo taken from Reuters)

An appropriate punishment for this fascist murderer and enemy of multuculturalism would be lifetime, solitary imprisonment in a cell covered with happy pictures of people from all races, religion and ethnicity. This would be better than capital punishment or even waterboarding.

From the NY Times:

The man on trial here for killing 77 people last year in twin attacks said Thursday that he regretted not having killed even more and that he was justified in shooting young people at a political camp because “regardless of their age, they had taken on political leadership roles.” 

“No, I am not a child murderer,” the defendant, Anders Behring Breivik, 33, said in response to a prosecutor’s question. “If you take up membership in a political party and seek a leadership position, then you have chosen.”

He added, “In retrospect I would say there was no better political target in Norway.”

Mr. Breivik said he had also hoped to capture former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland at the political camp, and to film himself beheading her with a bayonet or knife, an execution technique that he credited to Al Qaeda. 

...

“The strategy was not to kill 69 people; the strategy was to kill them all,” he said, betraying no sign of emotion. He added that he had intended to shoot as many people as possible on the island and use the surrounding waters as a “natural weapon” to drown the rest.  

...

On Thursday, the fourth day of a trial that is expected to last 10 weeks, Mr. Breivik entered the courtroom without making the closed-fist salute he had used on the previous three mornings. A self-styled anti-Islamic militant, he has admitted the killings, but said he was acting to defend Norway against “Islamic colonization.”

...

Prosecutors depicted Mr. Breivik as a friendless loser who spent an entire year playing computer war games in his mother’s home. Mr. Breivik acknowledged that after an investment setback in December 2006, he had moved into his mother’s Oslo house.

He told the court that he knew, even in 2006, that he wanted to carry out a “suicide” attack. He said a psychiatrist’s report compiled since the attacks, in which he was depicted as saying he decided on his plans only in 2009, “was a lie.”

Mr. Breivik insisted that he did not have money problems, saying that one of the prosecutors, Svein Holden, was “giving the impression that I moved back home and rented a room in my mother’s house because I had gone bankrupt.”

“But I wanted to preserve my funds,” Mr. Breivik said, “so I could spend more time doing what I wanted to do, which was write my manifesto” — a rambling 1,500-page justification of his rampage that detailed his thoughts about the danger posed to Europe by multiculturalism and Islam.

With Mr. Holden and the other prosecutor, Inga Bejer Engh, taking a sharply more aggressive approach than in previous days, Mr. Breivik appeared sullen, and several times accused them of trying to “humiliate” him.

Mr. Breivik said he had taken the year beginning in December 2006 as a “sabbatical,” during which he spent 16 hours a day playing the video game World of Warcraft.

“I know it is important to you and the media that I played this for a year,” he told the court in response to Mr. Holden’s questions. “But it has nothing to do with July 22. It is not a world you are engulfed by. It is quite simply a hobby.”

“I had been dreaming about it all my life, to take a sabbatical to do what I always dreamed about,” he said. “Some people want to sail around the world. Some people want to play golf.”

He said he spent four months through February 2010 playing another game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, for six hours a day. That game, he said, helped him hone his shooting skills because he was able to practice with the aid of its holographic sight.

...

Without the “training” of the video game, he said, “I would not have been able to do this.”

As he drove to the island, he said, he heard on the radio that the bomb had gone off and that it was thought to be an attack by Osama bin Laden. Mr. Breivik smiled at the memory.

In response to a question, he said he considered himself an empathetic person. But when asked how he showed his empathy, he said, “Right now I am very tired. I can’t answer that.”

If Mr. Breivik is found to have been sane when he carried out the killings, the presiding judges can sentence him to up to 21 years in prison, with a provision to keep him behind bars longer if he is still considered dangerous. If he is found to be insane, Mr. Breivik can be kept in forced psychiatric care.

Hissy fit 101

How NOT to throw a tantrum:

What tantrums should look like:

Why I love tennis, especially the clay season.

From Steve Tignor's latest TENNIS.com article:

For a long time I wondered why I liked watching tennis on clay so much, and why it looked so different, so much more flowing, than it does on hard courts. Finally a friend clued me in: “I think it’s the sliding.” Oh right, the sliding. That was it. Why hadn’t I thought of that before?

I’ve read that all art forms aspire to musicality; to lose themselves in the flow. So it must be with tennis. Its players expand their palette when they walk onto clay—the drop, the lob, the angled volley, we’ve seen plenty of all of them already this week in Monte Carlo. These days, it seems more natural for players to find themselves at the net, at least temporarily, on clay than it does on hard courts. Here you get some help from the court: You can slide forward to pick up a drop shot, and then slide back to the baseline to reach the lob that comes after it.

Yes, it's also about the sliding for me. Amidst all that red (and even blue) dirt, I think players actually look more graceful playing on this surface than in a hard court or a grass court. 

More from the article:

Perhaps, also, it's because genius doesn’t get you all that much. Think about Andy Murray, another player gifted by the Hands Gods. The ever-sober Murray can do virtually anything with the ball, but he mostly chooses to play it straight and solid. Every so often, though, he’ll relax enough to do a little showing off. Up 5-0 in the first set against Viktor Troicki on Monday, Murray hit a forehand at an extreme angle, and with an extreme amount of topspin, that crossed the net and immediately dove to the court—it was a circus shot, and something I’d never seen before. Pleased with his success, Murray tried it again on the next ball, put it in the net, and yelled at himself. He must know that geniuses look cool, but you can’t count on them.

Ok, got it. No more acting cool from now on, Andy.

Another excerpt:

“Stay hungry, stay humble,” was how Mary Carillo once summed up the tennis, and life, advice that Toni Nadal gives to his nephew Rafael. It’s worked well. Today, Nadal made his 2012 debut at Monte Carlo, a tournament he’s won the last seven years. Toni was where he’s been for all of those years, in the front row at the end of one sideline.

What, rationally, could Rafa have to prove, to himself or anyone there, after all of those wins? Plenty. Everything. Watching him—this year in a peach shirt—you might have thought he was still trying to break through for title number one. He played with the same look of concerned concentration, the same nervous energy contained by a semi-superstitious attention to ritual, the same earnest looks of encouragement shared with Toni, the same temporary jitters when trying to serve out a set, the same spring in his step after winning a point and slowed-down tempo after losing one, and, when he needed them, the same dive-bomb passing shots hit on the full, clay-scattering slide. Otherwise, it was a pretty routine win.

Hunger: The most useful talent of all.

I may not be a big Rafa Nadal fan but I really appreciate the guy's desire to always improve himself and his dedication to the sport.

I guess you're mine now.

Professional golfer Adam Scott

Looks like Ana Ivanovic has split with her on-again, off-again Australian golfer boyfriend, Adam Scott. That means no more Ana Scott / Notting Hill references for the mean time. Not really too sad about this news since I think Ana looks better with this guy anyway. (Sorry, Novak's girlfriend.)

So unfair.

Angelina Jolie (photo taken from www.zimbio.com)

Hunky fiance. Check. Adorable kids. Check. Academy Award-winning actress. Check. Director. Check. Being interviewed by Anderson Cooper. Check. UNHCR special envoy. Check. Living the life that I want. Check.

No words.

2012 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Breaking News Photography (AFP)

Write-up from www.pulitzer.org:

Tarana Akbari, 12, screams in fear moments after a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in a crowd at the Abul Fazel Shrine in Kabul on December 06, 2011. 'When I could stand up, I saw that everybody was around me on the ground, really bloody. I was really, really scared,' said the Tarana, whose name means 'melody' in English. Out of 17 women and children from her family who went to a riverside shrine in Kabul that day to mark the Shiite holy day of Ashura, seven died including her seven-year-old brother Shoaib. More than 70 people lost their lives in all, and at least nine other members of Tarana's family were wounded. The blasts has prompted fears that Afghanistan could see the sort of sectarian violence that has pitched Shiite against Sunni Muslims in Iraq and Pakistan. The attack was the deadliest strike on the capital in three years. President Hamid Karzai said this was the first time insurgents had struck on such an important religious day. The Taliban condemned the attack, which some official viewed as sectarian. On the same day, a second bomber attacked in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Karzai said on December 11 that a total of 80 people were killed in both attacks. Published December 7, 2011

This is probably one of the most heartbreaking photos that I've ever come across. It's sad that this kind of loss and destruction still exists up to this day.

Frenemies

From GMA News Online:

While the Philippines remained locked in a stalemate with China over the disputed Panatag (Scarborough) shoal in the West Philippine Sea (also South China Sea), Filipino and Chinese officials in Beijing launched the "2012-2013 Philippines-China Years of Friendly Exchanges (YFE)."

According to a news release of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the YFE, launched on April 11, promotes cultural and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.

The Beijing launch, hosted by the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) and China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, came nearly a month after the Philippine launch of YFE last March 20.

President Benigno Aquino III and Chinese President Hu Jintao designated 2012 and 2013 as the Philippines-China Years of Friendly Exchanges during Aquino's State Visit to China in August 2011.

Does a "friend" poach marine life in a disputed area that you both claim and bully you around when you call them out for it? China is so like the Regina George to our Cady Herron.

Monster

Norwegian mass murderer, Anders Behring Breivik, pleaded not guilty to charges that he massacred 77 people and injured 33 others in two separate acts of terrorism last July. "I acknowledge the acts," Breivik told Oslo central court when asked to enter a plea. "But I do not plead guilty and I claim that I was doing it in self defence." WTF. He was also described as appearing defiant while in court and was even seen smirking and crying during the airing of his propaganda film. Guy's a real piece of work. I bet the devil would also be appalled by Breivik's actions.

#areyoukiddingme

Andy Murray just debuted his new battle look for the upcoming clay and grass tournaments. I just don't know if this bald look is menacing enough, though. Is he strategizing this early or does he simply adore his current coach (tennis legend Ivan Lendl) too much?

"Memes really do come true."

Taken from Texts from Hillary. Image was actually a submission from US Secretary of State Hillary "Hillz" Clinton herself. Click here for the signed copy.

I discovered the Tumblr site, Texts from Hillary, through a couple of tennis fans that I follow on Twitter. People, this is how a fan site should look like. I've always liked Secretary Hillary Clinton and, while I'm not a US citizen, I honestly believe that she is possibly the most awesomest President that the US never had. (Hillz, can you re-consider for 2016?) Seriously, Hillz > Obama. Who run the world? Girls. ZOMG, she even got a text from Mr. Perfect (a.k.a. Ryan Gosling) himself! Sadly, the creators of this hilarious Tumblr site has decided to "stop while they are ahead". ("Is it really possible to top a submission from the Secretary herself? No.") But, we'll always have the LOLz.

10 plagues of Egypt = Israeli WMDs?

illustration taken from Cartoon Movement

Dan Drezner imagines what it must be like if the Exodus actually took place in today's world of international politics. I'm still cracking up over his sample write up for Foreign Policy wherein he describes the craziness and unintentional hilarity that would ensue at the United Nations should the Exodus happen today. 

Thanks, Ana. That Diana Ross song is now stuck in my head.

Tennis stars singing by tenishaber

The French Open (Roland Garros) is probably my favorite out of all the four Grand Slam events on the tennis calendar. I just love watching the players run after balls and hit winners while sliding on the glorious red clay of Paris. It's also the first (and so far only) Slam that my absolute fave on the women's side, Ana Ivanovic, has won. I also love it because of the above video (sorry for the blurry quality). I think it's genius how the French were able to make our favorite tennis players sing and dance to cheesy karaoke songs. A few things that we can glean from the video: 

1) The French already predicted Novak Djokovic's rise to #1 as early as 2007. 

2) Roger Federer still thinks that he's the best even if he's not ranked #1. 

3) You can't make the Spanish armada sing a non-Spanish song. 

4) Michael Llodra is indeed racist. 

5) Gilles Simon is not gay. He's just a French guy who simply can't sing, dance and strip properly.

6) Ana Ivanovic will forever be a dork.

Mr. Perfect

photo taken from Feminist Ryan Gosling

Please excuse me while I pick up my jaw from the floor. Now, where was I? Oh. So Ryan Gosling (as in the guy who is more perfect than Photoshop) not only breaks up fights, he also saves ditzy damsels in distress from being hit by taxi cabs. Read the saved woman's (Laurie Penny) personal account of the story on Gawker (she calls herself "a feminist, a writer and a gentlewoman of fortune" but, while grateful to Goz, doesn't agree with her "boring supporting female role" as the "ditzy damsel in distress"). 

Is this guy for real? Even Jezebel wonders "how Ryan Gosling is even possible".

UPDATED: Why Jennifer Lawrence is awesome.

I know. I know. I've been recently hit by The Hunger Games phenomenon and I can't stop talking about it yet. I've also become a big fan of the movie's lead actress, Jennifer Lawrence and have spent quite a lot of minutes watching her interviews (I must admit that I first started following her after seeing her last year on the Late Show with David Letterman). Trust me, girlfriend's not a boring interviewee. Here are a couple of reasons why J.Law is on a different level of awesomeness, at least in my book:

1) I found it amazing how she managed to make the interviewer laugh in just eight seconds. That's a rare talent. She also says later in the video that she's not down-to-earth, she's just dumb. Here's another red carpet interview for E! wherein she leaves the interviewers in stitches.

                     

2) She's funnier than talk show hosts David Letterman and Chelsea Handler. I also love how insecure she is and how effortlessly she pokes fun at herself (she even calls herself a "troll"). Self-deprecating humor FTW. Too bad her Jimmy Fallon interview is no longer available on Youtube. She actually believes that people still go crazy over Hulk Hogan. Bless her.

3) Only J.Law can liven up a dull interview done by the younger Kardashian sisters. She even calls them out for not reading. Priceless.

4) She also gave me an idea as to how to MTV Punk'd my friends (@ 2:55). So how do you do it a la J.Law? You use a Hanson song which rhymes with a Korean food and make a family member or a close friend feel guilty for not remembering an endearing story that you just invented.

5) In one of her more serious interviews (probably because she wants to share the limelight with her other costars), J.Law answers a question about becoming a role model (@ 2:15). Awww. She's the real deal, people.

So, Jennifer Lawrence, Academy Award nominee, Hollywood's belle de jour and America's Kick-Ass Sweetheart, thinks she's a troll, calls herself dumb and is as insecure as the rest of us are. Seriously, how can you not love her?

UPDATED
6) J.Law can also kill the world with adorableness. That's a nifty secret weapon to have.

UPDATED: So how do we deter North Korea from doing a rocket launch? Maybe Kris and Carlo J. Caparas can come to our rescue.

Kim Jong Un (who is probably "Noynoying" in this pic) seems really excited to launch a satellite into space next week. The launch is said to be scheduled between April 12 - 16 with rocket debris from it's first and second stages expected to fall off the coasts of South Korea and the Philippines, respectively. This plan to launch a satellite into space is widely viewed with suspicion given that North Korea is a secretive and unpredictable nuclear-armed nation that is at odds with its East Asian neighbors (South Korea and Japan) and the US, among others.

While Japan and South Korea are determined to shoot down the missile in case it enters their airspace, the Philippines unfortunately doesn't have the same capability to do so. We have so far gone the diplomatic route to protest NoKor's planned test. I'm not too hopeful that this will convince Kim Jong Un, duh. So, I've decided to offer my unsolicited advice as to how to strongly convince NoKor's Supreme Commander from pushing through with their rocket launch.

The Kim family LOVES! their propaganda. They portray themselves as demigods sent from up above and gifted with supernatural abilities to rule over their people. They encourage the making of movies, plays, songs, posters, etc to promote themselves and their ideology and force their starving population to watch/listen to/read these 24/7. I think President Noynoy Aquino should seriously consider sending our very own National Artist, Carlo J. Caparas, to be our envoy to NoKor and convince Kim Jong Un that it's more fun to direct films and create comics instead of doing nuclear tests. If Caparas can create propaganda before for former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, why not do it for NoKor's Supreme Commander and save the Philippines? Presidential sister, Kris Aquino, who at one time became Caparas' muse ("The Queen of Massacre Films"), could very well vouch for him. 

I humbly submit this proposal to the PNoy administration in the hope that this will at least encourage North Korea to divert the direction of its planned rocket launch and avoid the Philippines. I still think there's enough time to send Kris Aquino, Carlo J. Caparas and even Boy Abunda to sell this idea to the Supreme Commander. *fingers crossed*

UPDATED
Look's like we don't actually have anything to worry about after all. Moving right along...

I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!

photo taken from idolator.com

We girls have some consoling to do since this guy (a.k.a. Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine) just broke up with his Victoria Secret model girlfriend, Anne V. On my signal, ready, set, get in line.

Hmmm, I still don't think that a switch to orange shoes will help you against Novak.

Cristiano Ronaldo just gave Rafa Nadal an out-of-the-box idea as to how to solve the Novak Djokovic puzzle (the King of Clay has a 0-7 win-loss record against the Djoker since March 2011).  Props to Nike for another fantastic ad.

Anyway, I can't help but bring up this earlier pic of the two that was posted by Cristiano Ronaldo last February on Twitter. It still cracks me up how CR seems to have coerced his poor friend into having his picture taken with him. Look at how awkward Rafa looks.

Heartbreak behind the bubbles...

Novak Djokovic defeats Andy Murray, 6-1 7-6 (7-4), in the finals of the Miami Masters. Congrats, Novak. Oh, Andy...

An IR student's reading of The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games, a movie based on the first book of Suzanne Collins' popular trilogy, is set in post-apocalyptic, dystopian North Korea America. Borrowing themes from Greek and Roman epics, the Depression, the Holocaust and society's current fascination with reality television, the tale is able to powerfully show a lot of themes that could resonate with a variety of viewers, including international relations (IR) students, professors and practitioners alike. 

In The Hunger Games, we see what it's like when unbridled greed, useless war mongering and stupid reality show gimmicks are allowed to run unrestrained in a society. The rich class of the Capitol employ tactics of fear and hope (think of Antonio Gramsci's definition of hegemony as a combination of coercion and consent) to control the citizens of the outlying twelve districts who live a poor, nasty and brutish life. In this twisted society, the rich wear overly garish clothes and big and colorful wigs, seem too obsessed with plastic surgery and speak in affected accents. Think of a more pompous Gadhafi family (if that's possible), Kim Jong Il's clan in drag or a sinister looking European royal family. 


The rich class have become too amoral and desensitized that in lieu of another brutal civil war, the Capitol organizes an annual Hunger Games where each district (through an unequal, but legitimate, peace treaty) is forced to send one boy and one girl (aged 12 - 18) as their "tributes" to fight in a televised, gladiator-like battle royal where only one out of 24 representatives will come out alive. Through the Hunger Games, the Capitol is able to impose order and manipulate the twelve districts to show them who's boss. President Snow (Donald Sutherland) captures this succinctly by telling game master Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley) that hope is the only thing stronger than fear. To prevent another uprising and to maintain their lifestyle of plundering the resources (e.g. farming, fishing, coal mining) generated by the twelve districts, the Capitol showcases the Hunger Games on national television to scare the working class and at the same time give them their very own protagonists to cheer for and to hope for. 

The winner gets to come home alive, bring a rich bounty for his/her district and become a popular reality tv star. The fallen ones will be immortalized as "heroes" who sacrificed their lives to maintain the unstable peace in their country. It's like the US calling their fallen soldiers as heroes but, why were they sent to Iraq in the first place anyway? They were sent on a false premise of preventing Saddam Hussein from supposedly using his weapons of mass destruction against the US (no WMDs were actually found). I sincerely hope that the leaders of North Korea, Syria and even China don't get ideas while watching this movie. They would probably think that, oh, isn't it more fun to organize a Hunger Games-type of competition featuring telegenic rebels and pitting them against each other in a fight to the death instead of cracking down on them violently all the time a la Tiananmen Square 1989? Imagine the possible bidding war for Mark Burnett and the creators of all those tacky reality shows. They could even get sponsors for it.

The most poignant scene for me would probably be the Reaping where kids are raffled off to know which ones would be offered as tributes. The scene reminded me of the Holocaust where kids and adults alike were sorted, marked and fed propaganda only to be led unknowingly to their possible destruction. In an act of absolute selflessness, the story's heroine, Katniss Everdeen (played beautifully by Academy Award nominee Jennifer Lawrence) volunteers to take her younger sister's place as tribute. Katniss, a resourceful and street-smart resident of District 12 who fends off for her widowed mother and sister, and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), a baker's son who harbors secret feelings for her, are sent off in style to the Capitol to be prepped and trained for the biggest event of the year. They and all the other tributes are made over like stars and given media training  to make the sponsors and audience fall in love with them.

While the absurdity of it all is not lost on Katniss, she is rational enough to understand that she has to play along to survive and return to her family. Unknowingly though, any action on her part will be viewed with suspicion by the Capitol since any act of defiance could inspire the masses to fight back and start a rebellion. In a controlled arena (part Big Brother and Survivor), the 24 tributes are pitted against each other, the elements and imaginary animals until only one of them remains. This plays out on national television where every plot angle and emotion is milked just for the drama of it all. How I wish that Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Jersey Shore and other reality shows of their ilk were as relevant.

The Globe and Mail is right in calling The Hunger Games a "modern allegory that illuminates what it appears to imitate, throwing our light/bright culture into darker relief". I believe that IR practitioners, state leaders, foreign policy think tanks and those in the media could learn a lot from the themes of this movie (capitalist greed, thirst for power, love for the dramatics, useless war marketing). I hope that this movie scares the wits out of  everyone in such a way as to not allow ourselves to live in a world ruled by a ruthless leader in drag who is a hybrid version of Gadhafi, Kim Jong-Il and George W. Bush. Heck, I don't know if I would be able to defend myself with a bow and arrow or a sword. I'd probably rely on my good ol' tennis racket and smash serves and forehand winners against other competitors (*wishful thinking*).