Fangirl

So, I tend to start a new obsession with something (a movie/book/tv show type of thing) every few years.  I wasn't always this way and it doesn't happen to me often, but occasionally I will admit, it happens.  It never happened to me till I was in my 20s either, but I honestly think that may just be because nothing popped up that was all that compelling to me until then haha.  My childhood/teenage best friend used to constantly have at least 4 or 5 obsessions at a time, and since I didn't have any of my own, I would always simply wind up getting sucked into hers.  I even wound up at a Star Trek convention once, because she was obsessed with Star Trek: TNG (and more specifically, the character of "Data", oddly enough).  I thought it was kind of strange that she would get THAT obsessed over these things ...  I could never imagine how it could happen.  That is until it finally happened to me, which was not until many years after our friendship was over.  Now that I'm in my 30s, I will have to admit that if I had kids, I would have MUCH less time or capacity to get obsessed with anything hahaha.  But I don't have kids and I have a job that I find mostly mind-numbing (a bad combo of difficult/challenging, all-consuming, mentally taxing, and yet still mind-numbingly boring), so this is how I wind up in these situations.

Here are my previous obsessions:

1) 2001: I got obsessed with the t.v. show Alias.  Sydney Bristow kicked all kinds of ass all over the world and got to do all this crazy fun stuff, and she became someone I lived vicariously through in my own little fantasy world haha.  I started reading spoilers online, chatted with people on message boards, sometimes even on IM.  That lasted about 2-ish years cause the show started to suck after that haha.  But oddly enough, to this day I still have two "internet friends" from way back in my Alias obsession days.

2) 2009: Wow, was it really that long between obsessions?  I think I had lesser obsessions in between, but the next big obsession I remember getting is the t.v. show Chuck.  A very similar show to Alias, except the lead character is a nerdy guy instead.  A comedy or actually a dramedy version of Alias.  And like Alias, Chuck has awesome characters, who I can live vicariously through.  Chuck is still on the air and I still love it, but its last season (season 5) is starting in the fall and the quality of the show has never quite been up to what it was in the season I first started watching it (season 2).  So I still enjoy it but the "obsession" part of it has died down.

3) 2011: I think I now officially have a new obsession and I have to admit it's a LITTLE embarrassing - The Hunger Games book series, which is currently in the process of being made into a movie series (first movie due out in 2012).  I'm kind of ashamed to admit it because it's technically a "young adult" series, much like Twilight (blech) and Harry Potter (fun movies but I haven't read the books).  But all I can say is, I REALLY wish this book series had been around when I was a teeny bopper.  I am certain I would have become completely obsessed then if it had existed.  ;-)  The books are certainly not perfect; they have their flaws and I had some frustrations with the final book in the series, but they were still damn good entertainment overall.  And this is one of those "YA" book series that is getting adults all over the world obsessed with it, so I don't feel too bad that I got sucked in as well.  ;-)

It's not hard for me to tell what it is that draws me to these obsessions.  There are several elements at play, but the biggest one is that they always have a strong female protagonist (or prominent co-lead character in the case of Chuck) that I can live vicariously through while she gets to do many exciting things that us "normal" people don't get to do in real life.  :)  Someone who can basically get to have all the fun that the guy character normally gets to have in like 90% of all entertainment out there, lol.  I may be exaggerating there with the 90% number, but I do find it pretty rare to find a strong female lead in most movies/t.v. shows/books.  Especially the ones that have a theme where the main character gets to kick ass (action/spy/adventure/sci-fi type stuff).

The lead character in The Hunger Games is named Katniss (strange name) and to say that she has "fun" is extremely wrong because these books are about a future dystopian society where 24 teenagers are forced into an "arena" every year to fight to the death ... heheh.  Soooo ... yeah ... "fun" is really NOT the correct word in this case.  BUT, with Twilight being the reigning teeny-bopper book/movie series in the past few years, I just found this book series SO refreshing in that it had such a strong female lead character.  Bella Swan is seriously the weakest lead character I've ever seen and it absolutely drives me up the wall.  Thank goodness that characters like Katniss Everdeen exist out there for teenage girls to look up to instead.  And I know the theme of the series is somewhat of a "copycat" of Battle Royale and The Running Man ... what book/t.v./movie these days isn't at least partially derivative of something that came before it?  It certainly didn't stop me from getting sucked in to this one nonetheless hahah.

Anyway these three books are in the midst of being turned into a movie series, and I am extremely worried that the movie series will ruin the whole thing.  Partially because, well, that's pretty much what ALWAYS happens when books are made into movies.  But also because they are shooting for a PG-13 rating for a set of books that starts off quite dark and only gets MUCH darker from there.  By the end of the third book I felt like I needed therapy ... how the hell can they make this PG-13 without stripping it down??  I don't think they can.  So ... yeah I'm pretty sure the movies will ruin it.

On the bright side, I do think they made a really good casting choice on the actress who is playing Katniss though - Jennifer Lawrence, who was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Ree Dolly in Winter's Bone last year.  She was great in that role and Katniss is practically the exact same character in many ways, so that works well.

I think they also made a great choice with Woody Harrelson as Haymitch.  There are two male love interests and I'm not super confident in the casting choices for those though.  We'll see.  The director is Gary Ross, who has not directed anything remotely like this before.  His previous movies are Seabiscuit, Dave, Pleasantville, and ... Lassie??  Yikes.  I mean I know the first three are good movies but they are NOTHING like this one.  Please don't screw this up, movie people.  I know you're going to.